The truth about Obama's claim of 10 million jobs and the "sharpest recover in American history."

In an article out of the National Review, here,   Ryan Lovelace exposes the fact that over the course of the Obama years,  alone, 5.46 million work permits have been given to issued by Central Planning.  In a CBS interview,  two months ago  (November of 2014),  Obama claimed 10 million jobs created during his time as president.  As Obama Hyperbole would have it,  this is the fastest job creation in the history of mankind,  or some such comparison. 

Problem:  During the recent recession,  our economy lost 8.7 million jobs  (per CNN) .  Taking this numbers into the discussion,  the net gain,  "jobs created versus jobs lost," is 1.3 million to Obama's favor.  In other words,  using only two contrasting numbers,  the recovery can [only] account for a meager 1.3 million jobs over the course of the past 6 years.  But this is not "full disclosure" as to the lie Obama wants you to believe.  

There is the matter of "workforce size."  It is 9+ million folks smaller than during the sixth year of Bush   . . . . .    9 million fewer people working and Bush had two economic disasters to deal with during his eight years:  the destruction of the Twin Towers on "9/11" (that was the financial capitol of the world,  folks),   and the 2008 recession caused by Affordable Housing policies.  Understand this,  the workforce averaged above 65% for all of 2009.  Then,  the bottom began falling out from under this Administration.  Today, as I write,  it is at 62.7%,  a near-40 year low.

You should know that 2.5 million of the "9+," are Americans who can work,  but have given up the search and no longer qualify for unemployment assistance.  The remaining 7 million?  Some retired,  others went on disability and others moved into the working "underground,"  where they work to survive but do not report their income.  

Now,  if I have not taken you all,  too far into the weeds,  with all these numbers,  you know that comparing Obama's claim of "10 million jobs created" is wholly offset by the workforce exodus of 2.5 million folks, coupled with the number of jobs lost during the recession.  He is at or a bit to the negative side of Zero.  

Conclusion:  Ask yourselves this question - "If the truth as to net - net job creation is 'zero,'  what is the impact of the additional 5.4 million immigrants who have been granted work permits?"  

I do not have an answer except to argue that this additional immigrant workforce actually adds to the population of unemployed.  If 2.5 million available and unretired Americans are no longer counted in the workforce,  that fact is made worse with the inclusion of the increasing immigrant population.   Clearly, the 5.4 million immigrant workers coming into our economy,  are NOT working, for the most part and  remain unemployed.  As an unintended consequence of Obama's immigration policy, then,   is the increasing population of those,  within our borders,  who must depend on government assistance,  and now you all know,  why I think this man is an absolutely buffoon when it comes to corporate leadership.  

A word of correction/caution:  The Right,  far too often,  puts out that "all jobs created by Obama went to the immigrant population."    Go here,  for an example.  Also know that Rick Santorum is making this same claim.   

I am "Right,"  but I must tell the readership that this bit of propaganda is as wrong-headed as "wrong" can be   . . . . .   simply untrue,  on par with Obama's claim that he has created 10 million jobs.  It assumes that all of the 5.4 immigrants given work permits since Obama took office,  are working    . . .   ALL are working.  Seriously,  no one who thinks for a moment,  can believe this number,  even before available research can be revealed.  It is a silly-bordering-on-stupid claim.

Takeaway.  The takeaway of this post is rather straight forward:   it seems as if everybody is lying.   Obama can't seem to give a speech of any kind,  without offering up a lie or making use of misleading information;  but the hard Right is guilty,  far too often,  of doing the same thing.  

  

The Scam Presidency – The fact of recession versus the illusion of “good times.”

<<<<  We need to stop pretending that the shrinking workforce is a temporary reality.  It is here to stay,  at no fault of anyone.  But,  failed policies will make its affect far worse than needs be.  

For the past several months,  the Fed and Ben Bernake have been printing 40 billion dollars per month and the stock market is eating this up.  Some argue that this ridiculous amount of printed money is only replacing the trillions lost in the closing months of 2008 and into early 2009. 

Speaking as a sheer layman,  on this matter,  I see a difference between losing money and printing replacement money.  I would think that we replace lost income with more earned income.  Call me stupid. 

Click on image to enlarge

At any rate,  Ben is busy printing money and Obama is using the “success” of Wall Street”  to frame his “successful recovery.”    But,  we know this “recovery” is only an illusion,  and how do we know this?  Because the economy is rocking along at minus .01 (GDP).  A true recovery,  at this point in time,  should be 3 percent to 6 percent.  It ran 8 percent during the Reagan recovery and the Carter recession was far worse than this one,  contrary to popular media wording. 

Add to this recovery “illusion,”  the fact that “7.8% unemployment,”  today,  in 2013 represents 5 million fewer people working than the 7.8% record at the end of February of 2009.  

Understand that the shrinking workforce is not simply a function of failed Obama policy (it includes this,  of course).  The Boomer generation is beginning to exit the job market and have entered Social Security.  Others have declared themselves "handicapped"  are officially disabled (no less than 80% are actually disabled and that estimate might be low).  

