Bad Economic Numbers Vs. Presidential Apathy, Which Is Worse?

Unfortunately, the economic numbers over the past few weeks have bad. In fact, that is probably an understatement, they are have been horrible:

• As with the past untold number of weeks, about 420,000 Americans filed first time unemployment benefits last week.
• The private sector of the economy produced only 54,000 jobs last week, a fraction of what had been created in previous months and weeks and about a third of what had been predicted.
• A Morgan Stanley report estimated that 30,000 or so of the 54,000 jobs were created by McDonalds.
• Unemployment popped up to 9.1% last week, continuing another long term trend, a trend that has had unemployment constantly around 9% for a very long time.
• This constant 9% unemployment rate translates to about 14 million Americans without a job.
• However, according to an article in the latest issue of AARP magazine, while unemployment is about 9%, underemployment is about 19%. In other words, about one in five U.S. workers cannot find a job even though they are looking for a job, have given up looking for a job, are working at a job that is inappropriate for their skill level or education level or are working in a part time job but want a full time job.
• The national debt continues to grow unabated ($14.3 TRILLION) with a Federal government default scheduled for early August and no political solution in sight (or being aggressively worked by the political class.)
• This $14.3 TRILLION debt comes out to well over $100,000 debt burden for every U.S. household.
• A recent CNN poll found that about 50% of those Americans surveyed feel that America will suffer another Great Depression within the year.
• Home prices dropped another 4% last month, indicating that the housing market will not start getting contributing to an economic turnaround any time soon.
• In the past two years or so, national debt is up 35%, gas up is 104%, and unemployment is up 25%.
• The Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday that retail sales dropped for the first time in eleven months including the largest drop in auto sales in 15 months. The biggest retail gains came from thrift stores and stores that sell used goods.
• An AP article on June 13, 2011 reported that some of the largest states are more than 20% short of the revenue they need to cover their current expenses and all 50 states have over $1 TRILLION worth of unfunded liabilities in state employee pension and health care obligations.
• A round table discussion of ten money manager and financial market experts, recently published by Barron's magazine, were unanimous in their conclusion that economic growth will slow down in the second half of 2011.
• Bill Gross, the head of Pimco, the largest bond trader company in the world, recently pronounced that the United States has over $50 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities and debt and that the country's financials are actually in worse shape than Greece's, the poster child for fiscal mismanagement.
• Nouriel Roubini, an economist at New York University, recently stated that a perfect storm of bad economic trends, fiscal/debt problems in the U.S., economic growth slowdown in China, serious European debt issues, and the stagnating economy in Japan will contribute to a serious slowdown in economic activity no later than 2013.
• USA Today recently reported that unfunded debt liabilities of the U.S. government is over $60 TRILLION, mostly due to escalating Social Security and medicare costs.

Wow, how depressing can you get. Various sources with different agendas and responsibilities all come to the same conclusion: we are in dire economic straits. One would have hope that the leaders of this country would be hard at work at mitigating the circumstances, trying to understand root causes of the multiple problems, and coming up with solutions.

Alas, that is a little too much to ask. First of all, some politicians do not think that there is much of a problem at all:

• On last Sunday's "Meet The Press" program, Democratic National Committee Chairperson, Debbie Wasserman, stated: "We were able to, under President Obama's leadership, turn this economy around." We may have turned it around but Ms. Wasserman does not say we turned it in the right direction, which is doubtful, given the points above.
• President Obama himself recently explained that he is not worried about a double dip recession although he has no idea of what to make of the recent downturn in job creation numbers but that the nation is on a path of solid recovery. 14 million Americans out of work, 400,000 or more filing for unemployment benefits every week, anemic job creation, funny definition of solid recovery.
• The buzz word from the administration over the past week is that the recovery has just "hit a bump in the road." Pretty big bump if you ask me.

This aura of denial is one thing to cope with. If you are in denial, you are unlikely to look for problem resolution as strongly and as aggressively as you would if you confronted the problems head on. But possibly worse than denial, is apathy, as illustrated by the following Presidential actions of recent days and weeks:

• Despite all of the economic woes, it seems the President is more concerned with running his 2012 Presidential campaign as his top priority with the inane trip to Ireland to prove he is part Irish, his recent trip to a political fund raiser in Puerto Rico, and his many stateside fund raisers that now seem more important than the economic problems most average Americans face.
• Rather than continue with his daily economic highlight briefings from his economic team, he has eliminated these daily meetings from his schedule, despite the economic horror story outlined above, and has replaced the face-to-face meetings with daily documents from his National Economics Council. One would have thought this is a good thing to do only if the economy was humming along without any problems, not something to do in this time of crisis.
• However, rather than get economic briefings from his Economic Council, he instead gets daily briefings from Vice President Joe Biden. This is the same Vice President who proclaimed six days before the 54,000 creation number came out that the economic recovery was working and "gaining traction." Enough said.
• However, the most blatant example of apathy occurred during his meeting this week with his Jobs and Competitiveness Council, a group of high ranking business people the President created to give him advice on he economy. In responding to a discussion that his stimulus package was supposed to pump money into "shovel ready jobs" and how, for many reasons, this shovel ready approach did not work, the President flippantly responded that "Shovel ready was not as shovel ready as we expected." At that point those in the room broke into laughter. I doubt that the 14 million unemployed Americans broke into similar laughter or appreciated the President's flip, sarcastic answer.

Apathy and denial, a bad combination. A President more interested in his political career and re-election than the economic clouds gathering over the nation. A President who gets his economic updates from Joe Biden. A President whose chairman of his White House Economic Advisors, Austan Goolsbee, is leaving his post at this critical time, joining just about every other original member of the Council who have also resigned.

Which is worse, the bad economic numbers of Presidential apathy? This is really a pick your poison question. However, good economic numbers are the result of sound economic policy, an engaged political class, and bold, unselfish leadership, attributes we have yet to see from this Presidential administration. The horrid numbers prove this point.

Thus, given that these attributes have not yet happened in the first two and half years of this administration and the four years that the Democrats from the political class have run the Congress and the country, it is doubtful we will see these qualities anytime soon.



Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.



Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com