Thanks Jon!

Jobs always has been and always will be the most important issue, even if it might not always top the polls.

Also, you have to include the national debt in with the economy. You cannot isolate it like that.

Our ongoing class warfare is evident here. The merchant class–who are running the media and the country–care nothing about jobs and everything about debt. The other classes, who are being ground into a fine powder by 30 years of mercantile rule, feel differently.

The Reagan tax cuts and crazy economic policies led to the National Debt.

The main issue behind jobs is the fact that corporate america with the help of president Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2, Mr. NAFTA Clinton, Obama, sent the USA mfg base to China, because of all the cheap labor.

It is being reported that China will soon overtake the USA as the biggest MFG in the World.

Let us not make the same mistake FDR did in 1937 at the behest of “you know who”, the Republicans to balance the stupid fucking budget. IN good times, balance the budget. Not now. And it seems…seems like dear old Barack is intimidated by the GOP’s spending crying bullshit. It’s a trap. WE need to spend spend spend now now now for us to save our economy. And insist on FAIR TRADE. Fuck China.

well said!!!

Thanks Jon.

I’m shocked, I tells ya. Just shocked! (snark)

This has been the “plan” all along. These asshole “DEmocratic” officeholders who salivate at “free trade” need to be Republicans.

Of course it’s time to start tightening our belts: recent reports show that the millionaires and billionaires’ wealth has snapped back from the economic meltdown! They’re okay now, so the time for stimulus is over! I mean, it’s not like the poor are going to DO anything about it, right? Tough luck if you don’t like it! What are you, a socialist?

How do we get these poll figures to the Congresscritters?

I’m envisioning the “American Speaks” tour being this summer’s version of the Tea Party get-togethers, except with “cut the deficit” being plastered on signs and shouted [by plants] from the audience. This then becomes “proof” that the deficit [i.e., "entitlements"] need to be cut.

How do we call these liars out?

I’ve got a plan for dealing with the deficit/debt:

Return the tax tables to the state they were in under Dwight Eisenhower.

I’ve got a plan for dealing with the Social Security “shortfall”:

Eliminate the cap on income levels that pay into Social Security.

You’re damn right its class warfare, and I’m getting REAL tired of being accused of being classist as if that is somehow a BAD thing by the same jerk-offs that are waging that war from the other side!

Blaming the unemployed for unemployment

According to the end of the month economic numbers for May, the economy is still in recovery but the unemployment rate remains “stagnant” despite a rise in hiring. For some the reason behind the high jobless rate is the unemployed themselves. Yet another example of blaming the victims. One of the advocates of this position is Senator Judd Gregg who nearly became Obama’s Commerce secretary. In a recent CNBC interview he explained why he was against extending unemployment benefits. According to Les Leopold in the Huffington post.
The honorable senator and many other pols and pundits apparently believe that at least some unemployed Americans are just coasting on their unemployment checks, having a bit of a vacation rather than grabbing one of the many jobs being generated in this red-hot recovery of ours. Somehow Gregg and company studiously ignore the fact that there still aren’t enough jobs to go around.
Leopold continues
As May’s unemployment numbers show, we’re still in a jobs recession, despite the impact of temporary census jobs. More than 29 million Americans are still without work or forced into part-time work — that’s a real jobless rate of 16.6% (BLS U6). (Leo Hindery Jr.’s more precise estimate is 30.16 million for a jobless rate of 18.8 percent.) Nearly 7 million people have been jobless for over 26 weeks (the “long-term unemployed”) -more than at any time since the Great Depression. We still need more than 22 million new jobs to get us anywhere near full-employment.
[for the rest click through]
Good luck Sylvia. Good luck to us all.
http://www.womenetcetera.com/ViewBlog.asp?memberID=4367&ID=5515

[modnote - In order to respect copyright, only paste a portion of another's work, then link back to original. thank you.]

Give us Jobs.

