Thread: Obama's Job Program ?

Unemployment aid applications near a 4-year low
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER | Associated Press – 2 hrs 42 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid neared a four-year low last week, a positive sign that strong hiring could continue in the coming months. The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications for unemployment benefits fell 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 358,000. That's the second-lowest level since April 2008.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell to 366,250, the lowest since late April 2008. "The encouraging U.S. employment news continues," Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note to clients. The "job market started February off on a sturdy footing."

When applications fall consistently below 375,000, it generally signals that hiring is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate. Employers added a net gain of 243,000 jobs in January, the biggest gain in nine months. The unemployment rate fell for the fifth straight month to 8.3 percent, the lowest in nearly three years.

From November through January, the economy has added an average of 201,000 net jobs per month.

The increased hiring in part reflects faster economic growth. The economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the final three months of last year — a full percentage point higher than the previous quarter. Applications are also falling because companies are laying off fewer workers. A separate report from the Labor Department, released earlier this week, showed that job cuts have fallen below pre-recession levels. Layoffs dropped last year to the lowest annual total in the 10 years the government has tracked the data.

With job cuts low, even a modest increase in hiring results in net job gains.

The number of people receiving benefits edged up in the week ending Jan. 21, the latest data available. About 7.6 million people received unemployment aid that week, a slight increase from the previous week. That figure includes about 3.5 million people receiving extended unemployment benefits under an emergency program set up during the recession. That program is set to expire at the end of this month, unless Congress agrees to extend it through the end of the year. Lawmakers are wrangling over how to pay for an extension of benefits and for an extension of a Social Security tax cut that is also set to expire at the end of this month.

Most economists expect growth will slow a bit in the January-March quarter, because companies won't need to rebuild their stockpiles of goods as much as they did in the winter. But some economists are increasingly optimistic that the economy will steadily expand this year, given last month's unexpectedly large job gains and other positive signs. U.S. manufacturing activity grew in January at the fastest pace in seven months. Americans are buying more cars and trucks. And consumers stepped up borrowing in November and December by the most in a decade, which could indicate they are growing more confident in the economy.

Still, the job market has a long way to go before it fully recovers from the damage of the Great Recession. Nearly 13 million people remain unemployed, and 8.3 percent unemployment is painfully high. One reason the unemployment rate has fallen for five straight months is that many people have stopped looking for work. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching for a job.

Median household income down more after Obama’s first 3 years than it was after W’s first 7
Posted by B. Daniel Blatt at 5:07 am - May 1, 2012.

Although candidate Barack Obama assailed then-President George W. Bush “for wage losses suffered by the middle class” in the 2008 presidential campaign, more “than three years into” his ” own presidency,” reports Bloomberg’s Mike Dorning, “those declines have only deepened“: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...d-on-bush.html

As a candidate in 2008, Obama blamed the reversals largely on the policies of Bush and other Republicans. He cited census figures showing that median income for working-age households — those headed by someone younger than 65 — had dropped more than $2,000 after inflation during the first seven years of Bush’s time in office.

Yet real median household income in March was down $4,300 since Obama took office in January 2009 and down $2,900 since the June 2009 start of the economic recovery, according to an analysis of census data by Sentier Research, an economic- consulting firm in Annapolis, Maryland.This decline in income could have a greater impact on average voters than the unemployment rate.

Via Instapundit. http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/141952/ With less take-home pay, they have to set aside a grater proportion of their income for housing, groceries and other necessities, leaving less for recreation — and making it more difficult to save up for big purchases, like down payments on homes.


http://www.gaypatriot.net/2012/05/01...er-ws-first-7/

Read also http://topics.bloomberg.com/household-income/ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=621 http://www.sentierresearch.com/repor...2_12_03_29.pdf

Another Obama tall tale: “The Life of Julia”
By Michelle Malkin • May 3, 2012 11:57 AM

What did I say yesterday?

For the Left: Through narrative, all things are possible. http://michellemalkin.com/2012/05/02...sion-olympics/ If the White House just keeps telling enough stories, http://michellemalkin.com/2011/09/27...nough-stories/ Team Obama thinks it can spin its way into a second term in office.

