Job summit - the next answer to unemployment
Submitted by Economist Blog
Written by Michael Vass
Today President Obama will be having his Jobs Summit. The purported goal is to find a way to help business and reduce the unemplyed in the nation. The most obvious outcome of this will be undobtedly, some much needed PR for the White House on a subject they obviously haven’t a clue about.
Let’s consider what is going on here. President Obama pushed through a stimulus package at the beginning of the year on the theme of absolute devastation to the nation financially if it were not passed. It was rammed through by Democrats, called bipartisan though it wasn’t, and filled with as many flaws as there were social engineering perks. Net result, a mythical 600,000 jobs were “saved”. That number is often quoted by the White House as being even higher - without a shred of proof - because they say so; while every investigation into the number reported has proven the figure to be a wild exaggeration of Government math and political covering of asses.
Unemployment has throughout the year risen, unabated, in excess of all expectations of the White House (though not the expectations of anyone who actually has business experience). Since passage of the Obama Stimulus an additional 3 million people and counting have lost their jobs. The White House is embarrassed and now seeks to prop up their image before the 4th quarter numbers show an even worse end of the year than was guessed at 6 months ago.
But will the Job Summit do anything? Will an answer be found? Will all the voices speaking to President Obama spark a new direction? Here is one opinion
Another voice on the subject, focusing on the 34% unemployment rate among minorities, came from Rep. Keith Ellison on the White house respnse about this issue.
So the growing view is that this is going to be another event in which President Obama will get to speak on television, tell the public he has an idea he is thinking (endlessly) about, and the net result will be more of the same.
Honestly I’m not surprised. This meeting will contain several members of the White House and President Obama. That means that the people asking questions and interperting the answers will be a group that has had the least experience in business in the last 109 years of the Presidency. Remember that the Obama Administration is comprised some 92% of acedemics and career Government policy politicians. If this group were to be asked to write a paper on economic theory it would be brilliant, but the same group would be hard pressed to run a lemonade stand I believe.
Thus I expect that the long awaited (by me at least) 2nd Obama Stimulus is nearly at hand. I would make a guess that at least another $200 - $500 billion dollars will be requested to jumpstart the economy. Likely there will be another round of checks to the public - maybe $50 per paycheck for a total of $1000 for those that get a check and again mumm on the fact that this will be income that is taxable. This of course will be offset, though not discussed, by increased cost from the Health Care Reform being shoved down the throat of the public and potentially by the results from the Cap & Trade Bill.
Considering this in total, the nation will effectively gain higher unemployment and a greater deficit. But the White House will be able to claim that they “saved” another 1 million jobs, made another effort to be “bipartisan”, passed a healthcare reform that will “cover everyone” (except 20 million of the 30 million without healthcare now), and improve the global climate (though the effects of the rest of the world especially China and India will negate anything the U.S. does, and that is if global warming is a reality which is even more debatable than ever before).
I expect that the Job Summit will provide the small businesses in America nothing but the means to go out of business. I expect that the unemployment rate will exceed my target of 11.5% if another stimulus and the other taxes go into effect. I expect that more “free Obam money” will flow just in time for the 2010 mid-term elections. And I expect that the financial sector will be further burdened by ineffective legislation, takeovers by the Government, and increased defaults on mortgages from more qulaified homeowners that can’t find a job.
I hope I am wrong.
