The economy created just 80,000 jobs in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. But that same month, 85,000 workers left the workforce entirely to enroll in the Social Security Disability Insurance program, according to the Social Security Administration.
and more:
In addition, while job growth has been very weak during the recovery, the total number of people who’ve dropped out of the labor force entirely has exploded, climbing 7.3 million since June 2009, and IBD analysis of BLS data show. Some of them aged into retirement, but most either signed up for disability, stayed in school, moved back in with parents, or just quit looking for a job.
But, don’t forget, Obama predicted 5.6% unemployment by this time with the stimulus
AEI Obama Stimulus
There’s not much else to say here….add your commentary below!
Alan Krueger, Chairman Of the Council of Economic Advisors, soothed Americans on his White House blog post regarding the unemployment numbers released today.
As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and unemployment figures can be volatile, and employment estimates can be subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available
June 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”
And the month before?
May 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”
April 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”
And so forth. Like a parrot.
March 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, and it is helpful to consider each report in the
context of other data that are becoming available.”
February 2012: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign.”
January 2012: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign.”
December 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
November 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
October 2011: “The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision. There is no better example than August’s jobs figure, which was initially reported at zero and in the latest revision increased to 104,000. This illustrates why the Administration always stresses it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
September 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
August 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
July 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
June 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
May 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
April 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
March 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
February 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
January 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
December 2010: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
November 2010: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
October 2010: “Given the volatility in monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
September 2010: “Given the volatility in the monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
August 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
July 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative. It is essential that we continue our efforts to move in the right direction and replace job losses with robust job gains.”
June 2010: “As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
May 2010: “As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
April 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
March 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
January 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
November 2009: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”
Parrots repeat the same thing over and over ad nauseum. But they can’t read. Maybe the White House figures that people won’t really read their blog too closely either. Isn’t the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results?
A great piece by John Nolte on Tuesday documents the coordinated attack on Romney’s wealth in an attempt to insinuate some sort of financial impropriety.
Nevermind the fact that Romney has unequivocally been squeaky clean in releasing and documenting every bit of his finances.
Nolte goes on to discuss how both the Washington Post and Politico coordinated with Obama’s campaign to hint at potential indiscretions with Romney’s money while covering a pro-Occupy article in Vanity Fair.
Though both Politico and the Post lie through the act of omission by not telling their readers Romney has complied 100% with financial disclosure requirements, what both are doing here (and you can expect the rest of the media to pile on) is laying the foundation for a media-narrative that will demand more disclosure from Romney. The tactic is an old one, for the media knows that the simple act of demanding this kind of information is in and of itself a way of making Romney look slippery and dishonest — you know, like a rich jerk with something to hide — which is exactly how the Obama campaign (and therefore Politico and the Washington Post) intend to define Romney.
Not only is this an attempt to discredit Romney, it is also part of a larger Obama anti-rich campaign narrative. We’ve heard them before: “the rich need to pay their fair share”, “millionaires and billionaires“, “Buffett Rules” and other class-warfare rhetoric. Painting Romney as a rich shyster allows the campaign to continue to push the idea that Obama is one of us…not a big-bad-rich-guy.
Yet, back in January, when Romney disclosed his taxes, the media story then was similar too; Romney paid only about a 15% tax rate — which means (according to their playbook) he didn’t pay enough. Interestingly however, was one aspect of the tax return that went wholly unreported by many news outlets, and not just the overtly liberal ones either (remember in January, Romney was one of several potential GOP candidates). Having reviewed Romney’s returns, I noted that he paid taxes on more than $1 million worth of income that existed on paper only, due to the nature of hedge funds, IRS deduction rules, etc. You can read that report here. Yet no less than five news agencies — liberal and conservative — chose not to cover and discuss a story that had Romney paying “more than his fair share of taxes”. That wouldn’t sell. That didn’t fit the rhetoric. Would have it been different if the returns came out now, now that he is our nominee — and therefore we are more unified against Obama?
