Sep 04 2009

Unemployment Sky Rocketing As Stimulus Bill Goes Bust

Don’t have time for a long post on this not surprising news, but the unemployment rate jumped in August to a 26 year high:

U.S. employers cut a fewer-than-expected 216,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate rose to a 26-year high, the government said on Friday in a report showing a still fragile labor market.

The Labor Department said the unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent after dipping to 9.4 percent in July and the decline in payrolls was the smallest in a year. The department revised job losses for June and July to show 49,000 more jobs lost than previously reported.

The problem is while the layoffs are slowing, they are not stopping. And we are still, each month, losing more jobs than gaining new ones. Obama’s stupid promise to ‘create or save’ millions of jobs with the liberal deficit busting, pork laden, kick back stimulus bill has been proven to be based on liberal fiction. The government can’t run to the rescue unless and only if it goes with tax cuts.

Another disturbing number is how many people are on extended and emergency unemployment stipends. This ever expanding number can be seen in the weekly Dept of Labor reports, such as yesterday’s. The number of people on Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) is stunning:

States reported 3,029,668 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Aug. 15, an increase of 85,570 from the prior week. There were 1,550,093 claimants in the comparable week in 2008. EUC weekly claims include both first and second tier activity.

The economy has shed 6.9 million jobs since December 2007 – with 3 million of those people sitting on these emergency extended benefits. This month’s report tried to find a ray of light with 70,000 new jobs, but it is delusional to think we have turned around the economy with a paltry 70,000 jobs while losing 216,000 and over 3,000,000 needed to get people off the EUC roles!

The liberal myth that government spending can impact or help the economy is now dead and busted. The so called emergency stimulus bill has yet to even kick in (see here for latest numbers showing 98% of the money STILL stuck in the bureaucracy). Don’t let anyone ever try and resurrect this naive myth again. The only way government can help the economy is to get its greedy fingers out of the private sector and reduce its burden. We should all be thanking the knuckleheads in DC for finally proving that liberal economic theory is all fantasy-fiction. Sadly so many good people had to suffer to learn that lesson.

40 responses so far

40 Responses to “Unemployment Sky Rocketing As Stimulus Bill Goes Bust”

  1. WWS says:

    “If it’s a choice between Charles or Beck = Charles hands down.”

    2 years ago and earlier, yeah. I used to read him as well, especially all of the good work he did on the Rathergate case. But Charles has changed. Now all he’s interested in doing is spinning and dissembling for Obama, and he’s showing that he’ll do and say anything to support this administration’s drive for absolute power. Beck, on the other hand (and I’ve already said, I’m not a big fan) is at least doing everything he can to bring the evil in this administration to light. He’s the kind of guy who goes to ridiculous extremes along the way, but he’s still doing the right thing overall.

    So if you want to frame it as a choice (it isn’t, of course) then the choice is between a die-hard Obama supporter and someone who’s willing to go to extremes to point out the wrongs of what is being done today.

    Me, I have to go with Barry Goldwater’s famous motto: “Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is no Vice.”

    Charles Johnson has become a Quisling. He never has a critical word to say about *anything* Obama or this administration does – Just look at Charles site this morning – he’s busy ridiculing anyone who thinks that Obama’s speech to the schoolkids is creepy and Not the kind of thing a President should be doing. (No President has ever done it before) It’s not the attack, it’s the sum total of all of his threads, which total up to a position that Everything Obama Does = Good, Wonderful, Earth Shakingly Glorious and everything Obama’s opponents do is sneaky, dirty, and sub-human.

    These days, LGF posts are pretty interchangeable with Daily Kos. Can’t be too long before he becomes one of Markos’ favorites.

  2. >If it’s a choice between Charles or Beck = Charles
    >hands down.

    AJ,

    There was a time I would have said that about Andrew Sullivan for the same reasons.

    People change.

