Obama Economic Recovery Still Underwater

[eduardo89]

Obama Economic Recovery Still Underwater
The New American
20 MARCH 2012 | BOB ADELMANN

For proof that the Obama “recovery” remains unimpressive compared to previous recoveries, Cato Institute scholar Dan Mitchell gathered evidence from a number of sources to make his point.

President Obama promised that at this point in the recovery unemployment would be down to six percent, but it remains stubbornly above eight percent if one believes the government numbers. At least five million people who lost their jobs in the recession are still unemployed or underemployed. The number of Americans living below the poverty level has set a new record. Government spending is virtually out of control with annual deficits now admitted to be above $1 trillion for the foreseeable future. Higher taxes are coming unless the Bush tax cuts are somehow permitted to remain in force. And the housing market is still looking for a bottom.

But according to President Obama everything is coming up roses: More than three million jobs have been created in the past two years and the Dow Jones Industrial Average just exceeded 13,000, nearly doubling from under 7,000 in March 2009.

Thanks to the Minneapolis Federal Reserve’s interactive website, the Obama recovery can easily be compared to (and contrasted with) 10 previous recessions all the way back to 1948. Whether looking at jobs or at economic output, the performance under Obama has lagged behind each of the previous recoveries very significantly. As noted by Mitchell, “Under Obama’s policies … we’ve just barely gotten back to where we were when the recession began … [and] the jobs chart is probably even more discouraging…. [It] is still below where it started.”

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[Zippyjuan]

President Obama promised that at this point in the recovery unemployment would be down to six percent, but it remains stubbornly above eight percent if one believes the government numbers.

Unless the goverment directly hires all the out of work people, there is very little it can do to reduce unemployment. They can't force companies to hire people. I doubt that even Ron Paul could have done much better creating jobs under the circumstances we are facing.

That a recovery is going on is not the same as to claim that recovery has been achieved and that all of the bad things which happend have been corrected and things are back to where they were before the crisis started.Being in a recovery only means that things are better than they were on the worst days of the recession- not that they are great and rosey.

For reasons for govenment spending being out of control I would also like to point out that it is Congress, not the President, who must write the government spending bills for the president to sign or veto. He can make suggestions, but it is up to them to write the legislation.

All recessions are different and take different amounts of time to work themselves out.

[dannno]

Unless the goverment directly hires all the out of work people, there is very little it can do to reduce unemployment. They can't force companies to hire people. I doubt that even Ron Paul could have done much better creating jobs under the circumstances we are facing.

Uh, even if the govt. DID hire all the out of work people, the economy would be hit so hard we would probably lose twice as many..

Ron Paul, if his policies were to be implemented, could have brought the troops home which would significantly and immediately reduce govt. spending as well as creating new consumers and a new working class here in the U.S.

He could have reduced taxes and regulations, encouraging new production and a reduction in unemployment.

[Zippyjuan]

Let's say we do bring all the troops back home and dismiss them. Now they are added to the unemployment lines too and are competing against those already out of work. Would that create more jobs than the numbers of military losing theirs? Does putting people out of work create new jobs if there are no new jobs for those people to go to?

Reduce corporate taxes (they have over $1 trillion in money they are sitting on right now- giving them more money won't make them hire any more workers than they are already willing to hire).

Reduce personal taxes- we did that. It was called a "stimulus package".

[PaulStandsTall]

Apparently the Obama plan is to escalate the currency wars to trade wars, then finally be in so many real wars we will have to conscript 100% of the unemployed to help fight against the countries that are now out for American blood, due to our policies of economic terrorism in the Muslim world.

Then, we will all be employed. Yay.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...ctions-1-.html

[No Free Beer]

Let's say we do bring all the troops back home and dismiss them. Now they are added to the unemployment lines too and are competing against those already out of work. Would that create more jobs than the numbers of military losing theirs? Does putting people out of work create new jobs if there are no new jobs for those people to go to?

Reduce corporate taxes (they have over $1 trillion in money they are sitting on right now- giving them more money won't make them hire any more workers than they are already willing to hire).

Reduce personal taxes- we did that. It was called a "stimulus package".

How was the stimulus package reducing taxes?

[Zippyjuan]

Reducing taxes was a part of- not a result of- the stimulus packages. There were a couple of rounds of tax reductions:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/refere...lus/index.html

Since the economy began to falter in 2007, Congress has passed what amounts to three stimulus bills — a bipartisan $158 billion package of tax cuts signed by President George W. Bush in early 2008; a $787 billion bill pushed by President Obama when he took office in 2009 in the wake of the financial system’s collapse; and a tax cut and unemployment fund extension agreement reached by Mr. Obama and Congressional Republicans in 2010 and extended again to cover 2012.