Remember Obama’s ‘The Private Sector’s Doing Fine’ Remark? Manufacturing Just Crashed To Pre-‘Recovery’ Levels

The stink of a double-dip recession is heavy in the air and this time it’s going to take a whole lot more Kool-Aid to blame it on Bush.

But this is getting really wearisome to our messiah.  No matter what you hear, just remember: “The private sector’s doing fine.”

So if you hear something like, oh, say:

The trade group of purchasing managers said its index of manufacturing activity fell to 49.7. That’s down from 53.5 in May. And it’s the lowest reading since July 2009, a month after the Great Recession officially ended. Readings below 50 indicate contraction

and it occurs to you to think, “holy crap.  That sounds like the double-dip recession that conservatives predicted as a result of Obama’s stimulus being a sugar high that ultimately sucked money out of the private sector and then pissed it away on politically-connected government boondoggles.”

You just remember that your messiah said everything is “fine” and you just keep mindlessly supporting Obama.  Oh, and say a dozen “blame Bushes” before you go to bed tonight.

Jul 2, 5:05 PM EDT
US manufacturing shrinks for first time in 3 years
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. manufacturing shrank in June for the first time in nearly three years, adding to signs that economic growth is weakening.

Production and exports declined, and the number of new orders plunged, according to a monthly report released Monday by the Institute for Supply Management.

The slowdown comes as U.S. employers have scaled back hiring, consumers have turned more cautious, Europe faces a recession and manufacturing has slowed in big countries like China.

“This is not good,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at BTIG, an institutional brokerage. Though the report “does not mean recession for the broader economy, it is still a terribly weak number.”

The trade group of purchasing managers said its index of manufacturing activity fell to 49.7. That’s down from 53.5 in May. And it’s the lowest reading since July 2009, a month after the Great Recession officially ended. Readings below 50 indicate contraction.

Economists said the manufacturing figures were consistent with growth at an annual rate of 1.5 percent or less. That would be down from the January-March quarter’s already tepid annual pace of 1.9 percent.

“Our forecast that the U.S. will grow by around 2 percent this year is now looking a bit optimistic,” said Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics.

Stocks fell sharply after the report was released at 10 a.m. But investors appeared to shake off the bad manufacturing news by the end of the day. The Dow Jones industrial average recovered most of its early losses to close down just 8.7 points at 12,871. And broader indexes ended the day up.

Most economists aren’t yet predicting another recession. Though the ISM report suggests manufacturing is contracting, it typically takes a sustained reading below 43 to signal the economy isn’t growing.

Still, U.S. manufacturing, which has helped drive growth since the recession ended, is faltering at a precarious time.

Americans have pulled back on spending, which drives roughly 70 percent of growth. Europe’s economy is likely in recession, which has hurt U.S. exports.

And China’s manufacturing sector grew in June at its slowest pace in seven months, according to a survey released Sunday by the state-affiliated China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

Manufacturing will likely stay weak for the next few months. The ISM’s gauge of new orders, a measure of future activity, plunged from 60.1 to 47.8. That’s the first time it has fallen below 50 since April 2009, when the economy was still in recession.

Fewer new orders reflect growing concerns of businesses. In addition to slower global growth and less spending by U.S. consumers, many companies worry that U.S. lawmakers won’t extend a package of tax cuts at the end of the year.

Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas, said the uncertainty “has left businesses unwilling to invest.”

A gauge of production in the ISM’s survey fell to its lowest level in more than three years.

U.S. factories are also reporting less overseas demand. A measure of exports dropped to 47.5, its lowest level since April 2009.

A gauge of employment edged down but remained at a healthy level of 56.6. That suggests factories may still be adding jobs. Manufacturers have reported job gains for eight straight months.

Overall hiring has slowed sharply this spring. Employers added an average of only 73,000 jobs per month in April and May. That’s much lower than the average of 226,000 added in the first three months of this year. The unemployment rate rose in May to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent, the first increase in a year.

Worries about slowing job growth are outweighing the benefits of lower gas prices. A measure of consumer confidence fell in June for the fourth straight month.

Slower job growth and falling confidence are weighing on consumers’ willingness to spend. Americans cut back on purchases of autos and other long-lasting factory goods in May, the government said Friday.

The sharp drop in U.S. factory activity overshadowed more positive news on housing.

Construction spending rose 0.9 percent in May from April, the Commerce Department said in a separate report Monday. It was the second straight monthly increase, even though the level of spending still isn’t healthy.

The increase was driven by a surge in residential construction. Home sales are up from the same month last year. Mortgage rates are at the lowest levels in history. And prices have begun to stabilize in most markets.

The economy could also get a boost this summer from lower gas prices, which have tumbled more than 60 cents per gallon since peaking in April. The result is that consumers have more money to spend on other goods, from autos and furniture to electronics and vacations, that fuel economic growth.

The article twice mentioned “lower gas prices.”  But why are gas prices lower?  Because the economy sucks which drives down demand.

“Demand is down, which ought to help drive up demand.” 

Just you remember that at least we don’t have that awful George W. Bush.  The unemployment rate was a terrible 5.3 percent:

Thank God those grim days are behind us.

Obama will probably talk about his 27 consecutive months of job growth.  Which is much better than George Bush’s pathetic 52 consecutive months of job growth.

I don’t doubt that Obama is going to blame Europe.  What’s funny, of course, is that Europe is blaming America.  But the bottom line is both Obama and the Europeans want to pile on more debt on top of their already utterly unsustainable debt.

One thing is for sure; Obama will NOT be talking about his shrinking labor participation rate, which has shrunk every year of his presidency and is now the worst its been in over thirty-one years.  Obama won’t talk about the fact that if the same labor participation rate that he inherited from Bush – 65.76 percent – were applied to Obama today, unemployment would actually be about 11.6 percent now.  He won’t talk about the fact that 88 million Americans of working age are out of the work force under his presidency.

He won’t mention any of that because the private sector’s doing fine.

That is an article of faith and if you don’t believe it, you’re a heretic.

And a racist, too.

You Think Obama’s Destruction Of America Is Over? You Aint Seen NOTHING Yet.

Once Obama’s plan begins ruining America, it’s like a tick that bites and digs in so deep you just can’t dig it out without causing a fatal infection.  We’re pretty close to that point right now:

This Economist Is Forecasting A Recession, And He’s Never Been Wrong
TMO ^ | 10-4-2011 | Money Morning

Economics / Double Dip Recession
Oct 04, 2011 – 07:03 AM
By: Money Morning

David Zeiler writes: The U.S. economy is “tipping into a new recession” and there’s nothing President Barack Obama or the U.S. Federal Reserve can do to prevent it, according to Lakshman Achuthan, co-founder of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI).

Now, if you’re wondering why you should believe this prediction ahead of others then there’s something you should know: According to The Economist, Achuthan’s predictions on the direction of economy – either toward recession or recovery – have never been wrong.

“We don’t make false alarms,” Achuthan said, noting that ECRI did not forecast a recession last year when other prognosticators were.

A new recession could topple the stock markets into another deep funk like the one caused by the 2008-2009 downturn when the markets plummeted more than 50%.

