Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The War On Industry

9 Comments

Make that industries:

So starting as a presidential candidate, Obama has:

Called for bankrupting the coal industry.
Raised gas prices by forcing domestic production to a crawl.
Demonized bankers and automatic teller machines.
Went to war against Fox News, talk radio, and Twitter user Kevin Eder.
Alienated Wall Street, which backed him in 2008 — and will probably do so again.
Nationalized the car industry.
Forced Chrysler to terminate 25 percent of its auto dealers.
Demonized Las Vegas.
Alinskyized the Chamber of Commerce.
Blocked Boeing from expanding into a Right to Work State.
Is busy transforming the insurance industry into the equivalent of quasi-government utilities.
Created an uncertain (to say the least) regulatory environment, making new hiring a challenging proposition.
And is now Alisnkyizing private planes, despite having temporary custody of the greatest “private” plane of all.

As Doug Ross wrote last fall, “Unlike Tricky Dick Nixon, Obama Wears His Enemies List On His Sleeve.”

And yet, when only 18000 jobs were created last month, and unemployment is at 9.2%, it’s “unexpectedly.”

[Update a couple minutes later]

See?

U.S. employers added 18,000 workers in June, the fewest in nine months, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly climbed, indicating a struggling labor market.

Emphasis mine.

[Update a few minutes later]

Economic calamity:

…Keynesian economics is a total fail. Fred Barnes quoted FDR Treasury Secretary this morning in the WSJ:

“In FDR’s time, a surge in spending by Washington was a cornerstone of New Deal efforts to lift the country out of the Depression. But unemployment never dropped below 14% in the 1930s and rose to 19% by the end of the decade. “Now, gentlemen, we have tried spending,” Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury secretary, confessed to House leaders in 1939. “We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.”

Combine that with James Pethokoukis column yesterday that lays out exactly how dire the future budgeting and debt of the US is and you have an actual, not manufactured, crisis that needs to get resolved today.

This isn’t rocket science. But it does require the progressive wing to give up their reliance on economic theory that only works in a textbook. Economics is a social science and a study of human behavior. Keynes postulated a theory and we have numerous empirical examples of that theory failing miserably. How long will it take?

Einstein said the theory of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. There, my friends, is the core principle of Democratic policy. Insanity.

Frighteningly, almost half the electorate shares their affliction.

9 thoughts on “The War On Industry”

  1. Last months unemployment numbers were unexpectedly revised higher as well. Historically I am not sure how often that has happened but it has happened a lot over the last two years.

    A graph of initially reported numbers with the revised numbers would be very interesting.

  2. Agree with wodun. I know it has happened quite a bit, because I remember it going on many times in 2009. I would like to see such a graph.

  3. I have to heap a lot of the blame for the “unexpected” nonsense on the economists that are feeding the reporters with this rose colored BS in the first place. Not that they can be excused for believing it. If I were wrong as consistently as they have been over the last two years I would be unemployed.
    New Drinking Game…Each time you hear one of them say “unexpectedly” shout ” Really?” or you have to drink. That’s easy since economic reporter make you want to drink anyway. It that Racist?

  5. Every revison for the last six months has been in the negative IE toward more unemployment, direction.

    Often the pattern is
    Revise last months number up so its just over this months number.
    Then you can declare that things are improving….

    Next Month revise this month so that next month looks better than this month, repeat as needed so the political class can say things are getting better.

    the fact that they could not fudge this months number enough to do that is a bad sign.

    Then use the birth death adjustment to cook the data.
    If you take out the magic birth death fudge number for the month just reported it goes from 18K jobs created to 112K lost.

    In January when everyone isn’t looking adjust the birth death number by a big jump so that you can say no real change, just an accouning adjustment.

    The 9.2% number is also a farce, currently only 58.2% of the population has a job. If you counted the unemployment rate using the same measures they did during the great depression in the 30’s our rate is presently higher.

    Welcome to fudge the numbers.

  7. It’s whack a mole trying to get people to not buy the demagoguery against free enterprise. We need to hold the media accountable somehow. Our educational system as well. I’m thinking the left with their journolist was on to something in that we need to pound themes home until they take, then move on to the next. Otherwise it’s just those that care that get it with others (in great numbers) too involved in just their own lives to care.

    …or benefiting from crony capitalism so they join in demonizing real competition and free enterprise.

    Unemployment will come down with employers success. How is that not universally understood?

  8. jjs Says:
    “Each time you hear one of them say “unexpectedly” shout ” Really?” or you have to drink.”

    And unemployment will drop because so many people die from alcohol poisoning.

  9. ken anthony Says:
    “Unemployment will come down with employers success. How is that not universally understood?”

    But those employers will only be successful by taking advantage of their workers and otherwise acting evil. We can’t have that.

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