Today’s fable comes in the form of a slick web feature at BarackObama.com called “The Life of Julia.” http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia

Twitchy has the rundown and rejoinders against the Nanny State here. http://twitchy.com/2012/05/03/meet-j...n-obamas-life/

This part really made my stomach turn:



In the real world, Internet entrepreneurs (myself included) launch web businesses without the SBA’s “help” and want only one thing — for Obama and his wealth-confiscators to leave us the hell alone. I’ve founded three web ventures without a penny of taxpayer money or government venture socialism and I will make sure to show my kids “The Life of Julia” to teach them how NOT to lead their lives tethered to the Nanny State.

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/05/03...life-of-julia/

comments

Is that picture Julia? Is she ‘white’? Does this smack of being ‘racists’?

..

Did Julia check the ” Native American ” box for her SBA loan?

..

I’m a relatively small-time blogger, but I make over $1,000 per year, which helps supplement my husband’s income. If I really threw myself into it, I could earn a lot more (I’m focused on being a mom for now). I taught myself to design websites, I sell my own ad space, write my own content, etc. There is almost NO overhead. I know other bloggers who earn over $100,000 per year. None of us needed grants or help from anybody. Some do end up hiring people after they make it big, but they use their own profits. In my experience, the people who depend on handouts do not have the passion or savvy to be successful in their business ventures.

..

Of course they forgot to mention that once Julia becomes successful she will be demonized as part of the 1% who does not pay her fair share and should have her wealth confinscated, unless of course she donates heavily to the Democrats.

..

Notice how they throw the word “could” into the Romney side of the equation? By throwing that in there they could have said anything. For example,

Under a Romney Presidency: The Romney/Ryan budget could outsource the job of pushing Grandma off the cliff to beings from the planet Krypton.

Not to mention, since when did Romney get elected and sit down and help Ryan write a budget proposal.

..

Romney’s campaign should send out a thank you to the Obama campaign for their confidence that Romney will be elected seeing as they are already calling it the Romney/Ryan budget. That would get under Obama’s skin really quickly.

..


In my experience, the people who depend on handouts do not have the passion or savvy to be successful in their business ventures.

..

Excellent point and so true! If you have no passion for something, you will quit. Simple as that. I have a passion for scrapping. That is why I have been doing it for 20 years and still love it. Another example is someone who is given free housing. Ever notice how quickly those places turn in to slums? There is no pride of ownership. There was no “sweat equity”. This is so easily demonstratable, but the left refuses to see it.

I saw an “interview” with some OWS kid the other day. He was asked what kind of system he would suggest to replace capitalism. He said, “Communism. You get free food, free health care, and you are taken care of by the community”. That little twerp needs a few months on a desert island where he is forced to find his own food, cook it, etc. We need to stop “taking care” of people who are OBVIOUSLY able to take care of themselves!

..

Anyone see the new campaign slogan? http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/...ma-08-sticker/

The Republican National Committee is getting ahead of President Obama's official campaign kickoff in Ohio and Virginia on Saturday with a media blitz labeling his re-election drive the "Hype & Blame" tour.

The RNC will sell "Hype & Blame 2012" bumper stickers — a twist on Mr. Obama's "hope and change" rallying cry of 2008 — accompanied by digital advertising, a fundraising strategy, radio and TV ads and op-eds in local media.

..

It sounds like Julia goes to her great reward as fertilizer in the community garden at the end of the story.

Written at a third grade level. Telling isn’t it?

April's disappointing jobs report: 6 takeaways
By The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – 4 hrs ago

The unemployment rate falls to 8.1 percent, but the economy is only able to create a meager 115,000 jobs, fueling concerns that the recovery is stalling once again
The jobless rate in April fell to 8.1 percent, its lowest level since President Obama took office in 2009... but don't expect the White House to bust out the champagne. The economy added a worse-than-expected 115,000 jobs last month, far below the rate necessary for the labor market to claw its way out of its deep hole. Indeed, many analysts now fear that we're seeing a rerun of what happened to the economy in early 2010 and early 2011, when the recovery appeared to be accelerating only to stumble and lurch. Here, six takeaways from the latest jobs report:

1. Labor force participation is at a three-decade low : The reason the jobless rate fell in April is because 342,000 out-of-work Americans stopped looking for work altogether, and were thus not counted by the government as being unemployed. The percentage of Americans in the workforce is now just 63.6 percent — the lowest level since December 1981, and an emphatic signal that the job market is still in the dumps.

