1st Quarter GDP came in at .1%. In "English," that is "1/10th of a percent growth" which is the same, in practical terms, as "zero." And we are in recovery ??

49 share

Update:  Understand that two quarters of no growth is the technical definition of a "recession."  No one believes the 2nd Quarter of this year will come in at "zero,"  but,  if it did, if we saw a 2nd Quarter GDP at or near "zero,"  that "second dip recession" we used to tallk about,  will have become a reality.

High taxes (39% corporate - the highest on Earth, as an example)),  the ambiguity of
 Obama's financial policies and its constant state of flux, the use of thousands of young and inexperienced bureaucrats in the writing of law and regulations,   the amazing ineptness of the ObamaCare legislation, written without benefit of the medical community's advice and involvement  (imagine, a "healthcare bill" that treats doctors as expendables,  enemies of a silly,  non-professional Administration driven by revenge and majoring),  and, a refusal to make "pay as you go" an absolute requirement for the passage and continuation of any piece of legislation, all add to blight we are experiencing in the job market.

ObamaCare has reduced the work week to 30 hours,  with tax penalties incurred (by employers) when workers exceed that limit.  As a result,  we have added 2 million, low paying/minimum wage jobs in the past five years, while losing one million higher paying jobs ($15.00 per hour and more).  Our nation credit rating has been downgraded,  for the first time in our history,  and, we are told that China will over-take the U.S. as the world's strongest economy.

All of this and more,  are reasons why the Obama economic policy cannot succeed,  this and the fact that there is NO SUCH THING AS A STATE ECONOMIC POLICY.  

Maybe the reason Obama does not articulate a domestic economic policy is his past "policy" of :

• shovel ready jobs that did not exist; 
• mass production of efficient dual pane windows forgetting,  of course,  that the private sector was ALREADY mass-producing efficient windows;
• weather-stripping America's homes,  something the private sector had been doing for decades;
• becoming the world's leader in the supply of solar panels  -  something China turned into an impossible federal goal; 
• Putting millions of electric cars on the road by 2015  -  another failed experiment in academic financial theory and failed policy; 
• repairing an every increasing number of potholes, something all state highway departments do, year end and year out; 
• the clunkers for cash program that spent 4 billion dollars when the program was budgeted for one billion, and creating NO permanent/long term jobs;
• and, finally,  the genius plan of building hundreds,  if not thousands,  of golf carts,  and incentivizing their sale with tax discounts.

And his 2009 energy policy of:

• shutting down the coal industry while telling the poor working stiff, "be thou warmed and filled,"
• tuning up our automobiles and airing up our tires,  two simply functions that would "save the same amount of oil we import from the Middle East."  
• completely refurbishing our national electric grid in preparation for millions of acres of  "solar farm."