How's That Hopey-Changey Thing Working Out For Ya?

An appropriate note from a commenter at Ace's:
So I hear the unemployment rate dropped because more people simply stopped looking for work.

At this rate, Obama will have the unemployment rate below 4% by November, and 95% of the country without work.

Posted by: CoolCzech at May 04, 2012 11:15 PM (niZvt)

Gotta love Rick. I remember seeing this video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-Jw-5Kx8k ) whicjh was part of the foundation of the TEA party. What he is doing on CNBC with the losers there is beyond me.

If everyone looking for work would just give up, Obama could boast about America's unprecedented 0% unemployment rate.

Santelli is the only reason to unmute CNBC.

They can play with the numbers until the cows come home, but the truth will always surface. When Obama took power there were 31 mil. on food stamps. Now there are 46 mil. Real unemployment rate is estimated between 18 and 23% depending on who is doing the survey. When one looks at the whole package as listed below, it simply spells disaster.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html

I wonder if there is a foodstamp correlation...hhhmmmmm...

"If everyone looking for work would just give up, Obama could boast about America's unprecedented 0% unemployment rate"

Hahahaha. /rimshot!

Limbaugh has talked for months about about the reduction in job seekers and the effect on unemployment. The lefttard media, meantime, sticks their fingers in their ears.

He also mentioned peterj's note on foodstamps, calling Maobama "the Foodstamp President". But of course, that's "racist".

mhb23re

Lets hope the electorate takes Rick's advice.

It really bothers me that the employment stats are twisted that way.
They don't count the people that have given up "hope" and have "change(d)" to sucking the bitter milk of the government teat.

No better way to lock in a voting majority, just break their spirits but destroying the economy and making them used to dependency, soon enough they forget freedom.

Tell them that the will starve if the vote for growth, somebody besides them owes them a living.

Make a welfare addict and you own him.

Or to paraphrase (sort of) a guy named Jesus Christ:

Give a man a fish, he will vote for you.

Teach a man to fish, he will be too busy selling fish to vote.

(that didn't come out right but I'm going to leave it here.)

dwright

"Teach a man to fish, he will be too busy selling fish to vote."
(quoting myself is like talking to myself, but more insane.)

The man selling the fish will be envied by people who believe that those fish belong to them, and will vote to have the government take the fish that the fisherman caught, and "give" the fisherman just enough of the fish he caught to keep his family from starving.
ONLY IF HE SUPPORTS THE GOVERNMENT.

If he speaks out about being unfairly compensated for his skill and labor, he and his family will be punished.
And he will be more poor than the man that refused to learn how to fish.

So why try to fish, when the government punishes you for fishing?

Until there are no more fishermen. And everybody starves EQUALLY.

dwright
(take it for what it's worth, I stepped off the wagon for a spell)

Iowahawk with the tweet of the day...

As a reward for keeping the official unemployment rate down, we should give labor force dropouts non-participation trophies.

A good alternative to the government's statistics is Shadowstats.

Current unemployment around 22.5%.

dwright

give a man a fish, and eats for a day

teach a man to fish, and he goes on pogy for life:-)))

Google Unemployment Stories and you will soon realize that if you are over 50 (sometimes over 35) in the States and have lost your job you will probably never be hired again. If you have problems with your credit history because of being unemployed and broke, you will never work again. If you have any health problems, you will never work again.

Obamba's gonna buy me a new car, and a new house, and I'm neva gonna have to work in my lifetime again..........

Knight, remember the free gas for that car, that will come when you veto pipelines and the thousands of related jobs. Solar/wind powered cars will be the next big thing this embarrassing clown of Oprah promotes, these cars will have a huge propellor on the roof with a giant mirror in front to reflect the sunlight through the blades, creating Solyndra Gore propulsion, (new physics) he will promote them, but will readjust the mirror so it points at him in the drivers seat, thus slowing the high speeds normally achieved. It sounds perfectly sane in these times doesn't it?

