Saturday, September 03, 2011

A gentle reminder

....about those dismal August unemployment numbers.  Zero net jobs created means not only that the economy is not recovering, but rather also that "the economy" has fallen another 150,000 jobs behind in job creation--that's about how many people enter working age each year.  These 150,000 people are of course not counted in the official 9.1% unemployment rate, since they've never been employed and therefore can not collect unemployment benefits.

Hope and change.  I'd like mine back, thank you very much, and after five trillion bucks in spendumore waste, I think it's time to admit that the Keynesian multiplier for government spending is far less than one when Dear Leader insists on throwing money down the toilet on things like Solyndra and rail transit.

4 comments:

Joanna said...

"Hope and change. I'd like mine back, thank you very much..."

You can say that again.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Last night I was reading the preface to the book "The Seven Fat Years." Bartley writes, "The Keynesian universe collapsed with the stagflation of the 1970s." It may have collapsed, but never underestimate the power of greed and corruption to, if not resurrect, then at least zombify a thoroughly discredited economic philosophy.

Gramps Toolshed said...

I heard a funny quote about the stimulus money yesterday. Since government produces nothing, and everything it gets it takes from citizens, stimulus money is as effective as taking a pail of water from one end of a swimming pool and pouring it into another!! Less effective, actually. Because govt has to take their cut on the way!

Bike Bubba said...

Gramps, even worse; since government doesn't produce anything useful, and often (Solyndra, all DOE spending, light rail, etc..) often spends money on wasteful things, it's like trying to fill one end of the pool by taking a bucket of water out of the other end.....and throwing it out on the parking lot.