Jack Welch blasts President Obama, Barney Frank

Thomas Grillo of the Boston Herald writes about Jack Welch’s speech:

Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, blasted the Obama administration and Congressman Barney Frank this morning telling a banking audience that the Democrats’ actions to restructure the entire economy are “insane.”“I hope that the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s race will put some realism into this administration,” Welch told an enthusiastic crowd at the Bank Administration Institute convention at Boston’s Convention and Exhibition Center. “I hope it will cause them to pause and not just jump into anything they encounter.”

Welch was referring to the races on Tuesday where Republicans bested Democrats, a sign some say that voters are unhappy with President Barack Obama’s handling of the country.

Always Wait For The Revisions, Before Celbrating

Especially when you are dealing with the media and their reporting.

The Labor Department said Thursday that advanced, unadjusted data, of new claims for unemployment insurance dropped last week to a seasonally adjusted 521,000, from the previous week’s upwardly revised total of 554,000.

So when this number goes up in the revisions, then we will have … repeat above paragraph.

Does it seem to you the media is talking in circles, instead of trying to present clear facts?

Explain The Unemployment Numbers

Political math lays is out for you. The real number instead of 9.8% would actually be 10.2%, without the government sanctioned and media parroted games of course.

Cash For Clunkers, and Malarkey Peddlers

Cash for Clunkers Fails to Help Economy and Environment – WSJ.com

The basic fallacy of cash for clunkers is that you can somehow create wealth by destroying existing assets that are still productive, in this case cars that still work. Under the program, auto dealers were required to destroy the car engines of trade-ins with a sodium silicate solution, then smash them and send them to the junk yard. As the journalist Henry Hazlitt wrote in his classic, “Economics in One Lesson,” you can’t raise living standards by breaking windows so some people can get jobs repairing them.

In the category of all-time dumb ideas, cash for clunkers rivals the New Deal brainstorm to slaughter pigs to raise pork prices. The people who really belong in the junk yard are the wizards in Washington who peddled this economic malarkey.

America Wakes To Culture Of Democrat Corruption

The Obama-induced stupor is over. Better late than never. Nine months of thug tactics, cronyism, left-wing racketeering, and Chicago-on-the-Potomac have taken their toll. Stunned silence no more.

The latest from Rasmussen:

For nearly two years, economic issues have held the top spot in terms of importance among voters.

But the latest national telephone survey shows that 83% now view government ethics and corruption as very important, placing it just ahead of the economy on a list of 10 key electoral issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports. Eighty-two percent (82%) of voters see the economy as very important.

This is the first time since October 2007 that voters have rated ethics and corruption as more important than the economy. Voters viewed the two issues evenly in November and December 2007 before placing a higher priority on the economy starting in January 2008.

Last month, 86% of voters said economic issues were very important while 80% saw government ethics that way.

The new findings come at a time when 43% of voters say the president is doing a poor job addressing government ethics and reducing corruption, up five points from early September and the highest level measured since he took office.

Unemployment Up, Now 9.8%

The real unemployment rate now stands at 17%, in the BLS report table A-12, line U-6. It’s the fake 9.8% number that is widely reported, to make the number to appear better, when you don’t read the actual report. It’s a news reporting gimmick thing.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1 million, and the unemployment rate has doubled to 9.8 percent. (See table A-1.)

Unemployment rates for the major worker groups–adult men (10.3 percent), adult women (7.8 percent), teenagers (25.9 percent), whites (9.0 percent), blacks (15.4 percent), and Hispanics (12.7 percent). The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.4 percent, not seasonally adjusted. The rates for all major worker groups are much higher than at the start of the recession. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

But look at this …

As the BLS noted in Friday’s Employment Situation Summary:

Employment in health care continued to increase in September (19,000), with the largest gain occurring in ambulatory health care services (15,000). Health care has added 559,000 jobs since the beginning of the recession, although the average monthly job gain thus far in 2009 (22,000) is down from the average monthly gain during 2008 (30,000).

But what the report didn’t say: Workers are dropping out: The unemployment rate edged up only slightly, to 9.8 percent, but the number of workers in the estimated labor force fell by 571,000, suggesting the unemployment rate could have been much worse. Then the ranks of the loosely or marginally attached — workers who have dropped out of the workforce because they believe they won’t find jobs or because they have other responsibilities, such as school–have grown by 615,000 over the year.

This is what makes up the combined unemployment rate of 17%.

Dead End Kids

The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent — a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. — meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and, combined with the predicted slow economic recovery, their transition into productive members of society could be put on hold for an extended period of time.

…

During previous recessions, in the early ’80s, early ’90s and after Sept. 11, 2001, unemployment among 16-to-24 year olds never went above 50 percent. Except after 9/11, jobs growth followed within two years.

More here:

Why not make the minimum wage $200 and hour, living wage and all that Liberal crap.

Work Force Composition, By Age

One of the most significant repercussions of the economic downturn has been its effect on the labor market. It goes without saying that too many Americans are out of work. And as you dig deeper into the data, it becomes evident that the age pattern of changes in labor force participation rates is different now than during past downturns.

As the graph below shows, labor force participation rates have actually increased among those near and at traditional retirement. Since the end of 2007, labor force participation has increased by 1.4 percentage points among men above age 65 and even more among men ages 62-64, while it has decreased by about 1 percentage point among younger men. Simply, older workers are forgoing retirement and working longer.

It’s quite possible the rise in the minimum wage is doing at least some of this shifting, why hire inexperienced people when you can hire those with experience? Unemployment amongst the young, age 18-25 is now 25% for whites, and over 40% for blacks.

Chart from OMB:

Social Security To Go Broke By 2010

Ed Morrissey a Hot Air got hold of the summer 2009 Congressional Budget Office report on the health of the Social Security “Trust Fund”, and the news isn’t good. The CBO is now saying, at least to certain Congressmen, that Social Security will run a primary deficit in 2010 and 2011, briefly run a cash surplus between 2012 and 2015, and return to what is presumably a permanent deficit in 2016.

Recession woes.

Can’t the government just print more money, yep, that’s what is doing right now.

Allways Wait For The Revisions

Lets set our reference point … The recession began in Q3 2008. Since the fringe media always seem to try and tell you it started in December of 2007, which is a fabrication.

So did the unemployment rate go up, or did it go down? Hah, you decide.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to a seasonally adjusted 530,000 from an upwardly revised 551,000 the previous week. Wall Street economists expected claims to rise by 5,000 — OK, is that over the original estimate, or is it compared to the revised higher numbers?

But, but, but, last week, the new lower numbers were supposed to be the turning point — Didn’t Bernanke say the worst was over. Which, better than the new higher numbers, which have been improved, because the new lower number, is lower than the revised upwards higher number. Got that? No, nor do I.

I wonder what next week’s revisions will bring? When will we just demand truth, not revisions of it.