Rasmussen finds that only 25 percent of likely voters think the financial bailouts were a good idea. A full 56% think they were out-and-out a bad idea. [Note: the 19% who are still undecided on the issue should have their voter registration cards taken away. How can you not have an opinion on this vital issue by now?

Unsurprisingly, political insiders don’t share this view:

There also continues to be a strong divide between the Political Class and Mainstream voters. While a strong majority of Mainstream voters are still against both of the bailouts, at least half of the Political Class think they were a good idea.

This dichotomy is supported by a recent Politico poll:

Only 27 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 61 percent who think the nation is on the wrong track. Likewise, when asked whether the national economy is heading down the right or wrong track, just 24 percent chose the right track, compared with 65 percent for the wrong track.

Yet among the 227 Washington elites polled, more think the country is on the right track, 49 percent, than the wrong track, 45 percent. On the economy, 44 percent of elites think the country is on the right track, compared with 46 percent who believe it is not.

Politico also found that compared to mainstream Americans, the political elites were more supportive of Obama, less supportive of Palin, and tended to think of the Tea Party movement as a “fad”. And that’s just sad.

Further, a Bloomberg poll shows that 7 out of 10 Americans see even more joblessness and an increasing deficit, believing that the country is mired in recession.

Seven of 10 Americans say reducing unemployment is the priority. At the same time, the public is skeptical of the Obama administration’s stimulus program and wary of more spending, with more than half saying the deficit is “dangerously out of control.”

If Obama’s “stimulus” had actually created jobs instead of rewarding failure, the recession might be in the rear view mirror and public opinion would be much different. Instead, 70 percent think the economy is still in recession and 13 percent think we are headed for a double-dip. Meanwhile, real unemployment hovers just short of 22 percent.

Amity Shlaes compares today’s economy with that of 1932, the end of Hoover’s presidency and just when things started getting better. She notes that although there are factors that differenciate the two, there are a number of similarities. Read the whole thing, but here’s the money quote:

The takeaway from 1932? Resetting the euro’s criteria for existence and member countries’ obligations when it comes to bailing out one another should happen sooner rather than later. Democrats and the president should ignore unions and cut trade deals with Latin America. John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, supported tax cuts. Obama can too, or at least block rate increases. The president might also want to suppress his lawyer- Keynesian reflexes and reconsider policy when it comes to wages. But the 1932 crisis talk actually impedes such consideration.

If anyone believes that these can take place in today’s partisan environment just hasn’t been paying attention. Get settled folks, this recession isn’t going away any time soon.

Technorati Tags: Bankrupting America, Bailouts and Other Bad Ideas, Stimulus and Other Failures, Rising Unemployment in America, Unions and Other Drags on the Economy, Political Elites and Other Yammerheads, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

According to the president’s economic adviser Lawrence Summers, “A good guess…is that when the economy recovers five years from now, one in six men who are 25 to 54 will not be working.”

Leaving aside the scary “five years from now” time frame for economic recovery, the question is what are we going to

So why did the economy generate jobs, yet unemployment increased? Because the government doesn’t include people that want jobs but have simply given up looking until the economy gets better. That’s when they “re-enter” the job market and *poof* unemployment ticks back up.

How long will that keep happening? The “official” long term unemployment is high:

Six and half million workers have been unemployed for more than six months.

Now, how high is the actual unemployment numbers, even those that the government quit tracking so they won’t look so bad? Ask ShadowStats:

Yep, as of April the real unemployment in this country ticked back up to 22%. Now look at the mean and median duration of unemployment — some people just can’t find work (or else they’re claiming to look for work while living on the taxpayer-funded dole).

Where are things headed?

Yet nothing in the textbooks says that the supply and demand for workers will intersect at a wage that is socially acceptable. At the high end, demand for skilled workers and those who rely on their brains will return when the economy does. At the other end, jobs in restaurants, nursing homes and health clubs — the jobs that are hard to automate or outsource — will come back, too.

In the middle, there will be some jobs for workers without much education, for the plumbers, electricians and software technicians. But not enough to go around.

Men who in an earlier era would have been making good money on the assembly line are, and will be, working security or greeting at Wal-Mart, jobs that almost anyone can do and thus jobs that don’t pay well.

That’s because a lot of the jobs that were lost in construction, factories and even offices will never re-materialize. Worse yet, as long as we provide unemployment benefits most of these less-educated workers will not secure a job [note: I am not advocating getting rid of unemployment!]:

On average, surveys find, the unemployed in the U.S. spend 40 minutes a day looking for work and 3 hours and 20 minutes a day watching TV.