A boondoggle was just a little recreation for Boy Scouts and cowboys until the government took over. It began as a craft project to keep Scouts busy and quiet, braiding the ends of a lanyard or leather strap.

In the mid-1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, someone who was skeptical about newly created government jobs gave them the contemptuous name of boondoggles.

We can see the transformation of boondoggle from private pastime to public waste in a New York Times article of April 4, 1935, with the headlines “$3,187,000 Relief is Spent to Teach Jobless to Play…”

Congress cannot give us jobs. The ‘stimulus bill’ for which we borrowed money to ‘save or create’ public sector jobs has been a dismal flop.

“According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. shed 2.3 million jobs since February 2009, Obama’s first full month in office. Going back to World War II, that is by far the worst record for any president in his first 17 months, outpacing the job destruction experienced in the early Bush years by more than 800,000 jobs.”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-20/democrats-of-2004-brand-obama-worst-president-kevin-hassett.html

Private sector businesses are sitting on a whopping $2.2 TRILLION dollars in cash that should be streaming into this economy, fueling the recovery, creating wealth and JOBS.

Why are companies reluctant to invest in the USA? The Obama administration has created an environment that is solidly anti-business/anti-investor and full of favoritism. Taxes are on the rise, incentives which reward investor risk-taking are diminished and confidence in the President is lacking. There is not ONE member of Obama’s inner circle that has ever run a business.

deficit hysteria has caused members of Congress to all but abandon legislation that could increase employment

The Republicans are predictable on this. Deficits are the crowbar with which you dismantle government.

The Democrats are running scared because the larger the deficits get, the more likely significant changes in tax law and spending priorities are needed. And like battered spouses, they can hear in their heads “soft on national security”, “tax and spend Democrats”, “waste, fraud, and abuse”, and “socialism”. Indeed they need only go to a Tea Party stacked town hall meeting to hear it for real.

And Democrats are lousy with messaging that would give them the latitude to deal with the economic problems. Not to mention that too many think that they ought to be running government like a business instead of like a government. In bad times, businesses shed costs (and lots of jobs); they think that government should do the same and “bite the bullet”.

The big fallacy is to look at government (and business as well) as an account book when it comes to the economy. And ignore the fact that in a closed system, such as an economy, what goes around comes around. And in the next time period it will be worse.

Capitalism has failed to create jobs and the last tool in the box is government spending. Restricting it will destroy our economy and the Amerian Way. Unless the Democrats understand that, we’re doomed.

“…why only nine percent of Americans think most members of Congress deserve re-election.”

Sadly. what most Americans think is that your congress person should not be re-elected, even as they trudge to the polls to dutifully vote for their own.

The real legislation that could increase employment is legislation and policy decisions that actually give business the incentives and confidence to take risks and expand their operations. Of course all of those policies are an anathema to this administration.

Not even polling will pierce the DC bubble. It’s made of adamant and fantasy.

Indie what world do you live in? not the one the rest of us live in.

You like to skip the year 2008 a lot, the year capitalism died.

When the govt has to Bail out Wall Street, this means that Wall Street failed. Ayn Ryan was wrong.

Indie the private businesses you discuss are creating jobs, in places like China, India, etc. just not here, and it has nothing to do with taxes. can you say CHEAP LABOR.

Indie one simple question do you think american workers deserve to make what chinese workers earn? yes or no

Indie Henry Ford was right pay workers good wages so they can buy your product.

Public sector growth and wages are at an all time high, outpacing private sector wages and employment.

Dennis Cauchon of USA Today points out that “Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.” While the private sector’s economic muscle was in decline, the government’s was moving “full speed ahead.” According to Cauchon, “At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.”

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-05-24-income-shifts-from-private-sector_N.htm

What is the future of an economy that shifts so heavily to government dependence? We are living it and it will not get any better until the size and scope of government in DECREASED.