2. The government continues to shed jobs : The public sector, forced to cut workers to close budget deficits, continues to hamper the labor market. Government employment fell by 15,000 jobs, while the private sector added 130,000.

3. Businesses are making do with less : The economy "is producing even more goods and services than it did when the recession officially began in December 2007, but with about five million fewer workers," says Catherine Rampell at The New York Times. That means companies are adapting by getting more out of the workers they have, and taking advantage of new technologies. However, productivity actually fell slightly in April, a sign that it might now be untenable "to get more work out of the existing staff," says Peter Coy at Bloomberg Businessweek. If demand rises, companies could start hiring more.

4. There are some reasons for optimism… : Revised data shows that the economy created more jobs in February and March than previously thought. (The March numbers were revised from 120,000 to 154,000, and February from 240,000 to 259,000.) That could mean that the mild winter led to an unusual boost in off-season hiring, negating the need to find workers in spring, when economists usually expect hiring to ramp up.

5. …And plenty of reasons to worry : The economy faces several obstacles that could squelch the recovery, including high gas prices, Europe's ongoing debt crisis, and slowing growth in China, which could reduce demand for American goods and services.

6. The economy is still Obama's Achilles' heel : The White House says the April jobs report is "further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal," but it's clear Obama will head into November with a relatively high unemployment rate. Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee, blasted Obama for his economic stewardship, saying the jobs report was "terrible and very disappointing." These numbers also allow Romney "to get back on message," after being embroiled recently in arguments over Osama bin Laden and national security that don't play to his strengths, says MSNBC's First Read.

http://news.yahoo.com/aprils-disappo...104800714.html

comments

The unemployment rate at my house is 50% and has been for several months. My kid is in college but half of recent college grads can't find work. If unemployment was calculated today as it was when Mr Obama's mentor, Jimmy Carter, was president, it would be about 22%. Even with today's bogus method of calculating unemployment, Obama has not managed to meet his own stated goal of 8% unemployment in 3 years. Failure on all counts, Mr President.

..

Obama supporters point to the declining unemployment rate as a sign that the economy is improving. LOL. Millions of people aren't even looking anymore, hows that hope and change doing?

http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be “Julia”
By Michelle Malkin • May 4, 2012 09:27 AM

Quick, hide under the covers. The nation’s storyteller, Barack Obama, unveiled a frightening new fable on the Internet intended to scare women away from supporting fiscal conservatives in November. But as is increasingly common with Obama’s social media propaganda initiatives, “The Life of Julia” immediately flopped.

Why? Because 1) self-sufficient women voters aren’t as sheeple-ish as Democratic strategists make them out to be, 2) conservative activists are overtaking Obama’s zombie army online, 3) non-delusional Americans don’t want cradle-to-grave utopians turning their country into the next Greece or Spain, and 4) responsible grownups are getting sick and tired of radical Saul Alinsky-style tall tales from the progressive Pied Piper.

Using snazzy graphics and interactive slideshow features, BarackObama.com spins a glowing narrative of imaginary Julia’s life from age 3 to 67. But “Julia” is a pathetic figment of the progressive imagination. She simply cannot function without the lifelong intervention of federal patriarchs.

Instead of two parents preparing her for school, Obama credits Head Start bureaucrats with ensuring that Julia is “ready to learn and succeed” in kindergarten.

Instead of individual teachers, private mentors, home-school organizers or charter school leaders, Obama extols his federal Race to the Top program for implementing the high school “classes she needs to do well” in college.

Instead of thrift-minded families who save for their own kids’ higher educations (or who opt for non-college alternatives) and who encourage those kids to work in private-sector summer jobs, Obama praises his “opportunity tax credit” and Pell Grants for putting Julia through college.