Reflecting on that, one thing is certain: we can expect more of these baseless, factless attacks on Romney from the leftist media as the summer marches on. Thankfully, articles like Nolte’s help to expose and dispel the bias and campaign mouthpieces that are indeed active.
Politico is reporting the quiet release of the White House’s annual salaries report.
Obama is doing his part to grow the economy and add jobs, because the numbers are UP:
A quick review found the White House payroll appears to have grown since last year, going from $37.1 million in 2011 to $37.8 million in 2012. The number of employees listed also grew — from 454 last year to 468 in 2012.
White House officials did not immediately respond to a message seeking explanation of the growth. Overall, the payroll has shrunk since 2009, when it totaled $39.1 million.
The lowest paid positions (3), are $41,000, just slightly below the average median income for the U.S. This excludes (2) positions listed at $0.00, because it is unclear of the nature of the position (intern, etc).
The highest paid positions (20) are $172,200, and are all assistants to the President
There are 139 positions at or above $100,000, out of 466 — which is roughly 29%
There are 3 Calligraphers, who make between $85.9K and $96.7K
There are 2 Ethics Advisors, who make $136K and $140K
The WSJ editorial this morning, The Roberts Rules, was excellent — as it dissects the inconsistencies within the ObamaCare decision. Read it through, but here are some highlights:
The remarkable decision upholding the Affordable Care Act is shot through with confusion—the mandate that’s really a tax, except when it isn’t, and the government whose powers are limited and enumerated, except when they aren’t.
and this:
The Chief Justice ruled that ObamaCare’s mandate violated the Commerce Clause, joined by the Court’s conservative bloc, but he also said that the mandate fell within Congress’s power to tax, joined by the Court’s liberal bloc. In practice this is a restraint on federal power without real restraint—and, worse, the Chief Justice had to rewrite the statute Congress passed in order to salvage it. The ruling will stand as one of the great what-might-have-beens of American constitutional law.
more:
According to Chief Justice Roberts, the penalty is merely a tax on not owning health insurance, no different from “buying gasoline or earning income,” and it thus complies with the Constitution. This a large loophole.
and this:
But if the mandate is really a tax, why doesn’t the law known as the Anti-Injunction Act apply, which says that taxes can’t be challenged legally until they’ve been collected? The Chief Justice actually rules that the mandate is a tax under the Constitution and a mandate for the purposes of tax law.
Additionally, the WSJ lent some more credence to the assertion that Chief Justice Roberts was actually in agreement with Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito (giving a 5-4 strikedown), but at the last minute changed his mind. “One telling note is that the dissent refers repeatedly to “Justice Ginsburg’s dissent” and “the dissent” on the mandate, but of course they should be referring to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s concurrence. This wording and other sources suggest that there was originally a 5-4 majority striking down at least part of ObamaCare, but then the Chief Justice changed his mind”. This theory was floated yesterday first by Paul Campos and Brad Delong who noticed language confusion and tone changes in the opinion. Their ideas are examined more in depth here.
Now that we have a both a scrutiny of the dissonance and a peek at some silver linings, where do we go from here? It is clear that November must be our top priority — both at the Presidential level and Congress, especially the Senate. And then, we’ll see whether American can be preserved.
USA Today had a spot-on analysis of how misleading federal accounting practices are. In a previous article elucidating how Social Security is not Pay-As-You-Go, I pointed out the fallacy of this “system”, as it is a method of hiding future realities. USA Today takes this concept further and examines the entirety of the government’s deficit reporting:
The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.
Exactly. Any business profession which failed to take into account future liabilities would face scrutiny from the SEC.
The main argument for exempting future retirement promises into the deficit calculation is that the government has the flexibility to change the amount it is obligated to pay out by tweaking the formula — such as raising taxes or cutting benefits — while businesses do not typically have that luxury. Such a ridiculous premise. The deficit amounts are always in flux and this excuse only serves to hide the reality of extra trillion dollar obligations that no one wants to fix, own up to, or reduce. A few days ago, I did some number crunching on the “official” federal deficit figures. I can’t fathom the results I’d get incorporating the data USA Today compiled.
