While the president and Congress play political games at the expense of the public, and couldn't care less if nobody had jobs so long as they themselves kept their posts, this guy, Peter Morici, a professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland School, and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission, wrote an interesting piece on the unemployment situation. I found it on Fox.
According to the professor, if you factor in discouraged adults and those working part time for lack of full time opportunities, the unemployment rate is actually about 16.2 percent. If you then add in college graduates in low skill positions, like jobs at Starbucks, underemployment's even higher.
He says jobs were added in recent months and unemployment remained steady only because businesses have been foregoing opportunities to increase productivity. They haven't been investing in labor saving technology, which keeps the headline unemployment number from rising too much, however, it's also an "ominous" sign of recession. Because, ultimately, employers will slash payrolls to maintain profits, and that will foster new layoffs. Meanwhile, new unemployment claims continue to stay around 400 thousand per week.
But here's the part of his premise that interested me most. He says growth is weak and jobs are in jeopardy, because temporary tax cuts, stimulus spending, large federal deficits, expensive and ineffective business regulations, and increased health care mandates and costs don't address structural problems. These factors hold back "dynamic growth" and jobs creation. Additionally he factors in a huge U.S. trade deficit and dysfunctional energy policies.
He goes on to note that costs of oil and trade with China account for nearly our entire $550 billion trade deficit, saying the deficit alone is a tax on domestic demand that erases the benefits of tax cuts and stimulus spending. And that's because, dollars spent abroad for oil and consumer goods from China, that don't return to purchase U.S. exports, are lost purchasing power. Therefore, the U.S. economy is expanding at less than 1 percent a year instead of the 5 percent that's possible after emerging from a deep recession and with such high unemployment.
In summation he writes that, "without prompt efforts to produce more domestic oil, redress the trade imbalance with China, relax burdensome business regulations, and curb health care mandates and costs, the U.S. economy cannot grow and create enough jobs."
The reason I noted the professor's comments today is because I've been writing the exact same stuff in my entries for many, many months, but he did it more professionally and succinctly. But what he didn't include, and I always do, is that each and every element he noted that's causing our overwhelming economic problems have been specifically caused by the current administration with concurring support from Congress.
So here we have a treatise on how and why the strongest nation ever created has been economically devastated, I believe with purpose, and a list of what's needed to fix it. However, when the guy at the top is determined to destroy every iota of what's been accomplished by our spirit and drive, it makes difficult tasks even harder. And that's why I truly believe that next November the thud he lands with after being tossed out overwhelmingly by voters will be heard loud and clear worldwide.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
No comments:
Post a Comment