Obamanomics at Work

Wow, what a stinker! Here I am referring to the November jobs report, which the White House, along with the media lackeys, is attempting to put on a positive spin. Here is the sad reality. The initial November jobs report lists a gain for non-farm employment of 80,000 jobs. This miserly gain is over 35% below the 125,000 average monthly gain of the past 12 months. Since the Obama team took over, America has lost nearly three million jobs. At year-end 2008, non-farm payrolls totaled 134,383,000 jobs. The most recent report showed 131,516,000 non-farm payroll jobs, along with a startling 9% unemployment rate.

Yup, nearly 14 million Americans are on the well-understated unemployment roster. The unemployment rate for blacks is 15.1%, for Hispanics 11.4%, and for Asians 7.3%. At the feeble 80,000 jobs gain rate logged in October, it would take 37 months, or over three years, for non-farm payrolls to get back to the level witnessed as President Obama moved into the White House. These truly dismal numbers come on the heels of massive government spending, money creation, and senseless bailouts. The Federal Reserve, as usual, is deserving of some of the blame. The Federal Reserve is bound (mistakenly) by a dual mandate, which includes the effort to promote full employment. The Fed should not be in the employment business. Now we have Ben Bernanke telling Americans his team has failed to carry out the full employment mandate and really does not plan to do anything about it.

President Obama would tell you that his jobs bill is the answer and that Congress should pass his bill. Apparently there are few takers in Congress for the president’s mishmash of a jobs bill. It was dead on arrival, as the president knew full well. The Republicans may now be labeled obstructionists, which of course was the Obama team’s goal from the start, all of which has been predictable. American’s should not find the ongoing charade surprising. America’s political process has become nothing but a football for the entrenched politicians of both parties. Individual Americans are out in the cold. Given the collapse of integrity of the Obama administration, it should be an easy job to flush out the White House in 2012. A hard look, however, at the Electoral College map and the associated state headcount allows concern. The Tea Party movement is going to have to find a way to bring Pennsylvania into the fold, never mind Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia. A single loss would no doubt doom the Tea Party effort. In the 2008 presidential election, nearly 129 million votes were cast. A swing of less than 4% of the votes would have altered the outcome. I think such a swing is low hanging fruit in 2012, but the Electoral College math is a much tougher nut to crack.