The ECRI uses dozens of leading indexes to make its forecasts, and as of last week, Achuthan said those indicators were all pointing to a recession.

“We’re seeing the weakness spread widely,” Achuthan told MarketWatch. “There’s a contagion…that’s not going to be snuffed out. The nature of a recession is not a statistic. It’s a vicious feedback loop. Sales fall, production falls, income falls and that depresses sales. We’re in that and it’s going to run its course.”

Worse still, he doesn’t think any governmental policy changes can prevent it.

“It is not reversible,” Achuthan told Bloomberg Radio. “There is virtually nothing that can be done to avert what is going to happen.”

The ECRI recession forecast landed last week amid some mildly positive economic news – the nation’s gross domestic product for the second quarter was revised up from 1% to 1.3%, and initial jobless claims fell below 400,000 for the first time since early August, to 391,000.

But Achuthan dismissed such data along with sentiment from chief executives who have cited improving revenue and earnings.

“These leading indicators are objective,” Achuthan said on CNBC. “They don’t listen to all the hubbub. They have a certain pattern they present in front of a recession and that is in right now.”

That sentiment mirrors what Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald has been telling investors for weeks. Fitz-Gerald has been warned that the weakening economy will eventually result in a bear market that sends stocks hurling back towards March 2009 lows.

“There’s nothing President Obama or Bernanke can do at this point,” Fitz-Gerald said. “Our debt is once again a problem, our jobs situation stinks, our government is dysfunctional, and then, of course, there’s Europe.”

Prepare for More Recessions

Although it would seem too soon for a recession so quick on the heels of the last one, ECRI pointed out that shorter cycles are actually closer to the historic norm. In the 1799 to 1929 period, ECRI said almost 90% of U.S. economic expansions lasted three years or less.

Based on that, as well as a decades-long pattern of slowing growth and evidence of increasing economic volatility, ECRI predicts recessions will continue to hit more frequently in the years ahead.

When asked how severe this next recession is likely to be, Achuthan said that was “unknowable,” although a major financial shock – such as a Greek default on its sovereign debt – would make things significantly worse.

“Back in the last recession in August of ’08, prior to the Lehman debacle, these indicators were pointing to the worst global recession in 30 years,” Achuthan said. “Then you had Lehman.”

The collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered a global financial crisis that not only intensified that recession, it set the conditions for the weak recovery that followed.

Even absent such a shock, Achuthan predicted this recession will have dire consequences.

“It means the jobless rate, already above 9%, will go much higher, and the federal budget deficit, already above a trillion dollars, will soar,” Achuthan said. “If you think this is a bad economy, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

It’s actually pretty easy to be right 100 percent of the time since Obama took office: simply bet on him create failure and then magnify it into more failure.

The ‘O’ In ‘Obama’ Always Stood For ZERO DAMN JOBS

Happy Labor Day all ye millions of unemployed!!!

Don’t give up!  Keep looking!  The Obama presidency can’t last forever!

The sun will come up in 2012 if you’re not as DUMBASS STUPID AS YOU WERE IN 2008.

The worst jobs report in a year, and the pace of layoffs has dramatically picked up (double-dip alert!): liberals call it “hope and change”; conservatives call it “abject failure.”

I’m sure Obama has some excuse for this.  Maybe “Bush’s dog Barney ate my dog’s job plan.”

“ZERO” stands for “ZERO JOBS CREATED.” 

I couldn’t resist adding my own running commentary in bracketed italics.

August jobs report shows no net gain
By MACKENZIE WEINGER | 9/2/11 8:38 AM EDT Updated: 9/2/11 4:54 PM EDT

This is not what President Barack Obama wanted to hear.
 
In its weakest jobs report in a year, the Labor Department announced Friday that the sputtering economy added no net jobs in August, while the nation’s 9.1 percent unemployment rate remained unchanged.

Obama, who will deliver what the White House is billing as a major jobs speech Thursday to a joint session of Congress, did not comment on the disappointing and unexpected numbers. [They said “unexpected” again; media bias alert!  Drink!]  He had no public appearances scheduled and left Friday for Camp David for the weekend.

Katherine Abraham, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, stressed that “it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report” because of regular fluctuations in employment figures. [That’s because, um, all the other months of employment figures were all just gosh darn wonderful, you see].

“Clearly, faster growth is needed to replace the jobs lost in the downturn,” she said in a statement.  [Bush’s fault alert.  We need four more years of blaming Bush, because while we don’t have any actual plan that will work, we still have all kinds of cynical-socialist-comic-tested “Bush’s fault” lines left in our arsenal]. “Today’s report underscores the president’s call for Congress to pass a clean extension of the transportation bill to keep workers on the job and keep critical highway construction, bridge repair, mass transit and other important projects moving forward.”  [i.e., the worse Obama fails, the more his next idiot plan should be trusted and followed.  Because what are the odds his next plan will be as big of a failure as his last three?].

Abraham added, “Next week, the president will lay out a series of additional bipartisan steps that Congress can take immediately to put more money in the paychecks of working and middle-class families, to make it easier for small businesses to hire workers, to put construction crews to work rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, and other measures that will help the economy grow while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order.”  [Is it just me, or does this sound EXACTLY THE SAME AS DEMOCRTS SAID ABOUT THE FAILED $862 BILLION STIMULUS “SHOVEL-READY” BOONDOGGLE?].

The dismal jobs report sparked new fears of a recession and sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting at the market’s opening, dropping more than 200 points in the first few minutes of trading and closing down 253 points for the day. [HAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAAAAHA! Alert.  The more Obama destroys America, the wealthier “the fool” who bet everything he had that Obama would be the ruin of America will get].

The employment figures were the weakest since September 2010, when there was a slight decline in the number of jobs created, The Associated Press said.

[…]

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday that although she is disappointed in the jobs numbers, she remains “very optimistic” and confident in the administration’s ability to boost job growth.  [KoolAid alert regarding a KoolAid addict].

“I’m not happy with the jobs report — that’s evident,” Solis said, adding she still believed the country is “going in the right direction.” “We can do better, and that’s why the president says let’s get to work on it. The public is frustrated. We need cooperation by this Congress.”

The Labor Department’s report was crammed with bleak data.

Private payrolls increased only 17,000 in August after climbing by 156,000 in July. Government employment shrunk by 17,000, the 10th straight monthly drop, and that decline was eased somewhat by the return of 23,000 state workers in Minnesota after a government shutdown ended.

Hiring declined across many different economic sectors. Manufacturers slashed 3,000 jobs while construction companies, retailers and transportation firms also cut workers.

The African-American unemployment rate shot up to 16.7 percent from 15.9 percent in July, underscoring recent complaints from black lawmakers that Obama needs to do more to provide jobs for African-Americans.  [I told you so! I TOLD YOU SO! Alert]

One of the only bright spots was the health care industry, which added 30,000 jobs last month.

In another bad sign for the economy, the length of the average workweek also fell slightly in August from 34.3 hours in July to 34.2 hours. Analysts had been hoping to see it lengthen, which would indicate employers were preparing to hire more workers. Average hourly earnings shrank by 0.1 percent.