This combination of attrition and failed policy has created a degree of permanency that will extend well into the future  -  perhaps into perpetuity.  

Problem:  unless we can figure out how to create more income with fewer workers,  out GDP promises to remain at record lows,  effecting (killing) the needed recovery.  Understand that the Boomers are leaving the workforce at the rate of 10,000 per day,  and this reduction/exodus will last for close to 17 years before that rate significantly reduces.  

No one in Washington is looking at this particular problem.  Government cannot "supply"  the millions of jobs,  necessary,  to turn the economy around.  And, no one is talking about what to do with all those American who can work but have no chance of landing a job. 

At some point,  our need to financially help those without a job and those who are retiring,  will [far] exceed the ability to meet these new "obligations."  

What to do?

1)  start moving out of high risk communities.

2) reduce your debt and monthly payments

3) pay off your cars and home.

4) understand that you are going to be responsible for "you."  Make fun of "rugged individualism"  all you want;  turns out,  there is no choice for those who want to have any quality of life after the unavoidable national bust that has positioned itself on our horizon.   

The unemployment picture? Same ol' same ol'.

Click on graph to enlarge

In the week ending December 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 372,000, an increase of 10,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 362,000. The 4-week moving average was 360,000, an increase of 250 from the previous week's revised average of 359,750. 

When the economy is comparatively healthy,   the weekly “first time claims”  are much closer to 325,000 and less.

As of a few months ago,  the Networks,  including Fox,  have been touting a weekly claims number of 350,000 as being indicative of a healthy or [at least] growing  economy, but a quick glance at the Department of Labor graph in this post,  confirms the fact that 300,000 to 325,000 is the actual number. We have a ways to go.  

Also,  keep in mind that our national work force is at its lowest in 20 years with more than 8 million Americans no longer looking for work,  folks who have dropped out of the work force and are no longer being counted  (!!!) ,  if you can believe that.  If they were counted in the unemployment monthly totals,  our "unemployment rate" would be 14.4 percent,  not the 7.7 percent reported last month,  according to Fox News and the Labor Department.    

Update:  the labor department has raised its monthly unemployment report to 7.8 percent.  This may allow for a January report of "7.7" and the headline,  "Unemployment comes down !!"  They have done this before.  

Obama does not worry about the unemployment rate,  especially since this past election proves that a majority of the electorate does not give a damn.  His schtyke has to do with "fairness,"  all else is secondary.  He wants us all to be in
"the same boat."  We all rise or fall together and the "boat" is the US Central Government.  

His view of "fairness"  has me working my butt off to pay my bills while he confiscates part of my income,  via an increasing system of confiscatory taxes and regulations,  to help the home owner next door,  pay his mortgage.  Nothing fair about that,  but,  for the time being,  the have nots outnumber the hard working population. 

While we moan and groan about the declining Ameridcan birthrate, maybe someone needs to start thinking about the 40 year decline in the American workforce.

From Pew:  


The U.S. birth rate dropped to its lowest level since the beginning of the Great Depression, led by a drop among immigrants, according to a report data released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.
 
In 2011, the overall birth rate was 63.2 per 1,000 women of childbearing age, the lowest since at least 1920, Pew reported, citing numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics. The birth rate reached 122.7 in 1957, the peak of the Baby Boom. After the mid-1970s, the birth rate stabilized at about 65 to 70 births per 1,000 women annually, until the beginning of the Great Recession.

Since 2007, both the U.S. birth rate (the number of live births per 1,000 women ages 15-44) and the number of births have dropped significantly, according to the report.

Overall, the birth rate declined 8 percent from 2007 to 2010.  Among U.S.-born women, the birth rate dropped 6 percent. The decline among foreign-born women was 14 percent. Among Mexican women, the birth rate fell even more, to percent.  

Editor's notes:  forget the ethnic demographics and think "workforce."  

What is not even hinted at in the PEW report is the fact that the birth rate decline has been going on since the 1960's.  In fact,  2000 recorded the lowest American birth rate since the Great Depression.  The downward trend in population growth is, of course,  a downward trend in the national workforce.  The two are inexorably connected at the hip.

Problem:  with the Left's penchant for increasing the welfare roles,  the 40 year tread in population/workforce decline has become critical.  Like it or not,  a socialist society absolutely must have a substantial workforce or it cannot exist.  Wealth is earned and it is earned by  those who actually get off their butts and work.  A marked downward trend in the workforce combined with a sharp increase in Obama's welfare buds, spells financial doom.  

Understand that the payouts to Social Security benefactors will be borrowed money in two years, and,  the unfunded total for Medicare was increased to 42 trillion by the CBO this past week.  

While the Chief Moron is playing political games,  he has already run out of time in his developing Utopian dream.  For every 165 people drawing some form of welfare or entitlement payment,  there are only 100 workers in this country. 

I can hardly wait for one of you yellow dog Democrats to remind me how stupid conservatives are.  What is funny is the fact that we conservatives get the problem and the big spending libs have no clue. 

  

8.3%? Not really and here is why.

Updated text:
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN: Jobless Rate Falls to Lowest in Three Years...