  3. Alert1201 says:

    WWS,
    Another thing I’ve noticed about Chucky is his intolerance. Most sites (as this one) you can disagree with the host and not be treated like a village idiot – unless you are a village idiot as many of the pests are. LGF is not like that. If you do not toe the line and agree with everything you are gone. In fact my account was locked for criticizing him on HotAir.com. About 10 mins after I posted it someone told me LGF was following the post on Hotair. I went to log onto LGF and my account was locked.

    His change seemed to have started with his diatribes against intelligent design and creationism.

    Also, the man will not admit he is wrong. There was one post where he tried to justify Obama’s bow (which in previous posts he never actually did) by stating that John Adams bowed to king George III. The problem was, as many posters pointed out, Adams was not president when he made that bow. It was funny to watch Chuck back-peddle yet never admit he was wrong. For some reason it was still OK for 0bama to bow because Adams did, even though the comparison did not apply.

  4. Frogg1 says:

    Canada added 27,100 jobs last month, while the United States lost another 216,000 jobs.
    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Canada-adds-27100-jobs-in-apf-3070994324.html?x=0&.v=4

    Canada didn’t have a big stimulus spending spree did they?

  5. Frogg1 says:

    Speaking of Czars….

    $80 billion dollars of our tax payer money– to spend at his own whim, with no Congressional oversight? And, that is jut ONE Czar?????

    How did our country come to this? Long live the tea party!

  6. Terrye says:

    I think Beck is right sometimes, but I have the feeling that no matter who the president was, Beck would be after him {or her}.

    For instance, when he was going on about impeaching Bush he did not sound so different from some of the lefties he is always after…and to him that is a badge of courage. Just recently he was bragging about his remarks about how bad the Patriot Act was and how Bush screwed up on the border blah blah blah.

    So, while I do think he is giving Obama a hard time..I am not so sure I entirely trust the man.

  7. Terrye says:

    I stopped going to LGF a long time ago. I think it was the Ben Stein documentary on teaching IE in schools that really drove him over the edge.

  8. crosspatch says:

    I am actually pretty supportive of Charles’ rants against Intelligent Design being taught in public school. If you want your kids to learn that, fine, send them to Sunday school or a church school or teach it to them yourself. Don’t put it in the science class.

    But this economic problem is going to be a very tough nut to crack. We had a lot of wealth created artificially through shoving unqualified buyers into the market. That drove prices up, that created a lot of home equity. People took out that equity and bought stuff that put a lot of people to work.

    Now we have a crash in home prices, there is no equity in most cases, people aren’t buying stuff, people are being laid off. And now the next domino … the prime mortgages taken out by those now getting laid off. And there is no way for Obama or anyone else to put this Humpty Dumpty back together again.

    The Democrats blew it. This is a direct result of the Community Reinvestment Act.

  9. kathie says:

    Mark Lloyd was just in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez, telling him what a great job he was doing shutting down radio stations that made his life difficult (it’s on u-tube). There is a problem in my mind with Obama’s appointments to his White House, they have Obama’s ear, and every President is isolated. Some are communists sympathizers, some are black nationalists and some are Marxists. His friend and “brain” Valerie Jarrett’s father-in law was a Communists, Valerie hired Michelle Obama in Chicago, introduced her to Obama. Jarrett has followed Van Jones since his days in Oakland. So even though Wright was thrown under the bus, his friends are in the White House at Obama’s asking. Does it matter? Well it does if Van Jones is Obama’s “alter-ego”. It proves that Wright was thrown under the bus so Obama could get elected, not that he didn’t agree with him. If he looses the nations trust he will never get it back and I think he is heading in that direction. Americans wanted to be proud of the man they elected, they don’t want to look like fools. The warning signs were there, we ignored them to elect the first black President, but we love our country warts and all, and we are proud to be free loving, independent thinkers first.

    Middle America is not standing up, and flooding the streets by the thousands for nothing. They are scared, intuitively they know something is wrong. Obama’s words are wrong. Does it matter that he is giving a talk to school age children? No, but it does matter that the material came straight from the White House to every Public school in the nation instead of school boards. And that the work sheets following asked students what they would do to help Obama. We don’t sing God Save the Queen, we praise our country, not the person who leads it, we have no King. The examples are numerous, but they are stacking up and can’t be taken away.

