Obama’s slip shows again
Maybe President Barack Obama was ad-libbing from his teleprompter recently when he ventured onto the shaky economic/ideological soil of wealth redistribution during remarks at a rally in Illinois. What Obama said had sort of an off-the-cuff whiff to it. Touting financial reforms being debated in Congress, the president said his administration isn’t pushing new regulations “because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned.” Then came the Freudian quip: “I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” Ah, yes! And conservatives everywhere are thinking Obama would be fine with the federal government telling Americans where that certain point is. Conservatives may be paranoid (or just think they’re paranoid), but Democrats keep saying things like that: Obama’s exchange with Joe the Plumber during Campaign 2008, a congressman talking about tax increases on the wealthy because “they won’t miss” the money, Dick Gephardt infamously musing years ago that the rich were merely the beneficiaries of “life’s lottery.” Karl Marx would be proud. Seriously, Democrats don’t hate wealth. Without it they’d have nothing to spread around.
Goldman’s bleepity deal
Michigan Sen. Carl Levin had the Washington Beltway abuzz on Tuesday with questioning of Goldman Sachs bigshots that was punctuated with some salty verbiage. Now, Washington lost its “G” rating some time ago. Yet public cussing still makes some blush in shock, even if it’s feigned shock — like when people acted horrified to hear President Richard Nixon on his secret tapes using language that would peel paint off a wall.
Levin cornered the Goldman execs on an internal memo in which some mid-level whatever used a barnyard term to describe the execrable quality of a security the firm was selling. Levin reportedly used the same term 10 or 11 times as he bore in with questions. For those keeping score at home, Levin was quoting the Goldman memo a number of those times; only a few of his barnyard references actually constituted gratuitous profanity. Even so, Levin no doubt was making a point about the ethics of people in expensive dark suits sitting before him. In a word, (bleep).
Survey says …
When President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress were crafting last year’s $787 billion stimulus bill, conservative historian/economist Bruce Bartlett produced a chart for The New York Times with historic economic data showing that federal stimulus packages almost always come too late to affect the downturn for which they’re targeted. Usually, the economy already is recovering — on its own — by the time stimulus legislation is enacted. Will the same be true for Stimulus ’09? A new survey of economists shows most of them think the 2009 stimulus has had no impact on the recovery that seems to be under way. The National Association for Business Economics polled 68 of its members who work in private-sector firms. About 73 percent said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower because of the stimulus. Likewise, they say a new $17.7 billion jobs bill won’t affect payrolls. Looks like bad money after bad — or maybe an extremely early jump on the next recession.
More jobs, but not enough
The economy added 162,000 jobs in March, the most since the recession began, but the total still was below many analysts’ expectation of around 200,000. The Labor Department said the total includes 48,000 temporary workers hired for the U.S. Census, which means the private economy added about 123,000 jobs, the most since May 2007. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.7 percent. Job creation isn’t increasing enough to keep up with the growth in the potential labor force, which is why the jobless rate is the same. Experts said the figures suggest the economic recovery is sustained but not particularly robust. That’s not great news for the White House or Democratic candidates, whose election prospects probably will be directly correlated to the monthly jobs report from now until November.
About those job numbers …
Conservatives have been howling for months about the Obama administration’s “jobs created/jobs saved” statistics. Every official measure of the country’s employment situation has shown the economy shedding jobs throughout the year. Yet the White House has insisted that its policies have saved a number of jobs and has issued figures to prove it.
Unchallengeable, of course. The number of jobs saved is in the eye of the beholder — or the counter. Now ABC News reports the counting has been off, calculating a number of jobs saved to congressional districts that don’t exist. For example, ABC reports, the administration’s stimulus Web site claims 30 jobs were saved in Arizona’s 15th District — but Arizona only has eight districts.
An administration official said human error was to blame. “Some recipients clearly don’t know what congressional district they live in,” a spokesman said, “so they appear to be just throwing in any number. We expected all along that recipients would make mistakes on their congressional districts, on jobs numbers, on award amounts, and so on. Human beings make mistakes.”
Slow rebound
The third quarter’s 3.5 percent growth rate drew cheers from a White House eager for data validating its economic policies. Certainly, growth is better than recession. But a number of analysts quickly pointed out the third-quarter figure was heavily inflated by one-time government spending — cash-for-clunkers, new home buyer tax credit — that overstated the truth health of the economy. One analyst told Reuters’ James Pethokoukis real economic growth probably was closer to 2 percent, which is poor compared with the way economies coming out of recession have performed historically.
The real test will be how much the economy grows without special government spending. While the $787 billion stimulus nudged the economy away from a possible depression, Pethokoukis writes, it wasn’t structured (two-thirds spending, one-third tax cuts) to launch a robust recovery. As a result, a number of experts think high unemployment will persist and be a drag on more rapid growth — allowing those who called for more tax cuts to say, we told you so.
Blame someone else
New polling suggests the shelf life of the Obama administration’s “Blame Bush” strategy might be nearly up. Over his first five months in office, President Barack Obama has found traction in blaming the Bush administration for the economy. But a Rasmussen Reports survey finds 39 percent of voters say current economic problems result from Obama’s policies, a 12-point jump from last month. While 54 percent say current conditions result from the recession Obama inherited from Bush, that’s down eight points from early June. According to Rasmussen, twice as many respondents (60 percent to 30 percent) trust their own economic judgment more than Obama’s. In February 49 percent trusted themselves while 39 trusted the president.
He said what?
“I don’t know anything about cars.” Uh, not exactly what you want to hear from the guy who’s going to lead General Motors when it emerges from bankruptcy protection later this summer. Former AT&T chief Edward E. Whitacre Jr. admits he’s not a car guy, but the man known as “Big Ed” figures business is business, and he was pretty good at it over a 43-year career. The White House is confident Whitacre will do fine, noting that Ford’s current CEO, Alan Mulally, came from Boeing. Still, taxpayers jumpy over the public investment in GM — $20 billion already and another $30 billion to come — must hope Whitacre studies up a bit before he officially takes over. GM can’t afford any more missteps.
Layers of lawyers
“GM Collapses Into Government’s Arm,” screamed a headline in The Wall Street Journal. “A Saga of Decline and Denial,” said another Journal headline. But the headline that really caught our attention was published in the New York Times a week before General Motors’ bankruptcy filing on Monday: “Auto Troubles Touch Many Concerns; Bankruptcy For G.M. Would Tax The Experts.” The story says GM’s troubles are bad for workers and execs, “but it will be putting a lot of lawyers to work.” The government bailout and subsequent bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler could be called the Lawyers Full Employment Act of 2009 - President Obama’s gift to the legal industry. Other booms from GM’s bust will benefit hotels and restaurants near the New York bankruptcy court handling the case. “For law firms,” the Times noted, “big bankruptcies can be very lucrative.” Taxpayers take note: We’re sending lawyers tubs of money to rescue another corporate giant.
Aporkalypse now
Nothing like a pandemic scare to bring out the capitalists and the scam artists. One man’s swine flu symptom is another’s fatter pigskin wallet. Stores and Web sites have sold out of masks and hand sanitizers. Web sites created overnight are offering illegal and counterfeit flu drugs. Investment advisors are pointing out how to leverage swine flu into market gains. Designer breathing masks are on order, along with T-shirts that say “My folks went to Mexico and all they brought me was the flu.” Swine flu video games invite players to fatally inoculate pigs. An Australian newspaper dubbed this “aporkalypse humor,” but the flu is no laughing matter to pork producers and the capitalists who’ve been hurting due to curtailed travel and sick employees. Not to mention the survivors of those killed by this outbreak.
