Is the Wall Street Journal Reading Your Blog? Is Obama Losing Control of the Economy?

Is the Wall Street Journal Reading Your Blog?

Last week (8/13/10) David A. Ross, J.D. posted on Facebook the following “In the 1980’s, economists said that if you want to live in a country where parents have no illusions that their children will be better-off than they were, move to England. Today, England’s future is brighter with the EU. Not so for America. Ask yourself whether your children will have it better than you did? Now ask why, and what can be done about it?” The rest of my article went on to mention how America incorrectly measured the strength of the Chinese economy.

In yesterday’s (8/16/10) Wall Street Journal, Mort Zuckerman wrote “With a historically weak recovery and high unemployment rate, we hear people beginning to question the long-held assumption that their children will have it better than they.” The rest of his article went on to address the problems in the US economy.

Just remember, on the issue of American optimism, you heard it here first.

Now I ask the question: Is Obama Losing Control of the Economy?

Here are the highlights of Zuckerman’s very astute article The End of American Optimism:

1) Obama’s Broken Promise: The Obama administration’s projection that the unemployment rate will drop to 8.7% by the end of next year and 6.8% by 2013 is totally unrealistic. The economy would have to add nearly 300,000 jobs each month over the next three years to make up the 2.5 million jobs that the Obama administration promised, thereby returning the unemployment rate to under 8%. “At the rate we are going, it will take from six to nine years to climb out of this hole.”

2) Nearly No New Jobs Were Created: The Obama administration created virtually no new jobs this year. The 600,000 jobs supposedly created do not exist. They were a mathematical error caused last year by economic modeling that assumed a steady rate of new businesses creating new jobs. 550,000 of these phantom jobs were kept on the books at the US Department of Labor since April of this year. The Administration is playing with the numbers.

3) Real Unemployment is Higher: Real unemployment today is well above the reported 9.5%. That number held steady only because over a million people gave up hope of finding work and left the labor force within the past three months. Taking that into account, the unemployment rate is actually 10.4%.

4) Long Term Unemployment Persists: There are at least 14.5 million Americans still searching for work: 1.4 million of them have been jobless for more than 99 weeks, 6.5 million have been jobless for over 27 weeks. And there is little hope of ever restoring those jobs.

5) Traditional Fixes Aren’t Working: “Tons of money have been shoveled in to rescue reckless banks and fill the huge hole in the economy, but nothing is working the way it normally had in all our previous crises.” The Administration has tried encouraging people to buy cars, homes, weatherization kits, and even solar panels, yet the economy limps along at a nearly 2.4% growth rate (which is just above inflation).

6) Welcome to the New Normal: “We are in what a number of economists are referring to as the ‘new normal.'” The current recession could last indefinitely, because there have been NO FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES to the underlying economy.

CONCLUSION: At this point, I am thoroughly convinced that President Barack Obama has lost control of the American economy, has not a clue of what to do next, and fails to appreciate the urgency by which solutions must be found. While the administration waits out the storm, the storm is growing worse, day… by day… by day. And by now, President Obama’s advisors are probably telling him that he needs a foreign war to distract the American public’s attention from our disastrous domestic economy. Again, it has always worked in the past, but it will not work this time. America is facing a major crisis, but there is no sense of urgency in the White House.