Instead of acknowledging how costly Obamacare mandates have caused individual-market health care insurers to drop plans altogether, Obama promotes the government-manufactured umbilical cord tethering “children” like Julia to their parents’ health care plans until age 26.

Instead of accepting that the costs and consequences of a woman’s sexual choices should be a matter of personal responsibility, Big Daddy Obama heralds his religious liberty-crushing birth control/abortion mandate for allowing Julia to “focus on her work instead of worrying about her health.”

Despite the fact that most private health care plans already covered maternal screenings, prenatal care and related screenings before Obamacare passed, the president attributes Julia’s pregnancy well-being to the law.

And it’s not local sovereignty or financial discipline that results in better schools for Julia’s new son, “Zachary.” Nope. It’s Obama’s “investments” in education and “programs like Race to the Top.” (Is there nothing Race to the Top can’t do?)

“Under President Obama,” the campaign web feature then crows, “Julia starts her own web business. She qualifies for a Small Business Administration loan, giving her the money she needs to invest in her business. President Obama’s tax cuts for small businesses like Julia’s help her to get started. She’s able to hire employees, creating new jobs in her town and helping to grow the local economy.”

In the real world, according to Dun and Bradstreet, the SBA supported fewer than 62,000 small business loans: a measly 0.2 percent of the nation’s 27.5 million small businesses. The vast majority of entrepreneurs get their start without the SBA’s “help” and want only one thing: for Obama and his wealth-confiscators to leave them the heck alone.

As soon as Obama publicized “The Life of Julia” on the web, conservative activists swarmed Twitter to provide real-world counter-narratives. “I’m no Julia,” @CatsPolitics wrote. “As a small-business owner I’m being taxed to death. I need the (government) to get out of my way and let me make money.” Another young conservative female, @BiasedGirl, tweeted: “As a woman and a business owner I’m offended that POTUS thinks I need him to survive and thrive.” Conservative writer Kemberlee Kaye added: “What the Julia example really shows is the Democrat ideal. Complete and total reliance on the government.”

My story? I’ve founded three web ventures over the past eight years without a penny of taxpayer money or government venture socialism. We free-market-centered small-business women can “grow the local economy” and raise our children and improve our schools just fine without the meddling, patriarchal hand of President Obama taking credit for our every last success.

After hyperventilating for months about the Republican “war on women,” Democratic new-media gurus inadvertently have exposed the real Barack Obama: a chauvinistic control freak who would tether every last woman and child to his ever-expanding, budget-busting Nanny State.

Mamas, for the sake of your family’s freedom and our republic’s survival, don’t let your babies grow up to be “Julia.”

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/05/04...p-to-be-julia/

comments

I’d even rather have Bill in the WH. He screwed women one at a time. Obama wants to screw them all, one bill at a time.

..

Boom! Michelle, you are right on target here. The Julia story is a pathetic, depressing, even frightening vision of the future and I can’t imagine how Obama & Co find this horror story desirable in the least.

..

and does julia live in a bubble? how will obama help julia live her entire life, when obama will only be president for four years? or is he dreaming of becoming president for life?

..

Conservatives and progressives will never see the world in the same way. We’re from earth and they’re from Mars. It’s truly coming down to who is more committed to their cause…come on November. I want to vote already. We know that there are people who see the lie in the message the left is constantly pushing, we know there are some that still think it is the job of the government to do exactly as Obama preaches..it really comes down to who is more committed to their cause as to who will win the day. IMHO This country will be in the debt to the blogs like MM, Breitbart, and others for working tirelessly to vet that SOB FINALLY and to do the work that the msm refuses to do. God bless you all.

..

“Julia”, with her nanny-state cradle-to-grave dependency, is obviously the final piece of the puzzle that is Obama’s ultimate dream-girl, his perfect-in-every-way composite girlfriend.

..

They can have Julia, we’ll keep Rosie the riveter.

..

Great article Michelle.

Teaching self reliance or self esteem doesn’t seem to be big in this administration’s plans.

How sad that there are actually women out there WANTING the gov’t to take care of them. Thinking the gov’t NEEDS to take care of them.