The honorable senator and many other pols and pundits apparently believe that at least some unemployed Americans are just coasting on their unemployment checks, having a bit of a vacation rather than grabbing one of the many jobs being generated in this red-hot recovery of ours.

I confess, it’s true. Although I’m barely existing on roughly one third of what I was making and have recently begun looking at retail jobs, (despite the fact that in all my 50 years, I’ve never done retail), and though I have no health insurance, this over year long vacation of mine has just been so much fun, I hope it never ends. /s

Indie you do know that the GOVT now employs more americans than the private sector.

Indie what mom and pop shops can compete with Wal-Mart, the Chinese Neighborhood Store?

Indie no investment bankers in the USA are going to invest in some American Inventers product, because in a matter of months, not days the Chinese will copy your invention and put you out of business.

Indie the Free Trade crowd destroyed the USA

None of this kabuki theatre is by happenstance. This is a degenerate and immoral plan that has been brewing for many years. The final outcome is to devastate the middle and lower class serfs into abject slavery for the support and service to the elites and their minions. With the gutting of the social programs such as SS and Medicare/Medicaid, the plan shall be complete.

If you can’t pay…off to debtor’s prison, if you raise your voice in objection…off to the internment camps, just lower your heads, shut your fuckin mouths, and get back to work if you are ‘lucky enough’ to have a job!

The deficit bullshit is just that-BULLSHIT! If we continue to let this playout without some form of uprising and fight, we will regret it for decades to come.

Rand Paul said the unemployed should stop whining and get back to work. Wonder if he knows there are no jobs, which caused the problem in the first place.

the elites are just whitewashing the trillions of dollars they siphoned out of the economy the last decade. after a few years of them living like kings they’ll turn the jobs back on because they want to begin stealing more money again

money is the power to get people to do what they don’t love

All the Serious People have jobs that pay well; they’re not worried about the economy. But doing something that actually benefits the rest of us might require that the Serious People be subject to a higher tax rate and fewer exclusions/deductions. (They might have to give up a vacation house somewhere, or that third imported luxury car! /s)

He’ll never be unemployed. Even if he loses the election AND his medical license, right wing think bullshit tanks will be clamoring to hire him. Being conservative means being a sociopath to one degree or another. If it doesn’t affect them, they couldn’t care less. “Compassionate conservative” is just an oxymoron to fool the vapid and apathetic.

Indie one simple question do you think american workers deserve to make what chinese workers earn?

Do you?

Twain

It is apparently so easy for the privileged and clueless to make statements like R. Paul did. When the only sense and pulse of the Nation’s woes comes directly from the privileged and hollow minds of the elitist/corporate whoredom, the messages are always filthy and toxic!

When the only sense and pulse of the Nation’s woes comes directly from the privileged and hollow minds of the elitist/corporate whoredom, the messages are always filthy and toxic!

Indeed! Hence the bubble. In their world only the monied matter.

Great report. Maybe, the public will soon realize that reptiles are cold-blooded and evil, including the Petersons, Simpsons and Walkers of the world.

Spoken like a true far-right wing Faux News talking head!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

redstate.com is elsewhere!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like this “Indie” troll should be banned as a rightwing repug plant!!!

I’ve never seen anybody banned here for being right wing. Best to just ignore them.

Not true. In a truly free market economy there is no company that is ‘too big too fail.’ Government intervention that props up mismanaged entities using taxpayer dollars in order to enrich itself and preserve the concentration of power and influence in Washington is more akin to socialism, facism or some type of looting.

FYI the UK Financial times reported on June 20, 2010:

The US remained the world’s biggest manufacturing nation by output last year, but is poised to relinquish this slot in 2011 to China – thus ending a 110-year run as the number one country in factory production.

We are poised to give up our top spot because there is little incentive given to businesses to take that mountian of $2.2 trillion in cash and invest it in the USA.

