A Second Term Will Be Terminal

AmSpect:

Another four years of Obamanomics and Argentina will be crying for us.

With a second term for Obama, the world-leading America we have known and hoped to leave to our children will be gone. Last Friday's jobs report confirms that Obama is well on his way to transforming America into a third world country, with declining living standards and perpetual economic stagnation.

Argentina enjoyed the world's fourth highest per capita GDP in 1929, on par with America at the time. But then the nation lost its way in embracing a leftist, union allied government, which took control of the economy and imposed wildly irresponsible taxes, spending, deficits, and debt. After World War II, the hugely popular Juan Peron came to power and institutionalized the madness. It has been all downhill for Argentina ever since. Do you recognize the pattern?

Today, Argentina ranks 53rd in the world in per capita GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund, 57th in the CIA World Factbook, at a level less than one third that of America. But its national debt at 51% of GDP is actually less than that of the United States under the Obama administration, where we are rocketing towards 100% of GDP by the end of this year, and 200% in 25 years, according to CBO.

The Worst Economic Recovery Since the Great Depression: Confirmed

Last Friday's jobs report indicated the most commonly cited U3 unemployment rate remains stuck at 8.2%. That makes 41 straight months of unemployment over 8%, which the Joint Economic Committee of Congress confirms is the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression almost 75 years ago. The total number of Americans unemployed actually rose over the last 3 months by 76,000, 54 months after the recession started, and 3 years after it was supposedly over. Since the Great Depression, and before this last recession, recessions in America have lasted 10 months on average, with the longest previously lasting 16 months.

Indeed, the last time before Obama that unemployment was even over 8% was December 1983, when Reaganomics was bringing it down from the Keynesian fiasco of the 1970s. It didn't climb back above that level for 25 years, a generation, which is a measure of the spectacular success of Reaganomics. That success was centrally based on reducing tax rates, which our ignorant Marxist President says was tried but didn't work.

Moreover, Obama's June unemployment rate was not much, much higher only because over 7.2 million working people have given up even looking for work as a hopeless waste of time under President Obama, so they are not counted as unemployed in the U3 unemployment rate. Including these workers, who still exist and still do not have jobs, the unemployment rate would be 11%.

Besides the 12.7 million Americans who are counted as unemployed, another 8.2 million were employed part-time for economic reasons. "These individuals were working part-time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job," the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported. Another 2.5 million workers were marginally attached to the labor force, as they "wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months," but "[t]hey were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the [prior] 4 weeks."

That leaves the total army of the unemployed and underemployed at 23.4 million Americans. Counting these workers, the BLS reports the U6 unemployment rate as rising to 14.9% in June. If we add in the long-term discouraged workers that the BLS does not even count anymore, the Shadow Government Statistics website reports the total unemployment rate increasing to 22.8% in June.

In contrast, Obama promised us when he first entered office that if his nearly $1 trillion in stimulus spending passed, the unemployment rate would never exceed 8%, and would decline to 5.8% by May of this year, when in reality it was 8.2% and rising that month. The peak of the Obama Presidency came in February 2009, his first month in office, which is the last time he said something correct about the economic recovery, predicting to Matt Lauer on national television, "If I don't have this done in three years, then this is going to be a one-term proposition." We are now well past Obama's own self-imposed deadline.

The unemployment rate for African -Americans actually rose last month to 14.4%, and it has remained at such depression era levels for Obama's entire Presidency. Hispanics have suffered double digit unemployment throughout Bush's Presidency as well, at 11% again last month. For teenagers, the rate last month stood at 23.7%. For black teenagers, unemployment rose last month to 39.3%. For Hispanic teenagers, the unemployment rate rose to 31%.

Friday's labor report further indicated that the jobs picture has only been worsening under Obamanomics. A million more workers were suffering long-term unemployment of 27 weeks or longer in June than at the supposed end of the recession 3 years ago. Moreover, the median length of unemployment had risen to 19.8 weeks in June compared to 17.2 when the recession supposedly ended.

How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

Obama tells us that the 80,000 jobs created last month (25,000 were mere temp jobs) were "a step in the right direction." A very tiny baby step at best, as the working age population grew by 191,000 in the same month. Moreover, 85,000 went on the disability rolls during the month, fleeing the Obama economy for their only alternative, taxpayer dependency. Another 275,000 applied for disability during the month.

Obama's chief economic policy advisor Alan Krueger actually boasted that private sector jobs have grown for "28 straight months for a total of 4.4 million payroll jobs during that period." But at the same point during the Reagan recovery, the economy had created 9.5 million new jobs.

Krueger thinks we are too stupid to know that job growth is the norm and not the exception for the American economy. In the 62 years from the end of World War II in 1945 until 2008, jobs grew in 86% of the months, or 640 out of 744. His statement is just a further example of the Obama administration's practice of Calculated Deception.

Reagan's recovery produced job growth in 81 out of its first 82 months, with 20 million new jobs created in those first 7 years alone, increasing the civilian work force at the time by 20%. That grew into 50 million new jobs over the entire Reagan 25 year boom from 1982 to 2007. Compare that to the disgrace of Obamanomics. While Obama tries to claim 4.4 million new jobs created, total jobs today are still half a million less than in January 2009 when he entered office. Even George Bush oversaw 52 consecutive months of job growth, including 8 million new jobs created after his 2003 capital gains and dividends tax rate cuts became effective (which Obama is dedicated to reversing).

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