The Wall Street Journal article goes on to analyze our choices. Basically:

1. Take a long term view and fix education, thus simultaneously reducing the uneducated workforce and increasing the supply of skilled labor and knowledge workers. [A good idea, but impossible to implement in the short term and maybe even the long term as long as one party continues to pander to the teacher unions.]
2. Force employers to hire more uneducated workers [hurting our ability to compete on the world market] or limit imports that threaten the jobs of less educated workers [which would initiate similar limits and tariffs on our goods in other countries].
3. Spend tax dollars on improving the country’s infrastructure [isn't that what the "stimulus" was supposed to do?], thus increasing the demand for labor in the short run while the economy improves.
4. Tax the employed to support the unemployed. [Remember the 40 minutes a day looking for work stat? This would be another entitlement that would never go away.]

Money quote:

Each approach has shortcomings. So does doing nothing. Sidelining a huge part of an entire generation of men would waste human potential, create economic misery for their families and fuel political discontent.

Exactly.

I would add that back in the day, you had to prove that you actually looked for work (made applications, went on interviews, etc.) in order to qualify for unemployment. How about getting people off the couch and back into society?

Can you think of any other possible paths?

Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Writing for National Review’s the corner, Veronique asks How’s That Stimulus Working?

The stimulus was supposed to bring back the jobs and keep unemployment below 8.8 percent, remember? Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. For one thing, unemployment is still flirting with the 10 percent mark. Also, as we can see on the chart below, long-term unemployment has been growing significantly since the beginning of the recession — and the passage of the stimulus bill and other job bills didn’t change the trend.

Ms. de Rugy points out that at the start of 2008, only 18.3 percent of unemployed workers had been unemployed 27 weeks or more. Today that statistic includes six and a half million workers, or 44.1 percent of the unemployed. To give a frame of reference, today would mark the 27 week anniversary for someone laid off October 20, 2009.

Ms. de Rugy goes on to point out that statistics provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics do not include long-term discouraged workers. Fortunately, we have Shadow Government Statistics which tracks these statistics (and more). Adjusting for workers that are so discouraged that they have quit looking for employment (but would take a job if one was available) show real unemployment is much, much higher than the government would have you believe:

That’s right. Real unemployment is solidly above 20 percent. Stimulus anyone?

Note: Ms. de Rugy publishes weekly analysis (complete with chart) every week, which can be accessed here.

Technorati Tags: Veronique de Rugy, Economy Busting Deficit, Destruction of the American Dream, Destruction of the American Economy, Unemployment, Rising Unemployment in America, Declining Jobs in America, Bankrupting America, Stimulus Epic Fail, Death of Hope in America, No Change for America, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

Breitbart’s Big Government says that the White House altered baseline stimulus projections by 7 million jobs in order to be able to claim that their excessive spending has “created or saved” 2.8 million jobs.

An inconvenient truth, at least for the Obama Administration, is that once upon a time, in their January 2009 Romer/Bernstein Report they told America that without their stimulus there would be 133.9 million jobs.  That’s right, in order to make it look like their stimulus has “created or saved” 2.8 million jobs, the Obama Administration first had to whack 7 million jobs from their previous estimates. …

Here’s the story problem:

This year 11-year old Jane’s class is studying money and budgets.  In September every student wrote down their savings, and what they wanted in savings by the end of school in June.  Jane started with $134, but wants to do better and have $137 ($3 more) saved by year’s end.  She figures that will be easy, since she will get birthday money in a few months.  But now it’s late May, and Jane has only $130, because she spent her birthday money, and then some.  What should Jane do in her final report on the savings project?

1. Be honest and admit she didn’t reach her goals of $3 more in savings, totaling $137, due to her spending habits; or
2. Say at the start of the year she only “really” thought she would have $127 saved by year’s end, and claim “success” for ending up with $3 more than that and see if her teacher notices.

I’m guessing the MSM won’t notice. But we do.

Technorati Tags: Rise of Socialism in America, Destruction of the American Dream, Destruction of the American Economy, Socialized Medicine, Unemployment, Rise of the Welfare State, Obamacare and Other Atrocities, Rising Unemployment in America, Declining Jobs in America, Bankrupting America, Epic Fail of Stimulus, Death of Hope in America, No Change for America, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

Two out of three states and the Virgin Islands have exhausted their funds earmarked for jobless benefits, and another four’s jobless funds are “on the brink of insolvency”. They are borrowing billions from the federal government to cover jobless claims and provide benefits to those who are unemployed:

Debt-challenged California has borrowed the most, totaling more than $8.4 billion, followed by Michigan and New York, which have loans worth more than $3 billion. Nine other states have borrowed at least $1 billion from the federal government.

Here are the states who have already borrowed from the federal government, with the 2008 Obama/McCain Blue State/Red State outcome helpfully filled in:

Let’s see where we stand after California starts the bankrupt state bailout domino effect.