You really do not know what you are talking about. Believe what you will but the government does not create wealth, it merely confiscates it. Eventually government will run out of revenue and they will have to borrow it, as we do now, or raise taxes higher and higher until everyone is dependent on the government. Think Greece.

Good catch Jon, I can only imagine a poll of campaign contributors would have different results– and those are the opinions the pols care about.

A guy I’ve been reading about lately, William Vickrey, was an economist who didn’t spend 10 seconds worrying about the deficit and actually gave a damn about unemployment.

Despite his reputation as a maverick, in 1993 Vickrey was elected president of the American Economic Association-the economics profession’s governing body. He devoted his presidential address, “Today’s Task for Economists,” to outlining a plan to bring about genuine full employment in the U.S. economy-a 1% to 2% unemployment rate that would guarantee job openings for all those looking for work. That goes well beyond the 5% to 6% unemployment rate that economists typically deem full employment and label as the “natural” rate of unemployment (Vickrey dismissed this term as “one of the most vicious euphemisms ever coined).
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/maverick.html (the link is informative, but misspells the name “Vickery”)

Harvard Economics Professor (and Bush CEA chair) Greg Mankiw wrote of Vickrey a few years ago…

Was Vickrey a kook? Advocating $500 billion deficits in 1996 [actual deficit $107 billion] certainly sounds kooky. Correcting for inflation and real growth, that would be about $800 billion today [2006, actual deficit $250 billion].

But no, he was not a kook: He was one of the last hard-core Keynesians, far more Keynesian than so-called new Keynesians like me, and maybe more Keynesian than Keynes himself would have been. In the view of most mainstream macroeconomists today (a group in which I include myself and Brad DeLong), insufficient aggregate demand can be a problem for short periods of time, as it was during the recent recession, but it is not a chronic problem facing the U.S. economy. It is not a problem we face now; the Fed is raising interest rates because it is concerned about excessive aggregate demand… I should note that Vickrey’s Nobel Prize was given for his contributions to the microeconomic theory of auctions, not to the macroeconomic analysis of fiscal policy

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/05/vickrey-on-budget-deficits.html

The poor will always be with us….

But deficits, inflation and red ink…oh my!!!!

Simply because I happen to espouse views that advocate for smaller government does not make me a plant nor a Republican. Oven your eyes to the diverse views of others and you may learn a thing or two about the corrupt crony capitialism you enable through your blind alligence to a ‘progressive’ ideology…whatever that is.

Indie,

Indie in the current sham of economy, created by people who think like you, the Govt had to bail out the banks.

Indie in your world what good jobs can Americans have?

A lot of americans are working two or three jobs trying to stay a float.

Indie you always avoid the China Problem, you always start talking about fantasy land.

The Chinese are playing for keeps. The Chinese Stimulus plan worked. They copied what FDR done basically.

Indie did Hoover save America? No FDR did

enough said.

Why did Wall Street failed in 2008? I mean for 30 years or more they got everything they wanted, Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2, Mr. NAFTA Clinton, Obama, etc.

Why Did Wall Street Failed?

What have you got against the yellow people?

For now, despite the degradation of the rule of law in the US, it is not extinguished in all jurisdications and it is still “apples to oranges” to compare the status of an average person in the US to that of a person in China. The average person in China has NO human and NO civil rights (you can see the volumes of documentation available by Amnesty.Org and FreeTheSlaves.Net). So, let us all now call a spade a spade wherever it is– the average person in China IS “slave labor” NOT “cheap labor” as the latter implies there’s some kind of volition on the part of the person involved.

Meanwhile, please note that the US is quite the devote’ of slavery in the service of mercantilism. It openly practices it, case-in-point, in the Marianas Islands with the full knowledge and involvement of sitting US Congress persons (“Think Progress » Rep. Doolittle: A Devoted Friend of Sex Slavery” and “Think Progress » DeLay and Enron’s Marianas Vacation“).

alan1tx? nothing

The bottom line is this the Chinese understand the value of a strong MFG base like most sane Nations.