Wake up sisters–that’s why we fought for equal rights! Remember, we fought against the notion that somebody HAD to take care of us!!! Are you libs trying to send us back to the victorian age attitude?

Conservatives push back with ‘war on jobs’ hashtag
Posted at 2:42 pm on May 4, 2012 by Twitchy Staff
http://twitchy.com/2012/05/04/conser...-jobs-hashtag/

Once again, conservatives are doing the media’s job for it and making the best out of depressing news. It’s funny how the bitterly clinging dumb rubes provide teachable moments for the Smarty Pantsers time and time again.

This is no exception. The #waronjobs is helping to relay a little something about which the Democrats aren’t too familiar: Truth. So much for Obama’s “laser-like focus” on jobs, huh?

comments

This is the longest running streak of unemployment above 8 percent since the depression *******.com/6rr8aox

..

550K workers disappeared to "create" 115K new jobs. By a ratio of 5:1, we are losing the #WarOnJobs

...

Remember when the Obama administration said unemployment would be below 6% by now? That was hilarious.

..

Can we go back to the "bad old days" of the "W" administration? People need the work...

..

Obama and the Dems have blocked 28 House-passed jobs bills, including the Keystone XL Pipeline

..

39 straight months of unemployment over 8%. 0bama's #WarOnJobs

..

Fed's John Williams: Many People ‘Are Just Giving Up’ on Looking for Work. #Winning the Recovery

..

"This is not the sub 6% unemployment rate you were looking for." #ProgressiveStarWars #WarOnJobs

..

The "real" unemployment rate is over 20% http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate...loyment-charts

May 4, 2012
Hype, Blame, and "Julia"

Via Jim Geraghty, http://www.nationalreview.com/campai...nge-hype-blame here's an RNC ad that anyone with a functioning truth receptor in his brain will find effective. Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of people out, and some of them vote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXUz1...layer_embedded

I heard a guy on Hannity yesterday trying to defend Obama's record. He couldn't come up with a single specific thing Obama has done to improve anything. At one point the poor schmuck resorted to "He's making a brighter future for America." Reality-based arguments can't break through the kind of barriers some people have erected in their minds. Facts, reason, and even one's own deteriorating personal circumstances will barely make a dent.

And then there are the people who positively crave the "security" of giant, smothering government. Barack Obama knows they're out there. If you missed the explosion of conservative reaction to Candidate Obama's Colorforms story of cradle-to-grave dependency, here are a few excerpts to catch you up on the "Life of Julia":

Naked DC: http://nakeddc.com/2012/05/03/who-is...r-all-her-sht/

Frequent attempts by conservatives to put the works of great libertarian thinkers into an accessible medium have resulted in Atlas Shrugged being filmed using three cameras and a cast of people they found in a Wendy’s. But leave it to Barack Obama to unintentionally explain to America what life is like when you’re entirely dependent on government welfare with a twee cartoon that is designed to simultaneously terrify women, young people and the elderly into believing Mitt Romney’s plan for America involves dropping them off at the edge of the Grand Canyon and explaining that everyone with a problem is required to jump.

David Harsanyi: Who the hell is "Julia," and why am I paying for her whole life? http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=51265

Let's, for the purposes of this post, set aside the misleading generalizations regarding policy in the ad (no one is innocent on that account, obviously). What we are left with is a celebration of a how a woman can live her entire life by leaning on government intervention, dependency and other people's money rather than her own initiative or hard work. It is, I'd say, implicitly un-American, in the sense that it celebrates a mindset we have -- outwardly, at least -- shunned.

It is also a mindset that women should find offensively patronizing. When they're old enough, I hope my two daughters will find the notion that their success hinges on the president's views on college-loan interest rates preposterous. Yet, according to the "Life of Julia," women are helpless without the guiding hand of Barack Obama.

Julia can enroll in a Head Start program to help get her ready for school. Because of steps President Obama has taken to improve the program … Julia can take the SATs because she was trained by the useless “Race to the Top” program, yes, implemented by President Obama … During college, Julia undergoes surgery, which is thankfully covered by her insurance due to parents' coverage until she turns 26 … thanks to Obama.

