Posts Tagged “employment”

May 21 2009

Obama’s Stimulus Creates Useless Jobs

Posted by admin in Provoking, tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Obama’s Stimulus Creates Useless Jobs
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
By Ben Shapiro

There’s one reason, and one reason only, that President Barack Obama’s “stimulus” passed so swiftly through Congress: Most Americans are worried about their jobs. And Barack Obama promises to save or create four million jobs.

Even Obama’s most ardent opponents embrace the “make jobs” programs embedded in the stimulus. “Construction projects that put people to work, that fits the bill,” Sarah Palin told Greta Van Susteran of Fox News. “But these big, huge, expanded social programs … that’s not right, that’s not fair.”

Neither Republicans nor Democrats get it. The problem isn’t just the pork barrel social welfare spending. It’s not merely the redistributionist scheme disguised as “tax cuts.” The public relations backbone of this bill—government spending on our nation’s “crumbling infrastructure”—is misguided. While the country’s infrastructure may need revamping, this sort of spending will not stimulate the economy. It will not create the kind of jobs Americans need.

When politicians embrace government “make jobs” programs, they demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of employment in the economy. The goal of a thriving economy isn’t full employment—it’s raising the standard of living. Employment rate means nothing if the jobs it measures do not create wealth for the economy.

During the Great Depression (1930-1940), the United States had an average unemployment rate of almost 18 percent; the USSR, by contrast, had “full employment.” And yet when the Oscar-nominated movie “The Grapes of Wrath,” chronicling the Great Depression, premiered in 1941, the USSR banned the movie for the simple reason that the poverty-stricken Joads owned a car—a luxury virtually no Soviet outside the government enjoyed. Full employment did not breed prosperity.

That’s because not all jobs are created equal. Valuable jobs provide products and services the free market supports; useless jobs provide products and services the free market would not support. Valuable jobs provide products and services that enrich quality of life, making it cheaper to live better; useless jobs provide products and services that have minor impact on quality of life.

Here’s the magic of private sector jobs. Imagine Bill owns a fruit stand. He sells his fruit for $2 per pound. Herman sees that Bill is doing well, and decides to open a fruit stand of his own. He figures he can undercut Bill and live on less of a profit margin, so he sells his fruit at $1 per pound. Pretty soon, Herman runs Bill out of business. It’s tough for Bill.

But meanwhile, customers are spending $1 less for their fruit than they were. They’re spending that extra money at Bob’s clothing store, keeping Bob employed—and Bob can now hire Bill. The bottom line is this: The power of free enterprise creates competition that raises production, lowers prices, and makes lives better for consumers and producers. And that’s true even if employment declines in the fruit stand business.

Now let’s look at government jobs. Imagine Cool Hand Luke works for the government as a menial laborer. He builds roads in New York. People don’t choose to pay Cool Hand Luke—the government forces them to pay his salary.

Now, certain people in New York may benefit from the new road. But they would rather have spent their cash on a new car, or a new computer, or a new business. And the people who live in California, who are also paying Cool Hand Luke, get nothing for their money. Their quality of life is not improved one iota. The bottom line is this: The government can always provide employment, but that employment will not benefit the public nearly as much as a private sector job would.

Americans instinctively understand that quality of life matters far more than employment rate—and that only valuable jobs increase quality of life. That is why Americans oppose Obama’s “stimulus” package.

According to the latest Rasmussen poll, 53 percent of Americans think the “stimulus” will either fail to stimulate or actually hurt the economy. Unsurprisingly, the only sector of the American economy that overwhelmingly supports the stimulus plan is government employees, by a margin of 49 percent to 24 percent.

And yet our politicians think they can appease us by offering us useless jobs. They think investment bankers will be happy to staff the bureaucracy at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They believe Americans will be glad to subsidize Caterpillar Inc. Employees, rather than putting that cash in their own checking accounts.

Obama might prevent rising unemployment. After all, so did President Jimmy Carter. But he’ll do so at the cost of private sector employment. Americans will pay the price in standard of living—but at least they can say they have a job, no matter how useless.

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Apr 24 2009

How Are We Doing ..Now????