Friday’s report came in far below expectations. Experts had forecast that between 60,000 and 100,000 jobs would be created.

Some analysts said the weak jobs report will raise the political pressure on the Federal Reserve Bank to undertake more drastic measures to boost the economy at its meeting later this month. The Fed could do that with a third round of a controversial measure known as “quantitative easing,” which is a way for it to essentially pump money into the economy by buying bank assets. [That Aint Good Alert.  Please curl up into a fetal position, start sucking your thumb, and then watch this Youtube video.  We’re about two more quantitative easings away from collapse].

“This month’s report may be bad enough to inspire the Fed to action,” said Jason Schenker, the president of Prestige Economics.

Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American for Manufacturing, issued a statement calling the jobs report a “disaster.”

“If we aren’t headed toward a double-dip recession, we are getting very close indeed,” he said. “The time for jobs speeches and assigning blame for the state of our economy has long since passed. We need aggressive policies right now to create jobs in America.”

Adding to the worsening picture, the Labor Department revised figures released Friday for previous months, showing that the economy added 85,000 jobs in July after the department had originally pegged the number at 117,000.  [Of course these figures are correct; they came from the GOVERNMENT alert].

Also, 20,000 net jobs were added in June — a figure the department revised down from its original 46,000 estimate for that month.

In February, March and April, jobs growth averaged about 200,000 each month.

Since May 2009, in all but two months, the unemployment rate has held above 9 percent. According to some estimates, 250,000 or more jobs need to be created every month in order to push the rate below 8 percent by the time of the 2012 election. [Aint Gonna Happen alert].

[…]

In December 2008, “celebrating” Obama’s election over “God Damn America!”, I wrote an article entitled, “Why we should Be Seriously Contemplating The Great Depression.”  Now, you examine Barack Obama’s promises, and you consider my prediction, and you tell me WHO WAS RIGHT?!?!?

In October 2008 [DON’T BLAME ME! I TRIED TO WARN YOU FOOLS!!!], I wrote an article that included this rather astonishing result from CEO Magazine, as CEOs said:

“I’m not terribly excited about McCain being president, but I’m sure that Obama, if elected, will have a negative impact on business and the economy,” said one CEO voicing his lack of enthusiasm for either candidate, but particularly Obama.

In expressing their rejection of Senator Obama, some CEOs who responded to the survey went as far as to say that “some of his programs would bankrupt the country within three years, if implemented.” In fact, the poll highlights that Obama’s tax policies, which scored the lowest grade in the poll, are particularly unpopular among CEOs.

In November of 2008 – after America made the stupidest decision in its national history – I pointed out that America may well be headed for FOOD RIOTS by 2012.  Now you damned by God to hell liberals rub your blank, empty, deluded eyeballs and look around. Take a moment to try – just TRY – to let reality filter through your asinine and depraved worldview and consider WHO WAS RIGHT.  BECAUSE WE’RE ALREADY ON THE VERGE OF FOOD RIOTS!  THEY ARE HAPPENING ALL OVER THE WORLD RIGHT NOW AS THE OBAMA FED’S DEMONIC POLICIES DESTROY THE VALUE OF THE U.S. DOLLAR AND THE SAVINGS VALUE OF EVERYONE WHO HOLDS IT.

The biggest laugh of all is that Obama – who said he had a plan; then went on vacation; then had no plan and had to scramble to come up with one; then called a joint session of Congress reserved for wars and for State of the Union addresses which by some “coincidence” was timed for the exact date and time of the planned GOP presidential debate; NOW SAYS HIS STUPID SPEECH WON’T AMOUNT TO MUCH MORE THAN SQUAT AFTER ALL:

In what could be a way of lowering expectations for next Thursday’s big economic speech, aides to President Obama are privately spreading word that he will not present his entire jobs plan in his address to a Joint Session of Congress.

Aides say Thursday’s speech will be part of a bigger plan the White House will roll out throughout the fall with the president hitting the road for speeches and town hall appearances. Aides have already confirmed that Obama will be traveling to California, Colorado, and Washington state for one three-day swing later this month that will include economic events as well as some fundraising.

Would you like a preview about Obama’s speech from a man who has just demonstrated that he’s been right all along about the ruin this fool would be for America?

Obama will announce a bunch of already-failed “solutions” whose previous attempts already put us in the vice-grip of national pain we’re all squirming in, which will have no chance whatsoever of passing through the Congress.  In point of fact, several of the things Obama will be proposing were actually rejected last year by the DEMOCRATS who were in total control of both the House AND the Senate –

[From MSNBC]: “McConnell said any tax increase or new spending would be counterproductive to economic recovery, and he pointed out that Democrats had been unable to pass tax increases on the wealthy when they controlled both chambers of Congress last year. Last November’s election resulted in the Republicans regaining control of the House of Representatives and reducing the Democrats’ Senate majority.”

– which is another way of pointing out that only a demagogue fool would trot them out now.  The Democrat-controlled House and Senate also refused to pass quite a few EPA and numerous other regulatory measures that Obama simply imposed by acts of executive tyranny.

Obama doesn’t give one flying damn about the suffering and misery he has inflicted; all he cares about is his OWN damn job.  And he will try to set up a narrative in which he calls for big “hope and change,” and the Republicans refuse to support him [Republicans are “terrorists” alert], and will run on the story that he had all the ideas which would have worked [even though they ALREADY FAILED WHEN THEY WERE ALREADY TRIED] as he spends a billion dollars demonizing his opponents trying to get re-elected.

It’s not enough to say that Obama’s liberal policies have failed; THEY HAVE FAILED EVERY DAMN TIME THEY HAVE EVER BEEN TRIED, FROM FDR TO CARTER TO OBAMA.

2012 is America’s last chance, if it isn’t already too late.  We’re either going to vote to sweep in conservatives, or we are going to vote for national suicide and for the starvation of our children.  It’s up to you.

Articulate Incompetent Obama Leads Nation To Great Depression Unemployment Levels

Robert Blagojevich – the brother of Democrat Governor Blagojevich – labeled Jesse Jackson Jr. as an “articulate incompetent” (actually a “f-ing articulate incompetent”).  That label couldn’t suit Barry Hussein better.

Barack Obama is a complete failure.  He’s an utter disgrace.  But he’s an articulate failure and utter disgrace.  Which means he’s always smooth-talking, always using disingenuous and dishonest rhetoric to conceal or camouflage his failure.

As an example, Obama is out on the stump saying:

“And I do want to point out, when you get in your car, when you go forward, what do you do? You put it in ‘D.’ When you want to go back, what do you do? (Laughter.) You put it in ‘R.’  We won’t  want to go into reverse back in the ditch. We want to go forwards. We got to put it in ‘D.’ (Applause.) Can’t have the keys back.” (Laughter.)

That’s quite rhetorically clever.  It’s so articulate.  It’s also substantially utterly meaningless.

Putting facts to the rhetoric doesn’t look so good for Obama.  George Bush “handed Obama the keys” with unemployment two full points lower and with the deficit trillions of dollars lower.  Would I rather have Obama’s 9.5% unemployment – which as bad as it is is artificially low because of all the people who’ve dropped out of the job market, and which is now forecasted to up to 10% and remain there next year – or would I rather put the car in ‘R’ and go back to Bush’s worst unemployment rate of 7.6%?

We’re going to have a double dip recession – and which president is responsible for that second giant scoop of pain which will occur ENTIRELY on Obama’s watch?  Goldman analyst Jan Hatzius and his team just lowered their GDP forecast for 2011 from 2.5% to a dismally pathetic 1.9%, increased their unemployment forecast from 9.8% to 10.0%, boosted their inflation expectation from 0.4% to 1.0%, and said that the rather frightening Fed scenario known as “QE lite” is now on the table.

Specifically, the Goldman analysis says:

“As a result of this downgrade, we now expect the jobless rate to rise to 10% by early 2011 and remain there for the rest of the year.”

Does that make you want to put the car in ‘D,’ dumbass (which is another thing that ‘D’ stands for, for what it’s worth)?  We can see the cliff, but it’s full speed ahead with the turbochargers blazing.

In this case, “forward” leads to screaming-in-pain hell.

Obama says that Republicans don’t have “a single, solitary new idea” to help the American people recover from the economic recession.  Which takes a lot of chutzpah, given that Obama’s “new ideas” date back to 1848 and Karl Friggin Marx.  And the very newest “new ideas” of all date back to the colossal failure otherwise known as Jimmy Carter.  It’s not enough to say that Obama is throwing stones in a glass house; he’s using a machine gun to blast out every pane in the building.

Obama is quite “articulate” at fearmongering, race-baiting, slandering, demagoguing and demonizing his opponents.

But that kind of crap is all Obama’s got.  He’s incompetent at everything else.  As a matter of simple routine, we receive massively conflicting and contradictory messages from this White House.  On Wall Street.  On Afghanistan.  On health care.  On Iran.  On Everything.  Other than that, the first president of “God damn America!” is an utter disgrace.

So let’s look past the Obama rhetoric and look at the hard facts.

Losing is the New Winning

By: Larry Walker, Jr.

According to today’s Employment Status Report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveals that as of July 31, 2010 there were 857,000 fewer persons employed than there were in July of 2009. Yet from Barack’s glass bubble, it sounded like all is well. Sure, his chief economist, Christina Romer just resigned, but that’s no cause for concern. The latest from Obama is that ‘private employment has increased every month’ during 2010. Really? Does that mean there are more jobs today than there were yesterday?

Following is my latest presidential scorecard, based purely on official BLS data:

Obama was quick to take credit for the false increase in overall employment, earlier this year, when the U.S. Census Bureau hired 500,000 temporary workers, but now that they’re all gone he’s been slow to acknowledge the true situation. According to the BLS there were 139.8 million Americans employed in July of 2009, and 138.9 million employed in July of 2010. That’s a decline of 857,000 jobs over the past 12 month’s. There has actually been a steady, and progressive, decline in civilian employment for the past year, but you know, Obama doesn’t have time to look at facts and figures.

When G.W. Bush entered office in January of 2001, there were 136.8 million jobs. When he left office in December of 2008, there were 145.3 million jobs. When Obama entered office in January of 2009, there were 145.3 million jobs. As of July 31st of this year, there were 138.9 million jobs. So when we do the math, there are now 6.4 million fewer jobs than there were when Obama entered office in January of 2009. That’s reality. That’s what it feels like on the ground. Obama is losing, and losing big. And in his losing, he’s dragging America and the Democrat party along for the ride.

Is this what success looks like in the minds of progressive Democrats? Is losing the new winning? If so, Obama is certainly leading the pack. It’s time to throw the bum(s) out!

Just so you know that I’m not making this stuff up, here’s a snapshot of the latest BLS report:

Sources:

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employment Situation 8/6/2010

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Historical Data

Related:

Obama on Jobs: Fool Me Thrice

Obama on Jobs: Worst Track Record in History

Recovery (dot) Fail Not Jobs

The labor force has never decreased since World War II – and it has now decreased for two years in a row under the worst failure in American history.

We have one chance, and only one chance, to avoid a Great Depression.  And that is to elect a Republican House of Representatives and a Republican Senate.

Bill Clinton gets all the credit for being the economic genius who gave us incredible economic growth by the mainstream media.  But if that’s so, why was he smacked down with the biggest political landslide in American history, when Republicans came from out of nowhere to retake both the House and the Senate in 1994?  And why was it that it was only AFTER the Republicans took control of Congress that we began to see the positive economic developments?

Read my article on the subject for why the credit for the “Clinton Economy” belongs with the Republicans in Congress.  It is Congress which enacts budgets, and it is Congress alone which has the authority to spend.

It is also Congress alone which can check a foolish, incompetent, and out-of-control president.

‘Transparency’ In Action: Obama Blocks Media To Conceal Failures

Let’s see.  Hope?  No freaking way.  Change?  Yes, but it’s really, really BAD change.  Even die hard and hard-core liberals like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman are predicting that Obamanomics are leading us into a double-dip recession IF we’re lucky enough to avoid a depression. Transparency?

Ooh, boy.

Afghan violence is soaring.  Obama’s own handpicked general is saying that the president is overwhelmed and unprepared, and that his civilian leadership team is a bunch of incompetent clowns.  All the evidence indicates that Obama is massively failing in Iraq.

What should he do?

Well, he should do the same thing in Afghanistan that he’s going to do about all his calamitous failures in the Gulf of Mexico.

He’s going to make sure that the media doesn’t have a chance to report the truth about what a failure he is at everything he touches.

Obama is going to clamp down on senior military commanders’ access to the media.  Oh, that directive has NOTHING to do with the McChrystal fiasco, just as my writing this article on Obama banning the media has nothing whatsoever to do with the new media ban policy.

From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday issued a directive to all senior Pentagon military and civilian officials saying their dealing with the media “has grown lax” in recent months and ordering them to get approval for all engagements with the press through his office.

The directive, a two-page memo signed by Mr. Gates, comes just days after Gen. Stanley McChrystal was fired as commander in Afghanistan for intemperate remarks made to Rolling Stone magazine. The existence of the directive was reported by the New York Times and a copy was obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

Despite the timing, Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said it had been in the works for months before Gen. McChrystal’s firing. “This memo was written well before that,” Mr. Morrell said. “He thinks the department has been much too cavalier with its handling of the press.”

Now, you’d THINK they’d just admit the obvious and say, “That McChrystal thing was a real disaster, and we need to try to prevent something that disgraceful from happening again.”  But this is the most pathologically dishonest administration in history.  It’s like they have a perfect record on lying, and they’re not going to break it by telling the truth now.

This just goes back to Rahm Emanuel’s “Never let a crisis go to waste” mindset.

This is an administration that is so hostile to actual transparency that it has actually closed workshops on government openness to the public and blocked the press from attending transparency and accountability board meetings.

On front after front, this is the most opaque administration ever.  They block themselves off from media accountability even as they pat themselves on the back for their transparency.

This is the kind of administration that claims that it is advancing the will of the people when they are cynically defying and misrepresenting the will of the people.

It’s a constant pattern.  Just today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that Obama has utterly failed at transparency regarding the massive porkulus boondoggle.  What a shock.

In Afghanistan, Obama prevents the military from open access to the press, which means that the military can’t tell us how shockingly incompetent Obama is as commander-in-chief.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Obama would deal with his failure in the
Gulf of Mexico the same way he’s handled everything else.  He has been so pathetically incompetent that there’s a pretty damn good argument that he is stopping the cleanup efforts on purpose.

White House Enacts Rules Inhibiting Media From Covering Oil Spill
By Noel Sheppard
Created 07/03/2010 – 11:28

The White House Thursday enacted stronger rules to prevent the media from showing what’s happening with the oil spill in the Gulf Coast.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported that evening, “The Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches — 65 feet.”

He elaborated, “Now, in order to get closer, you have to get direct permission from the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans. You have to call up the guy. What this means is that oil-soaked birds on islands surrounded by boom, you can’t get close enough to take that picture.”

You’ve got CNN and Anderson Cooper – both of whom lean reliably to the left – having this to say about Obama’s “transparency”:

“This time, however, we’re not talking about BP. We’re talking about the government, a new a rule announced today backed by the force of law and the threat of fines and felony charges, a rule that will prevent reporters and photographers and anyone else from getting anywhere close to booms and oil-soaked wildlife and just about any place we need to be.”

[…]

We’re not the enemy here. Those of us down here trying to accurately show what’s happening, we are not the enemy. I have not heard about any journalist who has disrupted relief efforts. No journalist wants to be seen as having slowed down the cleanup or made things worse. If a Coast Guard official asked me to move, I would move.

But to create a blanket rule that everyone has to stay 65 feet away boom and boats, that doesn’t sound like transparency. Frankly, it’s a lot like in Katrina when they tried to make it impossible to see recovery efforts of people who died in their homes.

If we can’t show what is happening, warts and all, no one will see what’s happening. And that makes it very easy to hide failure and hide incompetence and makes it very hard to highlight the hard work of cleanup crews and the Coast Guard. We are not the enemy here.

We found out today two public broadcasting journalists reporting on health issues say they have been blocked again and again from visiting a federal mobile medical unit in Venice, a trailer where cleanup workers are being treated. It’s known locally as the BP compound. And these two reporters say everyone they have talked to, from BP to the Coast Guard, to Health and Human Services in Washington has been giving them the runaround.

We’re not talking about a CIA station here. We’re talking about a medical trailer that falls under the authority of, guess who, Thad Allen, the same Thad Allen who promised transparency all those weeks ago.

We are not the enemy here.

Everybody who cares about reality, and everybody who cares about truth, is Obama’s enemy, Anderson.

Obama has a lot to hide.  He’s got a lot to be ashamed of.  He’s failing on so many levels at the same time that no one can even keep track of them all.  The Gulf spill – already the worst in history – could be such a disaster that we might literally be in a “You can’t handle the truth!” moment.  Obama is now the worst president in American history even according to the standards the Democrats used against Bush in 2004.  And all he can do on the economy is keep blaming Bush and keep telling the same failed lie he’s been telling since the American people were stupid enough to hand him the keys to the White House.

All I can do about the Fascist-in-Chief is say those four words: I told you so.

Obama Wreckovery Adding Whopping 260 Jobs PER STATE

Rush Limbaugh made me aware of the math: what’s 13,000 jobs divided by 50 states?  An infinitesimal 260 jobs per state.

So much for Obama’s “recovery.”

And, of course, it gets even worse when you divide that 13,000 jobs by the 57 states that Obama claimed he had visited [I’d forgive him for that if he were born in Kenya; but given that he claims to be a natural-born American, the ’57 states’ thing will always remain an example of the quintessential ignorance about America and everything American of our current president to me].

260 jobs per state.  That’s a record to boast about.  Want to wait in a line to get one of those jobs?

Report: Private sector added only 13,000 jobs in June

The private sector of the U.S. economy added only 13,000 jobs in June, according to ADP employment services, a disappointing number that came in below estimates and portends bad things from the government’s June jobs report due out Friday.

In May, according to ADP, the private sector added 57,000 jobs. But in June? Statistically, across a workforce as big as the United States’? Zero job growth; 13,000 new jobs is a statistically meaningless number.

This is bad news for the economy. If the ADP report is seconded by the Labor Department’s June jobs report, it means that the private sector — which is the engine of growth in this economy, lest we’ve forgotten that, amid all of our various government stimulus programs and subsides — is refusing to add jobs. That means employers are not comfortable enough with their prospects to hire.

In May, according to the government, the economy added more than 440,000 jobs. But almost every one of those was a census worker, jobs that will go away when the count ends in the fall.

Today’s report adds to concerns that the economic recovery is stalling and gives ammunition to the more bearish among us who worry that we’re headed into a double-dip recession.

That “Welcome back, Carter” “malaise” is just an accepted fact from the Obama administration.  They may say something different when they know their statements are going to be publicized, but here’s what they say in private when they think only their worshipers are around:

Vice President Joe Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, “there’s no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession.”

Now, let’s go back to September of last year, when Joe Biden said of the stimulus:

“In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would work this well.”

Now we find that same guy saying all the jobs that were lost are gone forever.  How’s that for the stimulus working beyond your wildest dreams?

Gateway Pundit includes a graph summarizing the results of Obama’s wreckovery:

Let’s see.  Thanks to Obama, taxes on businesses are going to skyrocket – especially the small businesses, who file primarily as individuals and therefore fall prey to Obama’s shocking increases on those earning more than $250,000 a year.  Businesses are being forced to take into account that they won’t have nearly as much money under Obama, and must therefore plan accordingly.

From Politico:

… Obama’s stated plan to raise taxes on households making $250,000 or more in income is a tax increase on small business. The simple answer to this dilemma can be found in the IRS Statistics of Income Bulletin (Table 1.4, for those who are interested).So what do the data say?

In 2006 (the latest year available), $706 billion of such income was reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Of this, about half was reported by households in the top marginal income tax rate. Interestingly, two-thirds of this income was reported by households making $250,000 per year or more — the very same households that Obama wants to increase taxes on.

Intellectually bankrupt liberals are hyping the Marxist class warfare strategy of demonizing businesses.  But when the government taxes businesses and business owners, businesses and those who own them merely a) raise their prices and pass those taxes on to you the customer, and b) invest less and hire less.  And who ends up getting hurt the most?

Thanks to Obama, taxes on those who create wealth and build the economy by investment are going to shelter their money.  Stephen Moore put it this way:

[I]f you think it’s bad this year, you’re right. It’s going to get a whole lot worse next year because the Bush tax cuts expire. That means that we’re going to see an increase in the capital gains tax. We’re going to see an increase in the tax on dividends, perhaps a doubling or tripling of that tax. And then we’re also talking about higher income tax rates next year. So this is going to be a tough year this year, but I think things get a whole lot worse next year as we see rates across the board increase. And let’s not forget, there’s also a lot of talk about a value-added tax on top of all of that. […]

[T]here’s something called the Laffer curve, and that’s especially true with these investment taxes. I think it’s a big mistake to be raising taxes on stocks and investment at the very time we need businesses to be doing more investment. So a lot of economists think we’re going to have a pretty good year this year, in 2010, but once those new taxes kick in, in 2011, might cause a double-dip recession.

Intellectually bankrupt liberals are hyping the Marxist class warfare strategy of demonizing private investors.  But they are trying to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs.  Rich private investors create opportunities for businesses to grow by their investments.  And private investors – who are investing their own money rather than someone else’s as government bureaucrats always do – are rewarding well-run businesses that will make the most of their capital to most effectively expand and create jobs.

If you tax the investments and seize the profits that investors took risks to obtain, then they will risk less and invest less.  It is as simple as that.  You are killing businesses by taking away the investments that sustain their growth.

Thanks to Obama, the cost of providing health care to employees will go up shockingly.  And employers will HAVE to provide health care insurance, or pay fines.

It’s been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.

This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”

Dumbass quiz: do you think that makes a business more or less likely to hire a new employee?

Meanwhile, Obama will massively tax every American by forcing them to buy health insurance, leaving us all with less money to spend purchasing goods and services from businesses.

Thanks to Obama, banks will soon face onerous new regulations that will burden the economy by sustaining the credit crisis:

While certain ramifications of the legislation will only emerge over the coming years, our initial reaction is that this bill will further hinder the U.S. economy’s already fragile recovery. Tough new restrictions on traditional credit products and more onerous capital requirements will further curtail credit availability and product innovation, including affordable credit options designed for higher-risk customer segments. As a result, both industry and economic growth will likely be suppressed for an extended period as banks continue to de-leverage and develop a more thorough understanding of the broad-based structural changes likely to affect the industry in the coming years.

Thanks to Obama, energy will ultimately become far more expensive to already-squeezed businesses.  As Obama taxes productivity, there will be less and less incentive to be productive.

And the added cost to the average household will be some $1,761 a year, leaving us all with less money to spend.  And thus hurting businesses even more.

You add all of these disastrous Obama policies up and you get… absolutely nothing.  At least nothing in terms of jobs.

One day Barack Obama will surely end up in hell, and Karl Marx will say to him, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Failed President Alert: Economists Say Stimulus Did NOT Help

You wouldn’t mind if I took $862 billion dollars of your money – actually $3.27 TRILLION if truth be told – and totally pissed it away, would you?

No, you don’t mind?  Good.  That’s a relief.  I mean, a lot of people would be a little upset that I’d bankrupted the country and ended up with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Obama, the White House, and the Democrats told massive and outrageous lie after massive outrageous lie to sell their load of porkulus crap.  But the American people didn’t believe it: a poll by the New York Times and CBS revealed that only 6% of Americans believed that the Obama stimulus created any jobs at all.

And now the economists are figuring out what the people understood all along:

Economists: The stimulus didn’t help
By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporterApril 26, 2010: 3:56 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The recovery is picking up steam as employers boost payrolls, but economists think the government’s stimulus package and jobs bill had little to do with the rebound, according to a survey released Monday.

In latest quarterly survey by the National Association for Business Economics, the index that measures employment showed job growth for the first time in two years — but a majority of respondents felt the fiscal stimulus had no impact.

NABE conducted the study by polling 68 of its members who work in economic roles at private-sector firms. About 73% of those surveyed said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower as a result of the $787 billion Recovery Act, which the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers says is on track to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year.

That sentiment is shared for the recently passed $17.7 billion jobs bill that calls for tax breaks for businesses that hire and additional infrastructure spending. More than two-thirds of those polled believe the measure won’t affect payrolls, while 30% expect it to boost hiring “moderately.”

But the economists see conditions improving. More than half of respondents — 57% — say industrial demand is rising, while just 6% see it declining. A growing number also said their firms are increasing spending and profit margins are widening.

Nearly a quarter of those surveyed forecast that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, will grow more than 3% in 2010, and 70% of NABE’s respondents expect it to grow more than 2%.

Still, the survey suggested that tight lending conditions remain a concern. Almost half of those polled said the credit crunch hurts their business. To top of page

The Democrat argument is that the economy is doing better; ergo sum the stimulus worked.  The problem is that that’s rather like saying that the economy is doing better; ergo sum the fact that I had a good bowel movement worked.  There’s simply no reason to correlate the one thing with the other.

I would also ask this: name the recession that lasted forever.  The closest we can come is the Great Depression under FDR.  His failed policies prolonged the depression and a lot of needless suffering for seven years.

The other thing I would say is that we are by no means out of the recession that we are in.  There is still abundant evidence to believe that we may very well be headed into a double dip recession – with Obama’s failed policies being completely responsible for that second dip.

Long term, I believe that Obama has doomed this country.  If we can’t undo the damage caused by his ObamaCare boondoggle before it begins to seriously take effect, I think it will amount to the anvil that broke the camel’s back.  And even if we CAN undo ObamaCare, the massive debt this president has imposed on us due to his now demonstrably failed policies will be like a cancer that will eat away at our way of life.

It is possible that there may be a jobless recovery.  But Obama slit the hamstrings of the recovery we COULD have had when he pissed away what will ultimately cost us more than three trillion dollars.  That money – which didn’t create any jobs – is going to consume jobs by way of opportunity costs.  Businesses COULD have used that money to grow and hire; but instead Obama seized it, and poured it down the drain.  And now we get to experience the joys of the gift that keeps on giving as we pay billions of dollars in interest payments, which is money that again COULD have been used to create jobs but never will.

Whether the economy looks a little better or a lot worse than it did, we will not even possibly be able to grow under the massive debt load that Obama has forced upon us with his massively failed stimulus.

We need to hold him accountable for his failure, or he will continue to stockpile one disaster on top of another.

Obama Sets Record With Biggest Deficit In History

The left told us that Obama’s was a historic presidency.  And they were right: he just smashed his own record for massive and totally unsustainable deficits.

Budget deficit sets record in February
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER (AP)

WASHINGTON — The government ran up the largest monthly deficit in history in February, keeping the flood of red ink on track to top last year’s record for the full year.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the February deficit totaled $220.9 billion, 14 percent higher than the previous record set in February of last year.

The deficit through the first five months of this budget year totals $651.6 billion, 10.5 percent higher than a year ago.

The Obama administration is projecting that the deficit for the 2010 budget year will hit an all-time high of $1.56 trillion, surpassing last year’s $1.4 trillion total. The administration is forecasting that the deficit will remain above $1 trillion in 2011, giving the country three straight years of $1 trillion-plus deficits.

The administration says the huge deficits are necessary to get the country out of the deepest recession since the 1930s. But Republicans have attacked the stimulus spending as wasteful and a failure at the primary objective of lowering unemployment.  [Editorial note: The Republicans are right, and the American people know it.  The stimulus is a gigantic porker which was recently upgraded as costing a massive $862 billion from the previous estimate of $787 billion.  But the real cost is actually $3.27 TRILLION!!! And contrary to Obama’s utterly false claims, only SIX PERCENT of Americans believe that the stimulus has created any jobs at all].

The administration defends the economic stimulus bill that Congress passed in February 2009 with a pricetag at the time of $787 billion as the right medicine to get the economy back on its feet. President Barack Obama has said even more is needed to battle an unemployment rate that remained stuck in February at 9.7 percent.  [Editorial note: When Obama was elected, unemployment was at 6.6%.  He promised that his stimulus would prevent unemployment from reaching 8%.  The stimulus failed by Obama’s own standard.  To try to explain away the failure of his policy, Obama created the nonexistent category of “saved jobs.”  But economists point out the following: “One can search economic textbooks forever without finding a concept called `jobs saved.’ It doesn’t exist…”]

The White House says that job creation will remain a top priority, hoping to convince voters that Obama did not spend too much time during his first year in office trying to get Congress to pass health care reform.  [Allow me to editorially interrupt this spin to point out that ObamaCare is the top priority, with Obama hoping to convince liberals that they need to pass this incredibly unpopular bill no matter how many Democrats lose their seats in order to “maintain a strong presidency.”  And in point of fact, they have done little else this entire year].

The government’s monthly budget report showed the record $220.9 billion deficit for February reflected outlays of $328.4 billion and revenues of $107.5 billion. The February receipts marked the first time that revenues are up compared with the same month a year ago since April 2008. Revenues had fallen for 21 straight months as the recession cut into both individual and corporate income tax payments.  [Editorials note: And yet Obama is selling his healthcare takeover as “deficit neutral” on the incredibly risky assumption that tax revenues will miraculously massively increase.  So Obama is explaining away his deficits by pointing to the frighteningly low revenues even as he bases his health care on the assumption that those same revenues will massively increase.  And if Obama is wrong, the trillions of dollars of new spending will implode our economy].

Deficits normally shoot up in February because it is a month when the government makes large refund payments to individuals and corporations as part of the tax filing process. Those payments were boosted this year by various tax credits that were expanded or added as part of the government’s stimulus efforts including the “Making Work Pay” tax credit and the first-time home buyers tax credit. [Editorial note: Which doesn’t in any way change the fact that this February’s frighteningly low revenues continues a 21-consecutive month trend.  That in addition to the fact that the stimulus is contributing to our deficit crisis].

Through the first five months of the budget year, government revenues totaled $800.5 billion, down 7 percent from a year ago, while outlays totaled $1.45 trillion, up a slight 0.1 percent from a year ago.

The deficit of $651.6 billion through February is up by 10.5 percent from the $589.8 billion deficit run up during the first five months of the 2009 budget year. The government’s budget year begins on Oct. 1.

The budget that Obama sent to Congress in February projects that the deficits over the next decade will total $8.53 trillion. But the Congressional Budget Office last week put the 10-year total even higher at $9.8 trillion. Part of the reason for the $1.2 trillion difference is that the CBO is projecting slower economic growth and thus less tax revenues than the administration over the next decade.  [Editorial note: Number one, this proves we can’t trust the Obama administration or the government’s cost estimates to do anything other than be lowball figures.  Number two, passing trillions in new spending via ObamaCare is hardly the thing to do given the fact that we will have LOWER revenues rather than higher ones].

The administration has maintained that the country must run large budget deficits until the economy has begun to grow at a sustainable pace that is bringing the unemployment rate down. Only then, the administration says, should the government focus on getting control of the deficits.  [Editorial note: So I’m flat broke and deeply in debt.  Clearly the thing I need to do is go on a massive spending spree on my credit card in order to get out of debt!!!].

Obama has created by executive order an 18-member fiscal reform commission that has been charged with coming up with a plan to shrink the deficit to 3 percent of the economy within five years. The plan is scheduled to be unveiled in December, after the midterm congressional elections.  [Editorial note: What Obama has in fact created is a tool to weasel out of his repeated campaign promise not to raise taxes on “95% of Americans” by so much “as one dime”].

With the economy so weak, the interest rates that the government has to finance the flood of red ink have remained low. However, economists are worried that the favorable outlook on interest rates could change quickly if investors, including foreign investors, start to worry about the government’s commitment to restraining future deficits. China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities.  [Editorial note: First of all, the Associated Press is factually wrong: Japan is now our largest holder, as China is jumping off the proverbial sinking ship.  And to make things even worse, China is preparing to abandon the dollar altogether.  Second, just to clarify, what this paragraph means is that the moment our interest rates go up – which they have to do in order to deal with our debt/deficits – we will have a double-dip recession.  And the second dip may well be worst than the first].

Through the first five months of this budget year, net interest payments totaled $86.5 billion, up 15.3 percent from a year ago.  [Editorial note: this is exactly what happened to Greece; and we are not far away from the same sort of implosion occurring here.  Obama’s “solution” is to borrow more money in more unsustainable spending which will ultimately push our interest payments rates up and up].

In its report last week, the CBO predicted that the government debt held by investors would climb from $7.5 trillion at the end of last year to $20.3 trillion in 2020. CBO forecast that interest payments would more than quadruple from a projected $209 billion this year to $916 billion annually by the end of the decade.  [Editorial note: So let’s just keep spending and spending and spending until we fly off a cliff to our deaths].

Congratulations on your historic presidency, Mr. Obama.  Congratulations on your new record as the biggest spender in the history of the human race.

Obama promised hope and change.  And he’s delivering.

A second Great Depression will be “change.”  And there are plenty on the left – who embrace the Cloward-Piven strategy – who are “hoping” for it.

The Dirty Secret About Our Unemployment Rate

First of all, did Obama’s stimulus create jobs and help the economy?  I put it this way the other day, while writing an article about how ObamaCare amounts to a profoundly dishonest and secretive scheme to hijack one-sixth of the economy:

It’s rather like the stimulus.  Obama fearmongered the economy to get his $3.27 trillion stimulus-porkulus through Congress.  Obama falsely promised that unemployment wouldn’t go above 8% if it passed.  The legislation was raced through so quickly that no one could have even possibly read it.  Obama has said it was a success, citing the never-before-in-history-seen category of “created or saved jobs.”  But even then, he had to resort to a series of galling lies to sell his giant failed stimulus.  Not only were jobs created out of thin air (Obama claimed that a single lawnmower created 50 jobs through his website!!!) to fraudulently make a failed stimulus appear successful, but phantom congressional districts and even zip codes that don’t exist began to collect huge sums of stimulus money.  Meanwhile, the thoroughly dishonest Obama administration transformed their stimulus into a gigantic Democrat slush fund, with double the money going to Democrat districts and with no regard to unemployment.

The answer is readily obvious.  No, the stimulus didn’t help the economy.  As a solid plurality of Americans now rightly believe, the stimulus HURT the economy.

And they are right.  What we find out when we look at the economies of countries that either had or did not have stimulus packages is that the countries with huge stimulus packages (like the U.S.) had much more unemployment than the countries that didn’t:

As President Obama and other Democrats have correctly pointed out many times, this has been a worldwide recession. But if Summers and Biden are right in their assessment of the stimulus measures, one would think that the U.S. economy should be recovering better the many other countries, countries not wise enough to follow Obama’s lead of an extraordinary $787 billion increase in government spending.  It is also particularly timely to evaluate the spending since Christina Romer, the chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, told Congress today that the stimulus had already had most of its impact on the economy. […]

But it is not just Canada where the unemployed are faring better. Other countries, too, decided against a massive stimulus plan. In March, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel nodding in agreement at his side, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared: “the problem is not about spending more.” Later that month, the president of the European Union, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek of the Czech Republic, castigated the Obama administration’s deficit spending and bank bailouts as “a road to hell.” The Washington Post wrote that there was a “fundamental divide that persists between the United States and many European countries over the best way to respond to the global financial crisis.”

