Speaking at a high school in Arlington, Va., Obama called the report “good news,” yet stuck to his long-time argument that more federal help is needed to fully recover from the financial meltdown that happened almost four years ago. He criticized House Republicans for not reaching an agreement with Democrats on stopping interest rates on government subsidized student loans from doubling.I fear for us all if Obama gets re-elected.
This is the Obama economy. Vote accordingly in Nov.Any way you slice or dice it, the April jobs report was terrible — and terribly disappointing. Employers added just 115,000 workers to their payrolls last month, way below the 180,000 Wall Street economists were expecting. Hiring has now slowed in three straight months. Job growth in March and April averaged 135,000, down from an average 252,000 per month in the three months to February. As IHS Global Insight explains: “Prior job gains at over 200,000 per month were inconsistent with the modest pace of recovery in overall output – GDP was up only 2.2% in the first quarter. It now appears that jobs have decelerated into line with GDP, rather than GDP accelerating to catch up with jobs.”Sure, the official unemployment rate dipped a tenth of a point lower to 8.1%, but that’s only because people continue to drop out of the workforce at an alarming pace. That workforce shrinkage, as measured by the labor force participation rate, totally distorts the true unemployment picture. In fact, the participation rate is now at its lowest level since 1981!
I am hopeful...Skeptical but hopeful.The latest survey of Jewish Americans, conducted March 14-27 by a firm called Knowledge Networks for the American Jewish Committee, shows Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney by a 61%-28% margin. That’s significantly behind Obama’s 78%-21% margin over John McCain among Jewish voters in the 2008 exit poll. …Obama gets 72% of the votes of those most concerned with the health care issue, according to the current AJC survey, and 62% among those most concerned about the economy. But Romney leads Obama among those Jews whose major concern was national security issues (44%-42%) and U.S.-Israel relations (44%-42%). Clearly Obama is losing some Jewish voters on foreign policy issues.
Goldman Sachs is turning increasingly bearish on the U.S. economy, expecting the nation to have added only 125,000 new jobs in April, as the effects of a warm winter, which buoyed employment late last year, wear off.And one strategist believes we will still be "back in the ditch"!
The forecast is far lower than the Reuters estimate of 170,000, and the average 177,250 jobs created every month from December to March. According to a report by the bank’s Chief U.S. Economist Jan Hatzius, the jobs report will be a further sign of a weakening economy, where inventory accumulation has accelerated and final demand growth remains sluggish.
“Real income growth remains soft, partly because of higher energy prices, wealth effects are not yet particularly positive, consumer confidence remains modest, and again some of the recent strength in retail sales probably reflects weather effects,” Hatzius said.
She said she agrees with Goldman economist Jan Hatzius’s forecast of the second half being more “difficult” than the first. “We have seen some deceleration in economic activity” after a mild winter that might have “puffed up” seasonal growth in the first quarter, she said.I don't think we ever left the ditch. Obama and his cronies have just buried the car that much deeper. It will need a wrecker with a big winch to get this car back on the right road.
The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.4 percent since the second half of 2009, which hardly represents a comeback, Stanford University economics professor Ed Lazear said Wednesday.
So what is a sitting President with less than 50% approval for 32 months to do?“The problem is, this is not a recovery at all,” he said on CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report.” “We haven’t made up for the lost ground, and that’s unprecedented.”
Responding to a Hubbard op-ed in the Wall Street Journal — which calculated that the president’s spending plans would require an 11% tax increase on people earning less than $200,000 a year — Mr. Geithner said, “That’s a completely made-up, remarkably hackish observation for an economist.”
Hubbard a hack?
Besides running a highly respected Ivy League business school, he was the chairman of President George W. Bush’s council of economic advisors. He also earned his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard.Those definitely sounds like a hackish credentials to me. The bottom line?
Weekly jobless claims in April are running 20,000 ahead of March. That might mean next week’s employment report will be another disappointment. And over the eleven quarters of the Obama recovery, real GDP has averaged only 2.4%. Compare that to the postwar average of 4.5%, and the tax-cutting Reagan recovery of 6.1%.Obama, Geithner, Holder and as many liberals as possible need to be run from office in Nov. Our future depends on it.