Technorati Tags: Rising Unemployment in America, Declining Jobs in America, Destruction of the American Economy, Bankrupting America, Contracting Consumer Credit, Epic Fail of Stimulus, Death of Hope in America, No Change for America, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

Economists were expecting Friday’s job report from the government to be good news. In fact, they predicted a gain of 40,000 to 50,000 jobs. But it looks like they will be disappointed:

The data from payroll processor Automatic Data Processing Inc. and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers showed a loss of 23,000 jobs in the private sector, in contrast to the forecast of an increase of 50,000 jobs for March.

These numbers only include private sector jobs, whereas Friday’s non-farm payrolls report will include government workers — like the recent hiring of temporary census workers. In fact, the non-adjusted forecast (which include temporary government workers) were through the roof:

The ADP survey tallies only private-sector jobs, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ nonfarm payrolls data include government workers. The addition of workers for the 2010 census is expected to lift federal payrolls.

The median forecast for March nonfarm payrolls is for a gain of 200,000 following a loss of 36,000 in February. The unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 9.7%.

Ah, your tax dollars at work. Unfortunately, your tax dollars don’t seem to be improving the economy.

Tomorrow, another question looms. How will the Fed’s exit from the mortgage buying program affect mortgage prices and interest rates? Probably not much, but it would be best to keep a watch on things.

Technorati Tags: Declining Jobs in America, Rising Unemployment in America, Bankrupting America, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

From Rasmussen, 78% Expect Middle Class Tax Hike To Pay For Health Care Reform.

With almost 25 percent real unemployment, is it any wonder that the vast majority of Americans want Congress to start over?

Technorati Tags: Socialized Medicine, Crushing the Middle Class with Taxes, Rising Unemployment, ObamaCare and Other Bad Ideas

Shelby County garnered $478 million as a result of the federal government’s foolish attempt to tax and spend their way out of the recession. The result of the government’s largess (at taxpayer expense) has been 346 jobs saved or created.

That’s right, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) monies distributed in Shelby County have saved or created 346 jobs at a cost of about $1,381,503 each.

Call me silly, but I’d prefer you just give me the million and I’ll live off the interest and leave the rest to my kids. You can keep your job.

Statewide, Tennessee is expected to get almost $6b, which is projected to save or create 10,300 jobs. A little simple math tells us that each job only costs the American taxpayer $582,524. Again, I’m thinking that would make a very nice nest egg to carry me through the recession until the free market starts generating real jobs.

What’s that? The free market can’t create jobs under the crushing burden of trillions of dollars of additional national debt? And how is the government tax-and-giveaway supposed to help that? It isn’t? Isn’t anyone thinking ahead?

Oh yeah. Just to the next election cycle.

Time for term limits. And Fair Tax.

Technorati Tags: ARRA, Stimulous and Other Failures, Free Market, Fair Tax, Rising Unemployment, Destroying the American Economy, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

The Investor’s Business Daily has an excellent analysis of the efficacy of the “stimulus.” First, what the money actually accomplished:

In reality, as the CBO explains, “five programs accounted for more than 80% of the outlays from ARRA in 2009: Medicaid, unemployment compensation, Social Security … grants to state and local governments … and student aid.”

In other words, what was labeled a “stimulus” bill was actually a stimulus to government transfer payments — cash and benefits that are primarily rewards for not working, or at least not working too hard.

Then the damage done:

From the CBO figures, it appears that 39% to 44% of the $862 billion will be for increased transfer payments, including refundable tax credits (checks to people who don’t pay taxes).

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 had extended federally funded unemployment benefits by 53 weeks, and another bill in November added 20 more — bringing the total up to 99 weeks in states with high unemployment.

As the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee minutes for January noted: “The several extensions of emergency unemployment insurance benefits appeared to have raised the measured unemployment rate, relative to levels recorded in past downturns, by encouraging some who have lost their jobs to remain in the labor force. … Some estimates suggested it could account for 1 percentage point or more of the increase in the unemployment rate during this recession.”

My own estimate, in past articles available at cato.org, is that the stimulus act added about 2 percentage points to the unemployment rate.

Roosevelt’s New Deal extended the Great Depression by years. Obama’s Great Giveaway has done the same. Watch out for the double dip.

Technorati Tags: Stimulus and Other Failed Big Government Initiatives, Destruction of the American Economy, Rising Unemployment, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

American Observer has an awesome animation of county-by-county unemployment beginning in January 2007 through December 2009.

HT to TMF Global Gains.

Technorati Tags: Rising Unemployment, Destruction of the American Economy, Bush Legacy, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice