The Big Issues: Unemployment and the National Debt

While President Obama fritters away his time entertaining Hollywood celebrities, the real problems of the American economy get worse and worse.

Unemployment is a severe as any time in US history except for the decade of the 1930s. There are no guarantees that we won't reach the levels reached in the 1930s. Certainly, if Obama continues his war on business, we have a good chance of repeating the disastrous 1930s on his watch. He (and his advisors) seem to have no clue about the weakness in the economy. Worse, they don't even seem to care.

The national debt nightmare is historic. This is a crisis of immense proportions. Health care and (what is left of) climate change are relatively minor issues compared to the growing prospect of a US fiscal bankruptcy. Such a bankruptcy within the next twenty years is now an odds-on outcome. What are the Obama people saying? Nothing. On the matter of the exploding national debt, the Obama Administration is curiously silent. Does Obama care about the national debt problem. Does he understand it?

Sadly, this is an Adminstration that seems completely out of touch with the real problems that Americans face. There are no polls showing health care and climate change among the top two concerns of Americans -- none. Unemployment and the rising deficits are at the top of all public opinion polls.

I guess unemployment and the national debt were not topics that came up in the coffee shops at Harvard.

A Transaction Tax -- Another Bad Idea

The transaction tax idea that is now floating through Congress is another absurdly bad idea. This one originated in the minds of Congressional Democrats, ever on the hunt for more tax dollars. Imagine that such a tax is enacted. China will be all for it. Taxing transactions in the US makes them more expensive if done in the US. Why not do the same transactions in China and avoid the tax?

If you want a good laugh, read Paul Krugman's defense of the transaction tax. Krugman seems to see this as a way of punishing bad guys and rewarding good guys. When the transactions move to China, how does that punish bad guys and reward good guys?

By making the US less competitive by imposing transaction taxes on security transactions, these transactions will simply take place somewhere else.

China must love American Democratic politicians. China could not write a better script.

The Jobs Summit -- Another Obama Joke

Having done everything possible to kill jobs and discourage employers from hiring, President Obama has now decided to hold a "Jobs Summit." The job that he seems most concerned about is his own. It is now obvious to everyone that this President has no understanding of even the simplest of economic principles.

Watch for the President to formulate some type of program that would reward his few remaining supporters. This is not about jobs; it is about politics. This President has no interest in creating jobs. If he was, he would immediately abandon "cap and trade" and "Obamacare" and focus his attention on proposals that would encourage free markets to produce jobs. An example of this might be a proposal that would lower payroll taxes or lower income or capital gains taxes. But, Obama's agenda is the exact opposite.

The President will not be happy until unemployment climbs above 15 percent. If he succeeds in getting Obamacare and Cap-and-Trade passed, he can probably get there. But the public is opposed, by very large numbers, to both of these proposals. The public has a better understanding of Economics than this President. Thank goodness.

On to Copenhagen

Now that the Asian photo-ops are over, President Obama is off to Copenhagen. As the evidence for climate change induced by mankind's carbon emissions has exploded in a cascade of fraud and political chicanery, the President, undaunted by the facts, is headed off to Copenhagen in the attempt to drive some more stakes into the staggering health of the US econoomy.

Serious scientists no longer believe there is any evidence of global warming. Indeed, the emerging concensus seem to favor a coming ice age. No doubt, the "political" climatologists (think Al Gore), will eventually decide that "global cooling" is the real problem. Conveniently, the Al Gores of the world will then discover that only if the US economy returns to the stone age can we prevent a new ice age. Gore's view is that if everyone but Gore himself will lower their carbon footprint, then we can be saved.

So, off he goes...our young and inexperienced President. The gang at Copenhagen will love him, no doubt. Unfortunately for Obama, the folks in Copenhagen don't vote in the US. Folks in the US no longer buy the global warming myth and would prefer that the President shelve his global warming crusade and focus on real problems, like unemployment and a staggering US economy. Trips to Asia and to the Baltic, no doubt, serve to take the President's mind off the real problems that face ordinary Americans. But, that doesn't make these real problems any less problems.

Americans are worried about the economy and their jobs. They oppose the various Obamacare plans under consideration by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Americans are also dubious about Obama's climate change agenda. They wish the President had some interest in their real problems, not his goofy left wing agenda. But the "change" President doesn't appear willing to change any time soon.

3rd Qtr GDP is Anemic

Today's revisions to the GDP estimate for third quarter 2009 are stark testimony to the failure of the Obama economic agenda. There is no real recovery in this data. The new reality is Obama stagnation, soon to be made significantly worse if the health care legislation floating through Congress becomes law.

This Administration is beginning to make Jimmy Carter look good. Obama seems to think that the way to resuscitate a beaten fighter is to hit him with a two by four. Every part of the Obama agenda will cost jobs and run the national debt to a level unheard of in American history. All of this probably sounded good in the coffee houses of Harvard, but it is slowly destroying the great American economic engine. What used to the be the envy of the world is becoming the sick patient whose life support is being removed piece by piece.

Fortunately, Americans live in a democracy and when an Adminstration takes a sledge hammer to crush their hopes and dreams, the public has its own chance to talk back -- in the voting booth in 2010 and 2012. There is no popular support for any part of the Obama agenda and a declining minority support for the President himself. This self destructive Administration and its fawning Congress has now received another terrible report card.

Change You Can Believe In

You have to wonder about the slogan: "Change You Can Believe In." This sounded good back when the poll numbers showed that Barrack Obama was a fresh new face with fresh new ideas. Now, it seems the haunting background to a growing nightmare.

The recently released Gallup Poll shows that Obama's favorables have now slipped below 50 percent. Support for his health care proposals vanished long ago. Various polls show that approximately 60 percent of the public are opposed to Obama's health care proposals. There is no public support left for any of the Obama agenda.

Wow! What a difference ten months makes.

Perhaps the new slogan should be: "Change You No Longer Believe In." .

There seems to be a "death wish" in the rush by the Democratic Congress to impale themselves on the bureacratic and costly disaster known as health care reform. This seems a way to take a majority party and turn it into a perpetual minority. Republicans should quietly pray for a victory for Obama in the health care battle in Congress. This will assure a Republican takeover in 2010 and 2012.

Early Death Rattles

An Administration in chaos. There were calls yesterday for Tim Geithner's resignation as Secretary of the Treasury from both sides of the aisle, Democratic as well as Republican. Why?

The Administration made a dramatically wrong guess back in January of this year. They thought that the economic slide would be mild. Their own forecast, part of the paperwork supporting their $ 800 billion stimulus package, estimated that unemployment would go no higher than eight percent. As a result, the stimulus package was no stimulus at all. It simply provided relief to very select groups picked by the Obama Administration, mostly along political grounds. There was no real effort to help struggling employers and employees battle the economic problems that they were facing.

The result, perfectly predictable, was that the economy proved to be far worse than the Obama folks thought. Now, they blame the Bush Administration. No one is buying that...not Democrats, not Republicans. Obama and his Treasury Secretary are in the crosshairs of the public anger over the economy. They have earned that spot by foolish policies and their policies to dramatically expand the national debt.

Now, having added a trillion dollars to the national debt and proposed even higher future debt levels in their health care plans, the Obama Administration is feeling the heat from the public. That will continue. Unemployment is not going to get any better for quite some time. For that, the Administration deserves full credit. Every plank of the Obama Administration program destroys jobs.

The public's downbeat view of the Obama economic plan will continue until someone in that Adminstration wakes up. That probably won't happen until sometime in November of 2010.

Until then, American businesses and workers will continue to suffer the predictable effects of an Administration in chaos.