>From the standpoint of political reality, not just economics, any political party must enact legislation that furthers its social interests. In other words, it cannot focus 100 % on anything. While you can certainly object to various of Obama's social priorities, regardless it is understandable that there was some social legislation. This said, the priorities of the BHO administration have been just a little short of insane. No less than Noam Chomsky is now publicly outraged about Obama's poor economic policy choices. NC was on C-Span the other day railing about how, early-on in the administration, the new WH had a golden opportunity to fundamentally remake the banking / finance system to create something which is actually responsible to the public for its various real world needs Instead, people keep loosing homes, and while jobs are no longer being lost by one and all, there are very few new jobs and the situation is either dismal or worse. This happened, according to NC, because BHO, in his half billion $$$ election campaign, hocked himself to big banking and big finance, which he would need to do again in 2012 to stand any chance at all for re-election. Of course, this suggests that if someone is going to dump on big government one should also be critical of big finance and the big banks, trillion dollar enterprises nearly all, but that is an aside. The article pretty much nails it.This is a voice of capitalism speaking. And the voice is unhappy. One thing to add, the kicker, that Keynesian economics doesn't work, is true enough, but the implicit conclusion, we therefore need nothing but laissez faire, would be ridiculous. Our dilemma is that neither Keynes nor Adam Smith works any more. When BHO entered the WH the urgent necessity of the admin was strong focus on the economy, putting the economy before all else. Instead, or so it seemed, the economy was the second priority, social issues and Obamacare came first, by a mile. Now we are living with the consequences. Why did the Democrats go along with BHO's priorities ? For the same reason Republicans went along with he policies of GWB. Extreme simple-mindedness. The GOP is wed to obsolete laissez faire ideas, the Dems to Keynes, and what we need, a new kind of economics, never is developed. This is disgusting. My humble opinion for today Wilhelm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Investors Business Daily Editorial: Jobs Slump — It's The Policy, Stupid Posted 06/03/2011 07:00 PM ET
Recession: Two years into a "recovery," the unemployment rate leaps to 9.1% and just 54,000 new jobs are created. Is this just "bumps on the road to recovery," as the White House insists, or something more dangerous? This has been the most miserable recovery in modern history. Not only are there not enough jobs being created, but also the economy itself looks to be stalling. Gross domestic product grew a paltry 1.8% during the first quarter, and most economists expect something similar for the second quarter. Double dip? It's possible. As we noted earlier last week before the new jobs data came out, the U.S. is already in a growth recession — defined as an economy that's growing too slowly to keep unemployment from rising. Yet the Obama administration is crowing about its accomplishments as if slowing growth and rising joblessness have nothing to do with its bad policies. "The initiatives put in place by this administration — such as the payroll tax cut and business incentives for investment — have contributed to solid employment growth overall this year, but this report is a reminder of the challenges that remain," said Austan Goolsbee, Obama's top economic adviser. "Solid employment growth"? Since the end of last year, job growth has averaged 130,500 a month — about the number of people who enter the workforce each month. That's not "solid" enough. By the way, the unemployment rate has been below 9% for just five months since Obama took office — and three of those months were in the first 12 weeks of his presidency, before his policies took effect. _Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast _ (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=280972228) Even so, President Obama on Friday visited Chrysler workers, lauding the government's bailout for the re-emergence of the auto industry, which has added 113,000 jobs over the last two years. What he didn't say was that GM, the bailout's poster boy, lost taxpayers $14 billion, and the total cost of his stimulus and bailout plan has now risen to $830 billion. Obama was unflappable. "This economy took a big hit — it's taking a while to mend," he told Chrysler workers, reciting high gas prices, Japan's earthquake and the Mideast as the "head winds" facing the economy. How about the head wind of bad government policies that, based on Congressional Budget Office data, have cost the economy over $760 billion in lost economic output in the past two years — and millions of jobs? This lost output is the Obamanomics growth tax. Too much tinkering, too much debt, too much spending. "By failing to alleviate the uncertainty businesses are feeling, Washington continues to stifle hiring," said Chamber of Commerce economist Martin Regalia. This "uncertainty," by the way, is why businesses, with their $2 trillion in cash, stay on the sidelines. At this point in a recovery, they should be adding hundreds of thousands of workers each month. That they aren't is a damning indictment of Obama's big-spending, high-debt, Keynesian strategy that has emerged as one of the great failures of economic policy-making in modern times. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