Posted by admin in Random Thoughts, tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
How Are We Doing ..Now????

Starting with the low numbers….

$34,000: the amount of federal taxes that Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner (D) failed to pay during his employment at the International Monetary Fund despite receiving extra compensation and explanatory brochures that described his tax liabilities. He is the former President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank which has been in the middle of all this for some time now. 


$75,000: the amount of money that the chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), was forced to report on his taxes after the discovery that he had not reported income from a Costa Rican rental property. His excuses for the failure started with blaming his wife, then his accountant and finally the fact that he didn’t speak Spanish.

$93,000: the amount of petty cash each Congressional representative voted to give themselves in January 2009 during the height of an economic meltdown.

$133,900: the amount Fannie Mae “invested” in Chris Dodd (D-CT), head of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, presumably to repel oversight of the GSE prior to its meltdown. Said meltdown helped touch off the current economic crisis. In only a few years time, Fannie also “invested” over $105,000 in then-Senator Barack Obama.

$140,000: the a mount of back taxes and interest that Cabinet HHR nominee Tom Daschle (D) was forced to cough up after the vetting process revealed significant, unexplained tax liabilities.  he was paid over $2 million dollars in the last two years for those he was to oversee in his new position: Dashle later withdrew!!!


$356,000: the approximate amount of income and deductions that Daschle (D) was forced to report on his amended 2005 and 2007 tax returns after being caught cheating on his taxes. This includes $255,256 for the use of a chauffeur service, $83,333 in unreported income, and $14,963 in charitable contributions.

$800,000: the amount of “sweetheart” mortgages Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) received from Countrywide Financial, the details for which he has refused to release details despite months of promises to do so. Countrywide was once the nation’s largest mortgage lender and linked to Government-Sponsored Entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their meltdown precipitated the current financial crisis. Just days ago in Pennsylvania , Countrywide was forced to pay $150,000,000 in mortgage assistance following ”a state investigation that concluded that Countrywide relaxed its underwriting standards to sell risky loans to consumers who did not understand them and could not afford them.”

$1,000,000: the estimated amount of donations by Denise Rich, wife of fugitive Marc Rich, to Democrat interests and the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation in an apparent quid pro quo deal that resulted in a pardon for Mr. Rich. The pardon was reviewed and blessed by Obama’s Attorney General and then Deputy AG Eric Holder, despite numerous requests by government officials to turn it down.


$12,000,000: the amount of TARP money provided to community bank OneUnited despite the fact that it did not qualify for funds, and was “under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses.” It turns out that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), a key contributor to the Fannie Mae meltdown, just happens to be married to one of the bank’s ex-directors.

$23,500,000: The upper range of net worth Rep. Allan Mollohan (D-WV) accumulated in four years time according to The Washington Post through earmarks of “tens of millions of dollars to groups associated with his own business partners.”

$2,000,000,000: ($2 billion) the approximate amount of money that House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) is earmarking related to his son’s lobbying efforts. Craig Ob ey is “a top lobbyist for the nonprofit group” that receive a roughly $2 billion component of the “Stimulus” package.


$3,700,000,000: ($3.7 billion) not to be outdone, this is the estimated value of various defense contracts awarded to a company controlled by the husband of Rep. Diane Feinstein (D-CA). Despite an obvious conflict-of-interest as “a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her husband’s firms “


$4,190,000,000: ($4.19 billion) the amount of money in the so-called ”Stimulus” package devoted to fraudulent voter registration ACORN group under the auspices of “Community Stabilization Activities.” ACORN is currently the subject of a state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations suit (RICO) in Ohio .


$1,646,000,000,000 ($1.646 trillion): the approximate amount of annual United States exports endangered by the “Stimulus” package, which provides a ”Buy American” stricture. According to international trade experts, a ”US-EU trade war looms”, which could result in a worldwide economic depression reminiscent of that touched off by the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Act.

It’s not just a culture of corruption. It’s a culture of corruption and stupidity. And, unlike Republicans, Democrats appear to be above the law. All of the aforementioned clowns are still in office, ruling like the royalty they’ve become.
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AND, ITS ONLY BEEN FOUR WEEKS, FOLKS!

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