The unemployment rate in the European Union was higher than in the United States to begin with even before the Obama administration’s spending. By January, the EU unemployment rate stood at 8.5 percent — almost a whole percentage point higher than ours.  So what has happened since the big U.S. stimulus spending spree was passed? We more than caught up with the EU’s high unemployment rate.  By August, the last month data is available for the EU, the U.S.’s unemployment rate slightly exceeded the EU’s — 9.7 versus 9.6 percent.

Germany has particularly been out front resisting the call for more public spending.  Yet, from January through September, the German unemployment rate only rose slightly, from 7.9 to 8.2 percent.

Data on unemployment rates from 27 countries from Japan and South Korea to Brazil and other South American countries to Europe shows that from January to August display the same consistent pattern.  Even in the EU it isn’t just a few countries that are driving the relatively small increase they have experienced.  The U.S. had a larger increase in unemployment than 22 countries — that is, 81 percent of the countries had a smaller increase in unemployment this year than the United States. Unemployment in some major countries such as Brazil and Russia has actually fallen since January (see Table here).  Other countries, from France to Mexico to Australia to Switzerland, have seen unemployment increase by only about half the amount of the U.S. rate. Indeed, the average increase in unemployment for the 27 countries is slightly less than half the US increase.

The article should be read in its entirety to see just how powerful the evidence is that the stimulus failed.

In other words, to the extent that there has been any improvement in the economy, it has been in spite of – and VERY CLEARLY NOT because of – the stimulus.

And one of the most frightening things we have in the wake of the failed Obama stimulus is shockingly high unemployment levels.  The Obama White House said that if Obama’s stimulus wasn’t passed unemployment would rise to 9% (it was 7.6% when Obama took office; and the Obama White house said it would remain under 8% if the stimulus was passed).  But it didn’t, did it?

Thus we come to Obama’s dirty little secret of unemployment:

Unemployment: The Dirty Little Secret Everyone’s Ignoring

By John Lott – FOXNews.com

The problem of people getting discouraged and giving up looking for work is ballooning.

The unemployment rate might be stuck at 10 percent, but the more detailed numbers in the Department of Labor’s Household survey data paint a more dire picture. The number of people with a job fell by 589,000 in December. Even worse, the number of people not in the labor force grew by an astounding 843,000 during just the last month. The Household survey data is what is used to measure the unemployment rate.

To get an idea of the size of this increase in the number of people not in the labor force, since February, when the stimulus package was passed, I repeat, the number of people not in the labor force has grown by 3.2 million. But the number for December represents 26 percent of the entire increase over that period of time. The problem of people getting discouraged and giving up looking for work is ballooning. Of course, they have had good reasons to be discouraged. Similarly since February, the total number of people employed has fallen by 4 million.

In September, Larry Summers, President Obama’s top economic adviser, claimed: “We have walked a substantial distance back from the economic abyss and are on the path toward economic recovery. Most importantly, we have seen a substantial change in the trend of job loss.” Christina Romer, the chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, made a similar statement today. While conceding that the December numbers were a “slight setback,” she argued: “In a broad sense the trend toward moderating job loss is continuing, consistent with the gradual labor market stabilization we have been seeing over the last several months.”

The growth in the U.S. unemployment rate has continued to outpace the rest of the world. Since February, the average unemployment rate for the European Union has grown by 1.2 percentage points. By contrast, the US unemployment rate has grown by 1.9 percentage points — a 58 percent greater increase. Nor does the rate look particularly strong compared to what economists were predicting at the beginning of the year. Back in mid-January, business economists and forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected the December unemployment rate to be at 8.6 percent.

Unemployment should start to improve, but the numbers indicate that the improvement in unemployment that economists and forecasters were predicting has occurred much more slowly than was expected at the beginning of 2009. By moving huge amounts of money from one industry to another, the stimulus as well as all the regulatory changes have caused a lot of churning in the labor market — movement of people from one job to another than has caused temporary unemployment. Unfortunately, the huge number of people who have withdrawn from the labor force represent a big hangover that will make reducing unemployment a slow process.

The “unexpected” (the lamestream media always naively expects good news when Democrats are in charge) and disappointing December job numbers released yesterday have more economists worrying about a double-dip recession.  We lost jobs even during the Christmas temp hiring frenzy, which will force the federal reserve to keep interest rates artificially low, which will have a negative impact on our economy down the road.

Obama could care less about the millions of workers who have despaired of finding a job to the point where they don’t even bother to look for work any more, because those people fall off out of the measurement categories.  If you consider them, unemployment is now at 17.3%.

Let me introduce you to an economist who – unlike so many others – was correct in her prediction of the economic meltdown: Meredith Whitney.

Unemployment is likely to rise to 13 percent or higher and will weigh on the economy for several years, countering government efforts to stabilize the banking industry, analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC. […]

“We underestimate how much the whole economy is dependent on the mortgage industry, and that has to change,” Whitney said. “This is what happens when you delay the inevitable. We’re buying time here, but we’re not restructuring the economy.”

Not only has Obama failed to improve the mortgage industry, but what he has done has actually made the system WORSE, even according to the left.  I mean, even the New York Times has said Obama’s solutions are adding to the housing woes.  The first paragraph of their article said:

The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.

To serve as an ironic reminder of Obama’s message of “hope and change,” here’s a recent Business Insider article entitled, “How Obama’s Mortgage Modifications Are Making Things Worse By Giving Desperate Homeowners A False Sense Of Hope.”

Well, Obama promised hope.  If you were dumb enough to believe his promises had any reality, then doom on you.

And it isn’t any better for residential mortgages:

(June 9) – Commercial real estate mortgage defaults are at a 15-year high and will more than double by the end of 2010, according to a new report from research firm Real Estate Econometrics (REE).

And again:

NEW YORK, Jan 7 (Reuters) – U.S. commercial mortgage-backed bond defaults may more than double this year as the economic recession hurts office building, retail store and multifamily housing assets, Fitch Ratings said on Wednesday.

It was the mortgage industry – imploded by Democrats – that caused the economic implosion of 2008.  And our failure-in-chief hasn’t done a damned thing to make that industry better.  All he’s given, characteristic of his entire presidency, is false hope.

And now we’re looking at a double dip for the housing and mortgage industries, as well.

One day, years from now, an honest Obama administration official (if there is one) will be saying something similar to FDR’s Treasury Secretary:

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong… somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started… And an enormous debt to boot!” – Henry Morganthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary, May 1939

In April 1939, six years after FDR rolled out his failed New Deal, unemployment was still at 20.7%.

We are now only 3.4 percentage points away from Treasury Secretary Henry Morganthau’s moment of clarity.