America's NDP government continues to try to spend its way into prosperity.

dwright @ 5:28, you described the former Soviet Union to a T. You also perfectly apprised the hopes for Canada by the NDP and in the US by the current crop of Democrats.

Unfortunately the mass of people do not view their news sources with a critical eye. They accept what they see and hear. I have come to the conclusion that since critical thought is not taught in the education system that it simply does not occur for most people to question the message.

What appears to be obvious on this board does not extend to the majority of those who might cast a ballot. You wonder why lefttards want 12 year olds to be able to vote. Guess?

Since the ballot box is unlikely to change our reality I must prepare for the worst. I suspect that collapse will occur by 2014-15.

it's not looking so good for the still temporarily employed either...how many times did 'bama promise that under obamacare "you can keep your company health care"...he just didn't mention that thanks to him, the companies wouldn't keep it.

(CNSNews.com) – A report from the House Ways and Means Committee finds that 71 of the nation’s top 100 companies would find it far more economical to drop their health care plans and simply pay the penalty for not complying with the Obamacare employer insurance mandate.

The report, published May 1, surveyed 71 of the 100 companies in the Fortune 100 list of large corporations and finds that all of them would save considerable amounts of money by dropping their health care coverage instead of complying with the Obamacare insurance mandate.

@ Norman at May 5, 2012 8:40 AM
Very interesting link. Thank you.

Help me to understand.

Despite the evidence, millions will still vote for Barry. And by millions, I don't just mean the ignorant and homeless. Millions of the middle class and well off will vote to send their, once great country, to the bottom of the financial barrel.

Please explain.

Frank Q. at May 5, 2012 12:02 PM

Frank...its non explainable...its an occult death wish.

Why mass suicide at Jonestown etc.

Posted by: Frank Q. at May 5, 2012 12:02 PM

It's human nature for people to blame others for their failures.

It's also human nature for people to be envious of other's successes.

Therefore, it's the successful people's fault that the ‘oppressed' individual cannot be as successful.

The only way to balance this unfair inequality is to vote for somebody who will ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.'

Even though the losers are usually the authors of their own misfortune, if somebody else can do the dirty work for them, all the better.

Pooping on police cars is a form of employment so Obama's occupiers can't be counted in 'The Man's' statistics, there would be no social justice in that...

"I don't follow people off a cliff as a rule".

Good one.

Here we go again with the ignorant comments about the unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate is a measure designed for a specific policy purpose - measuring the amount of fiscal or monetary policy necessary to correct a GDP gap. It does not, by itself, serve as a perfecto-meter of the labor market.

The "official" unemployment rate is only one of several measures that economists look at to determine the health of the labor market. Broader measures of underemployment, the labor force participation rate, the employment to population ratio, changes in payroll employment, location quotients, etc. provide a more complete picture.

Whenever people criticize the "official" rate, they act as if they've uncovered some insidious plot to deceive the masses. While the masses may be abysmally ignorant, people who actually study or practice economics know very well the limitations of "headline" figures. In fact, I haven't seen a news story this week that did not highlight the plunge in the labor force as a driving factor for the drop in the unemployment rate. Not even the Communist News Network is pretending to hide this fact.

Yes, millions of people have given up looking for work. That's not all a bad thing. Many of them were drawn into or remained in the labor force for the prospects of high income during the bubble. Before that they were housewives, self-employed, idlers, or people planning their retirements. The fact that some of them entered the labor force in, say 2004 and are now gone is not a cause for concern. Being in the labor force is a personal decision influenced by individual opportunities, outlooks, and incentives.

While it is clear that the "official" unemployment rate greatly understates the extent of our labor problems, hacks who point consistently to the broadest measures of unemployment are overstating it. A person choosing to become a stay-at-home parent or a person deciding to retire is not an indication of a broken market.

While it may seem appropriate or convenient to lay blame on Obama for the misery associated with discouraged workers. It's quite clear that the recovery hasn't lived up to his lofty promises. But the companion to the proposition that unemployment is too high is that government SHOULD DO MORE.