The jobless rate fell from 8.5% to 8.3% on the wings of 243,000 jobs created.  So goes the story.  

Click on image to enlarge

So,  why are so many not all that excited?   For starters,  36.7% of those old enough and able to work  are not . . . . . . . . . working.  As of this past January, we are looking at the highest percentage of non-working working class citizens since the 1930's.  You may not believe this number,  but 1.7  million folks left the workforce in the same month we are touting the 8.3 unemployment percentage,  January, according to the Department of Labor (cf DoL pdf, p8).   

The 2nd chart,  my home grown adaptation of the original,  actually has "Reagan"  misplaced.  As you well know,  Reagan came into power following the Carter years and a recession  with higher negatives in many categories than the current recessionary period.  The Reagan Recovery saw the fastest increase in the workforce in history.  By contrast, the Obama Recovery (that is what he is calling this thing,  right ??) includes the sharpest decline in the size of the workforce [also] in history.  

In the second year of the Obama Recovery (2010),  much like the Reagan Recovery,   there was an increase in the size of the workforce (April of 2010)  . . . about the time Biden announced that the recession was over and introduced  us to his  "Summer of Recovery."    But,  unlike Reagan's recovery, Obama's policies failed within weeks, literally,   and the remainder of the "recovery years" has been a disaster with the work force at its lowest percentage of the total number of folks able to work  (63.7) in decades  [see chart immediately below with Department of Labor stats,  for a comparison of the past 10 year totals].  

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	President
2002	66.5	66.8	66.6	66.7	66.7	66.6	66.5	66.6	66.7	66.6	66.4	66.3	Bush.. 43
2003	66.4	66.4	66.3	66.4	66.4	66.5	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	65.9
2004	66.1	66.0	66.0	65.9	66.0	66.1	66.1	66.0	65.8	65.9	66.0	65.9
2005	65.8	65.9	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.0	66.0
2006	66.0	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.3	66.4
2007	66.4	66.3	66.2	65.9	66.0	66.0	66.0	65.8	66.0	65.8	66.0	66.0
2008	66.2	66.0	66.1	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	65.9	66.0	65.8	65.8
2009	65.7	65.8	65.6	65.6	65.7	65.7	65.5	65.4	65.1	65.0	65.0	64.6	Obama..
2010	64.8	64.9	64.9	65.1	64.9	64.6	64.6	64.7	64.6	64.4	64.5	64.3	Obama..
2011	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.1	64.0	64.1	64.1	64.1	64.0	64.0	Obama..
2012	63.7												Obama..

Unemployment went down because [in part] 1.7 million people left the work force,  to fend for themselves. Understand that I am telling you that 1.7 million left the official "workforce"  in just one month. [In December,  50,000 dropped off the roles.  In November,  350,000 left the public workforce.]  Some went on welfare of some sort; the younger adult crowd moved back in with their parents;   others went to work "under the table,"  not reporting their wages in return for not having to report their income.  Still, others went to work for themselves,  again,  making money "under the table."  More than 5 million Americans have opted out of the public workforce since Obama took office, preferring one of the several options listed above.  There are 89 million able bodied adults no longer figured in the "unemployment" numbers (see ZeroHedge for more discussion).  


Remember Obama coming up with the bright idea of forcing everyone who paid out $600 or more for anything,  food,  gas, lawn care,  property clean-up, helping a family move  . . .   whatever,  to fill out and report these transactions on a 1099 form?   It was part of ObamaCare and was to go into effect this month (Jan 2012).  Of course,  the logistics of such an asinine provision made the law impossible to enforce,  a laughable bit of idiocy coming from the fertile mind of Obama.    


As an example of just how nonsensical this proposition would have been,  I have a friend who drives truck cross country.  With this law,  he would have had to keep all receipts for  diesel  and record them separately,  per each gas station at which he purchased fuel,  just in case he bought $600 of fuel over the course of the year from any one of those stations.  


What Obama was trying to accomplish was this:  he knew the workforce was "shrinking," that these folks didn't just disappear;  they were making a living some way.  So he tried to tax the "underground economy"  (more power to those folks,  btw) via the 1099 idea,  a task that proved to be impossible.  

Update and end notes:  the U6 unemployment number is 15.3% (folks unemployed but on benefits and those who are underemployed) or around 19 million Americans,  in addition to the 89 million "doing their own thing,"  working in the growing labor force that is the American Underground.  

Point of post:  to give context to all this "good" news we heard,  today (Friday, Jan 3rd)).  When 1.7 million people leave the workforce in a single month,  a lower unemployment rate (8.3% in this case) is hardly the good news we had hoped it might have been. . . . . . . . . . .   And I haven't discussed the 2.3 million people who lost jobs in January,  but,  because of the process known as "seasonal adjustments,"  we are being told that 243,000 jobs were created.  While "seasonally adjusted" might be an important process,  still,  2.3 million working in December have been laid off in January.  


Conclusion:  its a terrible, terrible mess. 


Related story:  see this short CNBC video news story :  SANTELLI: Here's What's Wrong With Data...