Politics: Perhaps Democrats know something the rest of us don't about Barack Obama's political fortunes. What else explains the increasing numbers who are openly defying the president on two key election issues?Obamacare sound familiar?
Former Alabama Rep. Artur Davis went furthest. "I think the Affordable Care Act is the single least popular piece of major domestic legislation in the last 70 years," he said. "It was not popular when it passed; it's less popular now."70 years? That left a mark.
Obama may have thought he'd cleverly handled the issue by putting it off until next year, and that no one would think to defy his veto threats.
But when Republicans called his bluff with a bill to force a start on construction, 69 Democrats rushed to join them, giving the House bill a veto-proof majority. The Senate bill is just a vote or two away from overcoming a Democratic filibuster.Veto-proof in the House? A few votes short in The Senate? Obama is about to get sent to the corner.
President Obama holds a thin 46 percent to 42 percent lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in a Quinnipiac University national poll released Thursday, even as voters give the Republican a major edge on such key issues as the economy, jobs and gas prices.
The president has a 10-point edge with women voters, 49 percent to 39 percent. But Mr. Romney is viewed as better on a number of pocketbook issues that both sides agree could be critical come November. Voters disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling on the economy by 56 percent to 38 percent.There must be a blonde joke here somewhere...
A recent lengthy report by Reuters confirms what many conservatives have long known: President Obama's promise to create millions of so-called "green jobs" has been a colossal and expensive failure.
1) Since 2009, the wind industry has lost 10,000 jobs, even as the energy capacity of wind farms has almost doubled. By contrast, the oil and gas industry have created 75,000 jobs since Mr. Obama took office.I would be willing to bet those 75,000 oil and gas jobs are right here in North Dakota in the Bakken oilfield.
According to statistics compiled from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by the Tax Foundation, those people making above $50,000 had an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, and carried 93.3 percent of the total tax burden.
In contrast, Americans making less than $50,000 had an effective tax rate of 3.5 percent and their total share of the tax burden was just 6.7 percent.The wealthy don't pay their share?
Americans making more than $250,000 had an effective tax rate of 23.4 percent and their total share of the tax burden was 45.7 percent.One more time...We do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. That problem's name is Barack Obama, vote accordingly Nov. 6 2012.
The choice in this election is between an economy that produces a growing middle class and that gives people a chance to get ahead and their kids a chance to get ahead, and an economy that continues down the road we’re on.Put me in the get ahead crowd.
Obama's ratings suggest we are heading for a potentially very close race in November. For the past 32 months, the full month approval ratings for the president have been remarkably stable, holding to a very narrow range of 44 percent to 49 percent. People seem to have formed an opinion of the president, love him or hate him, and nothing can change their minds. Those who oppose the president tend to feel more strongly about it than those who support him.Romney is up 48% - 43% even with the MSM in full campaign mode for him.
In a hypothetical Election 2012 matchup, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney earns 48% of the vote, while President Obama attracts 43% support. Data released on the first 14 days of April has shown Romney with an advantage five times, Obama with an edge four times and the candidates tied five times.Lovely.
Its not the race war he wants, or the imagined war on women, its the economy stupid.Voters now have more confidence in presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney than in President Obama when it comes to the economy, but on other major issues facing the nation, the two men continue to run nearly even.The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey asks Likely U.S. Voters whom they trust more on five key issues, and when it comes to the economy, 49% say Romney versus 39% who trust the president more. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure.
The number of Americans filing for jobless aid rose last week to the highest level since January, a development that could raise fears the labor market recovery was stalling after job creation slowed in March.President no-fault and his policies can't be involved...
Some economists blamed the Easter holidays for the spike in claims and expected applications to trend lower in coming weeks.
Lovely."It's very difficult to know the extent to which that's driven by seasonal effects from Easter or not," said Eric Green, chief economist at TD Securities in New York.
President Obama, who famously called for tax increases on the wealthy to “spread the wealth around,” denied today that his tax increases on the rich are an attempt to “redistribute wealth.”Mitt is not my first choice, but I would vote twice for him over this creep running the show now.
A pastor who attended the Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House today was wearing a hoodie sweater, apparently in support of Trayvon Martin, the black youth who was killed by George Zimmerman.
The pastor, among many in attendance at the annual East Room event, is not named in the press pool report from the event.Lovely.
