Drama in the White House? Unemployment up 23%

It’s hard to accept that these highly educated political appointees didn’t know what they were getting into, or that they never considered family impact before taking on a tough job in Washington. Romer, 51 cited she wanted her 14 yrs old son to “spend his high school years in one place.” (Source: SF Gate)

Also what seems to be common is that after exiting politics, political figures go back to teaching. Romer said she will be taking her job back teaching economics at University of California, Berkeley. She has also indicated interest in running the Federal Reserve in San Francisco, CA. (Source: Bloomberg)

Under Obama, Romer & Company, Unemployment is up 23%
All of these are face saving moves, “family reasons” going back to “teaching” etc, does not hide the fact that the social-economic policies of the Obama’s radical left advisers have not worked out too well. Romer was one of the big economic stimulus pushers that spent $787 Billion last year which did nothing but to create bigger government and more private sector job losses.

The unemployment rate was 7.7% at that time and now sits around 9.5% if you accept government’s math on how they calculate unemployment. In percentage terms unemployment has increased 23.38%. (The Math: 9.5 -7.7 = 1.8; then 1.8 divided by 7.7 = .23376 or 23.38% rounded to the nearest whole number.)

“Romer…pushed…for Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package as unemployment rose from 7.7 percent. She quit as a U.S. economic recovery propelled by government spending and financial bailouts show signs of slowing, and unemployment exceeding 9 percent persists near a 26-year high.” (Source: Bloomberg PDF)

The Obama Stimulus was to Prevent Higher Unemployment.

“President Barack Obama claimed that immediate action was necessary to prevent unemployment from skyrocketing.”

— Source: CBS News, 05-18-2009

The Stimulus, which represented 60% of the total amount of money the IRS collects from tax payers was also supposed to “save or create 3.5 million jobs.” (Source: NPR.org)

Hardly Stimulating
Part of that Obama stimulus included a so called $116.2 Billion tax cut for the average American family. We’ll, this all sounds good but if one just reads what that really entails, one will find that assuming people qualify for the tax cut, they are only really reducing “up to $400 for individuals and up to $800 for couples in 2009 and 2010.” (Source: New York Times)

Saving $400 or $800 a year for 2 years, which amounts to $7.69 a week for qualifying individuals and $15.38 a week for qualifying couples is hardly going to make a dent their economic picture.

The Obama Stimulus program also included over $90 Billion for increased social-welfare programs such as unemployment compensation, COBRA and other heath-care extensions, all of which does not create jobs, just sustains those who lost jobs, hence the “save or create jobs” rhetoric. (Source: New York Times)

Probably the funniest part of the Obama stimulus is the $3.2 Billion “tax cut for businesses.” Well, unless you business is called General Motors or Chrysler, you won’t see any of that money. This $3.2 Billion tax-payer funded stimulus was allocated just for them.

— Source: New York Times

More Obama Math (example):
In order to justify Obama’s massive spending increases, the Administration uses a smoke and mirrors trick.

“President Obama claims that “we have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.” This is not true. The President first creates a fantasy baseline that assumes the Iraq surge continues forever (which was never U.S. policy) and then “saves” $1.5 trillion against that baseline by ending the surge as scheduled.

It is like a family “saving” $10,000 by first assuming an expensive vacation and then not taking it. Another $1 trillion in “savings” is actually tax increases (in other words, savings for government, not taxpayers).”

— Source: Heritage.org

More people have lost jobs than gained jobs since Obama came to office. The U.S. has taken on record breaking debt; more debt than any other President in history.

What Jobs?
The jobs report headline, “U.S. companies added 71,000 jobs.” (Source: Washington Post) Now, once again, if all one does is read the headline one might think that is good. Below the headline, into the details the real story is that net, 131,000 more jobs were lost than gained. (Source: Bloomberg)

“The small increase in private-sector employment was more than offset by the loss of 143,000 temporary census jobs, and the nation’s unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.5 percent. Overall, the nation shed 131,000 jobs in July.”

— Source: Washington Post

The overall net job losses were double what analysts had expected. “Financial markets had expected overall employment to fall 65,000 in July.” (Source: Reuters)

The Obama Administration indicated that much of the job losses were temporary census workers. We’ll, key word, “temporary” was something that we discussed back in June. Anyone who thought the economy was improving with government created temporary census jobs, needs a reality check. Temporary means, short term, not permanent. Census works were not intended to boost the economy, not would that strategy work.

Romer, like Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke are both noted experts on the topic of the Great Depression. (Source: New York Times, Reuters)

However, despite this expertise, the political spin has tried to convince the public that everything is just fine. Romer said this past May that, “The economy is unquestionably on the right trajectory…” albeit admitted the obvious, that the economy “has not yet recovered.” (Source: Reuters) Obama also stated in July that the economy was “headed in the right direction.” (Source: PBS.org) All the employment data would seem to suggest otherwise.

Drama in the White House?
According to Jonathan Alter who wrote a book called, “The Promise,” state that in 2009 there was apparent ongoing conflict with Larry Summers and Christine Roman:

“Romer complained that Summers was excluding her from important meetings. During one argument, Summers shouted, “Don’t you threaten me!” while Romer replied, “Don’t you bully me!” the book says.”

— Source: Los Angeles Times

Christine Romer is the second key person leaving Obama’s Economic team after Peter Orszag said he was resigning as the White House Budget Director announced late June. Orszag generated controversy when he reportedly had “fathered a child with ex-girlfriend Claire Milonas…and (was also) engaged to ABC News reporter Bianna Golodryga. Their wedding is planned for September.” (Source: Washington Post)

Key people are leaving Washington either over controversy or realizing that what they argued for (massive government spending) is not working.

Their solution of course is more government stimulus spending.

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07-24-2012 UPDATE: Unemployment Still Up 6.5% Based on Government Math 

The Obama Administration contends that the unemployment rate is “stuck” currently at 8.2%.  The overall unemployment rate based on the government’s own math is still up 6.5% since Obama took office [Math: Unemployment rate when Obama took office 7.7% (Source: Wall Street Journal). Unemployment rate on 07-06-2012 was 8.2% (Source: Guardian. UK). Thus 8.2% – 7.7% = .5; then .5% divided by 8.5% = 6.5% or 6.4935% to be more exact).

The only problem with the government’s unemployment numbers is that they are grossly misleading. We have been documenting this since Feb 2010. (Please see “U.S. Policy” tab at top of this page, then “mouse over” down to “Jobs.” There you will see the article history for this topic.  Note: CBS 60 Minuets caught on to this too just 8 months after our first report and aired a story about the ‘misleading’ jobs report here.

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