From the USA Today findings:
•Social Security had the biggest financial slide. The government would need $22.2 trillion today, set aside and earning interest, to cover benefits promised to current workers and retirees beyond what taxes will cover. That’s $9.5 trillion more than was needed in 2004.
•Deficits from 2004 to 2011 would be six times the official total of $5.6 trillion reported.
•Federal debt and retiree commitments equal $561,254 per household. By contrast, an average household owes a combined $116,057 for mortgages, car loans and other debts.
With folks like Dick Durbin perpetuating the lie, it’s no wonder how ignorant much of the population is with regard to proper accounting practices and fiduciary responsibility.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) claims to only deal with “hatred of people based on class characteristics,”. So when Charles Cooke of National Review Online decided to inquire if the SPLC would be the watchdog it claims to be and follow and investigate a group of Occupy-affiliated men who planned to blow up a bridge, he was told they would not.
When Mr. Cooke asked for further clarification, he was told the following: 1) “We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left”, and 2) We only ever cover left-wing groups when they have a right-wing component . . .for example, “when anarchist groups are infiltrated by those on the right; Neo-Nazis, that sort of thing.”
At least they were open about their flagrant bias.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) was seriously thinking about getting a budget on the table, but according to The Hill, he “bowed to pressure from fellow Democrats on Tuesday and postponed a committee vote on a 2013 budget resolution, most likely until after the November elections
the last time Senate Democrats passed a budget, a gallon of gas cost about half what it does now, the debt was $4.5 trillion dollars less than it is today, and ObamaCare was just a twinkle in the president’s eye,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Meanwhile, Katherine Revello over at Conservative Ntaews Daily, shared a picture from 4/18/12 from the Twitter account of the GOP Senate Budget Committee (@BudgetGOP) . The empty chairs at that meeting belong to the Democrat members of the Committee. Hard to get much done, I would think.
So, as of Sunday, April 29th, we will be officially 1096 days without a budget. 3 full years. Trillions more in debt.
First we had Energy Secretary Chu admit that high gas prices are a good thing. Now, we have the EPA — a darling agency of the Obama Administration — describe on video that the
EPA’s “general philosophy” is to “crucify” and “make examples” of oil and gas companies.
The video is below.
Senator Inhofe went on to remark that
the video provides Americans with “a glimpse of the Obama administration’s true agenda.”
That agenda, Inhofe said, is to “incite fear” in the public with unsubstantiated claims and “intimidate” oil and gas companies with threats of unjustified fines and penalties – then, quietly backtrack once the public’s perception has been firmly jaded against oil and natural gas.
This little gem came out today during the daily White House press briefing. Real Clear Politics is reporting that Ed Henry pressed Jay Carney about Obama’s vote in 2005 where he supported a bill which contained more than $2 billion in oil subsidies. This is one for which he didn’t vote “present”; he voted “yes”. Click here for the amusing video exchange.
Henry: Why did the President vote for the energy bill in 2005 as a Senator that had over $2 billion in tax breaks for the oil industry? They were making a lot of money then too.
Carney: What I can tell you Ed is that the oil and gas companies in this country are making record profits, now, in 2012. The price at the pump is very high and that is plenty of incentive for these companies to continue drill, to continue to explore, to continue to develop energy sources here in the United States and abroad. There is no reason for the American taxpayer to subsidize that activity.
Henry: So why’d he vote for it?
Carney: I haven’t examined the vote, or what the prices were at the time, or the whole bill it was attached to. What I know and what the President knows is that this year, 2012, when we are seeing high prices at the pump, high prices in the international oil markets and high profits for the oil and gas companies, there is no reason to continue these kinds of subsidies. Take that argument to the people, I don’t think they’ll go along with it.
In previous writings, I’ve noted how politicians decry oil’s “record-profits” — but coincidentally forget to mention how much money the oil companies have invested just to earn said profits.
