Thursday, November 12, 2009

Reality Is No Fun So Forget About It!

Oh good. President Obama wants to convene a conference of employers next month to figure out how to create jobs in a meaningful way. Uh, didn't he promise us he knew how to do that? Isn't that what the stimulus package was all about? After all, he told us to trust him and give him all that stimulus money because he promised it would result in a ton of private sector jobs such that unemployment would stay below 8% or so.

What's that? You say that private sector jobs have just kept evaporating all year and unemployment is still increasing? How can that be with all the jobs that were created? Oh, those became jobs in ... drum roll ... government! Maybe no one told those in the White House that government jobs don't contribute to growth in private sector jobs or, in turn, the GDP and don't, therefore, make a real difference in unemployment. I guess they don't teach basic economics where they attended college. Sorry if that sounds harsh but I don't see any other way to explain what they've been believing and doing.

By the way, if a conference on creating jobs is good to do now, wouldn't it have been even better to do back in March? After all, wasn't this problem becoming big enough even then to warrant doing absolutely everything to stem this tide? Why is 'community organizing' of actual employers about how to increase jobs a last resort? Seriously, if this administration is so big on community organizing, why didn't they do that with employers back in March?

What are the chances that the president is calling these people together to listen to what they want done because he's actually interested in doing that? Recent history would suggest otherwise wouldn't it? What's more likely is that they're being summoned to his house to hear what he wants them to do. He'll probably throw money at their companies with all the usual government strings attached so that he can tell them how to manage their companies and pay employees/managers. When he gets done with them we'll probably own them too! Funny ... but not funny.

By the way, it's complete nonsense to assume there's a recovery going on just because the stock market is going through the roof. The housing sector is showing signs of 'recovery' too but that's not because of an economic reality. This thinking is totally built on smoke, mirrors and hope ... not reality. There's no rational way to connect the fundamentals of our economic condition with what's going on in the stock market. The next sound you'll hear will be the dollar and stock market coming apart after The Fed and those wizards on wall street finally get in touch with reality. Think this recession has been bad? Better fasten your seatbelts because we ain't seen nothing yet!

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