Julia works as a full-time web designer, and thanks to Obamacare, her health insurance is required to cover birth control and preventive care, "letting Julia focus on her work rather than worry about her health..."

...because children are bad for your health, obviously.

And so on and so forth.

James Taranto: The Lonely Life of Julia http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...840908318.html

The most shocking bit of the Obama story is that Julia apparently never marries. She simply "decides" to have a baby, and Obama uses other people's money to help her take care of it. Julia doesn't appear to be poor; at various points the story refers to her glamorous career as a Web designer, and it makes no mention of her benefiting from poverty programs like Medicaid or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

In 1999 Lionel Tiger coined the word "bureaugamy" to refer to the relationship between officially impoverished mothers of illegitimate children and the government. "The Life of Julia" is an insidious attack on the institution of the family, an endorsement of bureaugamy even for middle-class women.

Ed Morrissey takes a more realistic view of Julia’s life: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/0...ence-of-julia/

3 years old – Julia gets a new-and-improved Head Start, which a new HHS study shows won’t do anything for her anyway. http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/1...bad-bad-thing/

17 years old – Race to the Top improves Julia’s SAT scores. Is there any evidence at all to support that argument? Even so, she’s down the list from all of the home-schooled children and the charter- and private-school students who actually got an education rather than an NEA indoctrination. However, thanks to the NEA indoctrination, Julia is now better prepared for a life on the government dole.

18 years old – Julia’s family qualifies for a $10,000 tuition tax credit spread out over four years, while Obama’s student-loan subsidies drive tuition costs up even faster.

22 years old – Julia undergoes surgery, which has to be funded by her parents’ employers despite Julia being an adult, and which will be most likely delayed as providers decline in number thanks to the economics of ObamaCare.

23 years old — Thanks to the Lily Ledbetter Act, trial attorneys get rich by filing lawsuits against employers that otherwise wouldn’t have been brought, leaving fewer resources to hire Julia. No college job for our intrepid Julia!

25 years old – Julia finally gets her 4-year degree in seven years, thanks to the inability to handle the tuition bubble and the lack of work. However, the good news is that the $200,000 in student loans will only hang over her head for 20 years, while taxpayers like Julia end up paying for the costs of default.

And so on. Along the same lines, only grimmer, Kevin Williamson:


Alas, Team Obama has omitted a few milestones from the life of Julia: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...n-d-williamson

4 months: Julia’s mother decides that giving birth will be hard on her figure. She kills Julia. Under Barack Obama, her right to do so is absolutely nonnegotiable.

10 years: Trapped in a failing and dangerous public school, Julia (another Julia, not the dead one) is terrified and miserable. Under the Obama administration, protecting the government education monopoly from competition and accountability is almost as sacrosanct as abortion. School-choice programs are severely constrained or eliminated. Julia falls behind. [. . .]

23 years: Being a bartender, Julia works late at night. Under Obama, the federal government supports laws that make it difficult or impossible for a private citizen to own a gun in many places. Leaving her bar one night, the defenseless Julia is killed in the street. Ironically, the gun used to kill her was sold to a Mexican drug cartel under a program run by President Obama’s Department of Justice.

Barack Obama has said that entitlement programs have made America a great country. http://nation.foxnews.com/budget-bat...-america-great

Let's hope a majority of voters don't agree with him.


http://www.punditandpundette.com/201...and-julia.html

Obama: Reliance On Gov't Makes America Great
http://nation.foxnews.com/budget-bat...-america-great

By Fred Lucas, CNSNews.com

In his major fiscal address today, which called for tax increases, military budget cuts, and entitlement reforms, President Barack Obama said government entitlements make America great.

“‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ we say to ourselves, and so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, and those with disabilities,” Obama said. “We are a better country because of these commitments. I’ll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments.”

http://nation.foxnews.com/budget-bat...-america-great

In listless April jobs figures, Obama plays up ‘good news’
By Olivier Knox - White House Correspondent - The Ticket – 8 hrs ago

President Barack Obama on Friday emphasized the "good news" in the otherwise dreary April 2012 jobs figures: a drop in the national unemployment rate from 8.2 percent to 8.1 percent. "The unemployment rate ticked down again," the president said in a speech to a raucous and friendly crowd of students at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va. "So after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, our businesses have now created more than 4.2 million new jobs over the last 26 months—more than 1 million jobs in the last six months alone. So that's the good news."

But the good news isn't all that rosy. The economy created just 115,000 jobs last month, below expectations, and the slight ebb in the unemployment rate was chiefly due to people giving up on looking for work—and therefore no longer being counted in the figure. "There are still a lot of folks out of work, which means that we've got to do more," said Obama, whose re-election hopes will turn on voters' perceptions of the economy. "If we're going to recover all the jobs that were lost during the recession, and if we're going to build a secure economy that strengthens the middle class, then we're going to have to do more."

The president, under heavy fire from Republicans who charge that his policies have not done enough to spur the sluggish recovery, pushed lawmakers to pass parts of his jobs plan. "My message to Congress is going to be, just saying 'no' to ideas that will create new jobs is not an option. There's too much at stake for us not to all be rowing in the same direction," he said. Obama also encouraged lawmakers to approve White House-backed legislation to prevent interest rates on a popular kind of student loan from doubling come July 1—and invited the students to take to social media to help. "I want you to send a message to Congress. Tell them, 'Don't double my rate,'" he said. "You should call them, you should email them, write on their Facebook page, tweet them. Teach your parents how to tweet."

House Republicans have passed their version of the bill, which Obama opposes because it is paid for by tapping into a preventative health care fund in his landmark health care law.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/l...185133333.html

comments

Obama has done nothing but lie to the American people since he began his political career. Since he became POTUS, he's gotten worse. U-6 unemployment figures (TRUE) remains at 14.6%. Nearly 28 million out of work, 45 million on Obama stamps. Obama adopts Nazi Socialist word "Forward" for his campaign slogan and will begin his re-election campaign officially on May 5, 2012 - Karl Marx's birthdate, a man he admired as a Muslim student in the Indonesian Madressa. Obama's Socialist/Marxist/Communist agenda is in place and will finish the destruction of the U.S.A. under his authoritarian dictatorship if reelected.

////

Worse. 88 MILLION Americans are NOT in the work force. It's easy to have "low" unemployment rates when you don't count the unemployed.


Romney’s job creation goal: 4 percent unemployment and 500,000 jobs per month
By Holly Bailey - Senior Political Reporter - The Ticket – 9 hrs ago

Mitt Romney slammed President Obama over a new labor report Friday that found the economy had added just 115,000 jobs last month, suggesting the country's 8.1 percent unemployment is "not a cause for celebration."

But in using the numbers to attack Obama's handling of the economy, Romney also revealed some potentially troublesome benchmarks for what job creation would look like if he were elected to the White House.

Speaking at a concrete company outside Pittsburgh, Romney trashed the news from the April jobs report. While he noted that the country's 8.1 percent unemployment rate was actually down slightly from March, the presumptive Republican nominee pointed out that was because many people had given up looking for work. "Just this morning there was some news that came across the wire that said that the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.1 percent and normally that would be cause for celebration, but, in fact, anything over 8 percent, anything near 8 percent anything over 4 percent is not cause for celebration," Romney declared.

But Romney's embrace of the 4 percent metric could be problematic. The last time the country's unemployment rate was that low was in December 2000.

But that's not the only benchmark Romney set today. In an interview on Fox News, Romney suggested the country should be seeing a growth of 500,000 jobs per month—nearly four times the job growth numbers the country experienced last month. "We should be seeing numbers in the 500,000 jobs created per month," Romney told Fox News. "This is way, way, way off from what should happen in a normal recovery. … This is not progress. This is very, very disappointing."

But as the New York Times' Peter Baker points out, the country has met that level of job creation in a single month just five times in the last 50 years—including just once each under Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/r...181531825.html

It can be done, he will probably use the John F. Kennedy model to do it (as Reagan did): "The paradoxical truth is that the tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now." - John F. Kennedy