    I expect Obama to give a very centrist speech about Health Care on Wednesday. Who will it fool? It will be interesting to see.

  10. kathie says:

    If this is ends up to be true, just how will Obama look? They are his guys running the auto industry.

    Audi Chief Calls Chevy Volt “A Car For Idiots”.

    Bring on the war of words. In a frank conversation with MSN writer Lawrence Ulrich, Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen has said that the Chevy Volt will fail and that anybody who buys the car is an idiot. Not only that, de Nysschen has lumped proponents of any type of electric car into a category of “intellectual elite who want to show what enlightened souls they are.”

    I must say I agree. A car that needs to be plugged in every night to a coal fired plant? Americans shoot for the moon, not a yesterday concept.

  11. crosspatch says:

    Van Jones just resigned.

  12. lurker9876 says:

    Terrye, if Glenn Beck starts attacking a conservative US President, then I will join your club.

    crosspatch, about time he did. Ain’t looking forward to Obama replacing him or eliminate that CZAR position. Obama just doesn’t seem to know how to vet people as neither Valerie Jarrett.

  13. lurker9876 says:

    Kathie, I believe that at this point, no matter how obama gives his speech next Tuesday, people have already lost trust in this president. He lied so much and too often.

  14. WWS says:

    Resignation announced at midnight in the middle of the Labor Day weekend? Maybe he thinks no one will notice? LOL!!!

    But watch – from now on it’s gonna be “Van who? We never heard of that guy.”

    Final Score for this weeks game:

    Glenn Beck 1
    Obama 0
    Charles Johnson -1 (assessed an unforced error for needlessly ruining a once fine reputation)

    Glenn Beck now has the taste of this administrations blood in his mouth, and Obama knows it. Heheh, this is gonna get real fun real fast.

  15. BarbaraS says:

    There was one post where he tried to justify Obama’s bow (which in previous posts he never actually did) by stating that John Adams bowed to king George III.

    Once again the looney left applies todays dictums to the customs of 233 years ago. All men bowed to both men and women during that time (at least, in the upper and middle classes). All women curtseyed to both men and women. It was considered good manners and to not bow or curtsey was considered a snub or what they called the cut direct.

  16. Terrye says:

    lurker:

    I am not in a club and Beck has already attacked Republicans. He does it all the time. I think he wants to make the point that he is Independent and not beholden to either party.

    So, what club am I in?

  17. Terrye says:

    and lurker, going after Bush did not hurt Democrats or Obama, it hurt Republicans. Saying that the Patriot Act was a bad thing was not true..calling for the impeachment of Bush over the borders when Bush did more to secure those borders than any president in history only hurt the center right and helped the left.

    Now, people on the right can like it when Beck goes after someone like Jones, fine, but my point is that Beck is all about Beck.

  18. Terrye says:

    The thing is Beck is not really a conservative, he is a libertarian.

  19. Terrye says:

    It is like Malkin and her book on Obama, well that is fine, I am sure she is making money going after Obama, but back during the election she could not even bring herself to support McCain. So on one hand trashing Republicans is just fine, on the other we are told the Democrats are the worse political class ever. Well, if they believed that shouldn’t Beck and Malkin have tried a little harder to not help the Democrats win and the Republicans lose?

  20. WWS says:

    Terrye, I think it makes sense to say that both Beck and Malkin are anti-government, in general. Now since the government does appear to be far too big, this is not such a bad thing. But when Republicans run the government, it is going to be very uncomfortable because Beck and Malkin won’t be able to resist the attack. It’s what they do.

    Now with Democrats in power, it’s a lot more enjoyable to watch.

    And I can only blame the Dem’s for setting themselves up as such EASY targets! Just look at Charley Rangel – sitting on top of an important house committee, and committing fraud about his assets for years now. And still in power because Pelosi needs his support and won’t do anything to cross him.

    Let me make another analogy – Beck and Malkin are pit bulls. Not the kind of dogs you really want in your house all the time, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch them take off after someone who just tried to jack your car.