Our "official" rate measures what Keynesians believe must be brought down to the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU), commonly but not precisely also called the "natural rate of unemployment." If you are saying that "real" unemployment is worse than the official rate, you are implying that government must employ greater fiscal and monetary policy measures to correct it.

While cutting taxes is a fiscal policy measure, it is a fairly weak policy instrument especially when the tax cuts are temporary. Cutting taxes will also fail to bring down a level of deficit and debt that is unsustainable. So by going on about high unemployment, you are arguing for more government spending or looser monetary policy.

You can't have Jack Falstaff and have him thin.

@ Reginald at May 5, 2012 1:32 PM
"you are arguing for more government spending or looser monetary policy."

Well written, but I would argue for far less government spending and reigning in the bureaucracies that hinder freedom to succeed. All levels of government are bloated pigs and every dept. should be cut by 10% immediately. Some like the EPA by 50%. Anything to do with Schools at the federal level eliminated. The TSA privatized. All "green" energy programs suspended unless they can stand without public support. Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac eliminated. Foreign aid suspended on all levels until we can balance the budget. Change the tax code to a flat tax.
I could probably go on for another hour, but this is the direction that we will be forced to go sooner or later. Sooner the better based on the presumption that the USA wants to remain a Democracy. The alternatives come under Obamas "move forward" campaign slogan. History has shown where that leads.

peterj:

I like Harper's approach ... every department must find a 5% savings every year.

Over 10 years ... you do the math.

But that only goes so far.

Step 2 is to totally get rid of ineffective programs.

Thanks, "old duffer" and "set you free".

It's something you already know, but it's so hard to believe (that people would continue to vote for their own demise) that you automatically think that there must be an explanation that hasn't been previously thought of.

Mind you, the Liberals ran Canada for 70 of 100 years before PMSH came along. Canadians didn't get it either.

O'narcissist:

"If people ask you what this campaign is about, you tell them 'it's still about hope.' You tell them 'it's still about change,'".

...-

"Obama pleads at rally: ‘I'm asking you to keep believing in me'"

"Fighting to recapture the magic of his history-making 2008 campaign, President Barack Obama on Saturday laid out his fullest-yet case for reelection, pleading with struggling Americans to "keep believing in me" and hitting out at presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

"If people ask you what this campaign is about, you tell them 'it's still about hope.' You tell them 'it's still about change,'" he told a cheering mass of supporters at Ohio State University in Columbus, six months and one day before the election. "I still believe in you. And I'm asking you to keep believing in me."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/obama-pleads-rally-im-believing/story?id=16286568

America is in a great depression Many thanks to the tireless efforts of Mass Media to absolve the biggest instigator . Americans are the last to know it.The veiner is wearing thin though.

Like most of the great dictators in history, Obama is a great orator (as long as the teleprompter works) and aligns himself with the working class , the poor , the uneducated and all those who believe in the socialist dream of shared wealth for all. Against him are the rest of us that know it is a recipe for disaster. It will/has come down to class warfare and the only question remaining is where the majority lies and whether the youth/female vote can be galvanized on his behalf. At this time it's too close to call.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs5bnVoZK4Q

If he wins, at least the trains will run on time. For a little while anyway.

Reginald - the " study " of macroeconomics, and all related " research " should lose all government support, immediately. It is all theory and unsupportable fairytale.

I am afraid Ronald Reagan knew far more about the macro economy of the US than all the Nobel laureates, put together. If you give government the excuse for intervention, you get more of it.

We must never forget the welfare effects suffered by those who drop out of the labor force, as we blithely dismiss the exit of millions from the labor force. Those people have lost opportunities to work, and that it is a real factor in millions of lives.

@ small c conservative at May 5, 2012 9:32 PM
Not to mention millions of people no longer contributing to the tax base. I believe the number of people that pay no federal income tax is at 43%. The 46 million on food stamps certainly wouldn't. The middle class was the engine that powered America. Engine is broken.