The foundation of any strong Nation is a strong MFG base, the USA MFG is dying.

The problem with talking about or creating jobs, can not be address without dealing with the crazy idea of FREE TRADE.

Japan Germany, China, Britain, etc. all strong nations protect their MFG base and workers more than the USA does.

World War 2 was over a long, long, time ago, before WW2, The USA was in what? A depression, after WW2, the USA created a very, very, strong MFG base and became a super power, without the strong MFG base the USA will become a Banana Republic.

Good Point,

Indie thinks american workers would like idea of being slave labor.

NAFTA was a real 911 situation for the USA.

The key point about this article is the fact that in 2008 you would have gotten the same break down.

Health Care was not an issue.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, was the only issue than, and it is the only issue now.

Obama the con man, with the help of the media made Health Care an issue.

The Corporate Media Makes and Creates the news of the USA.

The people who live on Main Street, did not change their minds all of sudden, they have been screaming about Jobs since 2008

Frankly, I think talking about the virtues/vices of the “public sector” versus the “private sector” is now a waste of time as the “investor class” owns and manipulates both against the “producer class” in this country and abroad via the banksters and the highly automated, consolidated international Casino system. “The system” is revealed to be conspicuously corrupt and so by design.

It now looks like the only way to have jobs in one’s own community is to MoveYourMoney.Info and create them yourselves. With the exception of a few rigorously vetted exceptions, I force my money flows to be local in order to force up the “popsicle index” ( http://solari.com/archive/popsicle_index ).

But, of course this will just be dismissed as an outlier, if addressed at all, and the Gallup poll will the one that represents the views of “real Americans.”

No one cares what the “mouthpiece of the investor class”– you call it the Gallup Poll– has to say.

This incredible disconnect between WashingtonVersailles and the rest of the country on our worst problem helps explain why only nine percent of Americans think most members of Congress deserve re-election.

fixed that for you

I totally agree,

Good Post

@ Indie #36 & #37

Not true. In a truly free market economy there is no company that is ‘too big too fail.’ Government intervention that props up mismanaged entities using taxpayer dollars in order to enrich itself and preserve the concentration of power and influence in Washington

Believe what you will but the government does not create wealth, it merely confiscates it.

Those two statements are in direct contradiction with one another, and they happened in successive comments separated by 2-minutes.

Eventually government will run out of revenue and they will have to borrow it, as we do now, or raise taxes higher and higher until everyone is dependent on the government. Think Greece.

This is impossible. The government cannot “run out of revenue” because it can make more out of thin-air. So long as doing so doesn’t exceed the productive capacity of the market, it won’t be inflationary. The government only “borrows” to create more money as a way to keep from pissing off foreign investors and central banks, a condition which is not a necessity for an economy with so much lagging productive capacity and untapped resources.

To that end, can you flesh out three conditions which exclude the United States from being like Greece? I’ll give you a few hints: central banking, global reserves, and productive capacity.

@Indie Please take your teabagger talking points and move along. We have been praying at the altar of Goldman Sachs for the past several years and nothing Obama does seems to do much more than increase their profits with no benefit to the US taxpayer.

Obama is their lackey and whatever candidate your Libertarian cohorts throw up are going to continue us down the prime rose path to destruction.

The more conservative the courts become, allows the government to increase their stranglehold on civil liberties and in turn oppress the people as we slowly are killed by the corporations our country gave birth to.

How many of them are actually still US corporations? How about we stop doing business with companies that outsource work?

It would be better to just ignore Indie–he thrives on attention. Let him post and just scroll on by.

The issue of limited jobs in the US is important, I came over a clip that not only talks about jobs issues in America but others as well.

http://www.livestream.com/freespeechtv/video?clipId=flv_3ad5fea2-c9f7-462d-85b9-838e12939674

Jobs? Don’t be silly jobs are what we create for Chinese and Indians.