Tag: Jobs

Jobless claims revised up (again)

The Weekly Standard notes that jobless claims have been revised up and makes the following observation:

Americans need to work and not merely to pay the bills. They define themselves by their work and take pride in their work and in doing a good job. “I can outwork anyone,” is a common American boast. John Henry vowed he could drive more steel than a steam engine and he “died with a hammer in his hand.” The government can hand out unemployment checks but even if they cover the bills, it isn’t the same

Mark this on your calendars, because this is the first time that this non-wilsonian conservative will say of the wilsonian Weekly Standard; and that is they hit it out of the ballpark on this one here.

Of course, it would intellectually dishonest of me to not remind them and my readers that we are in this mess because of the idiocy of BOTH PARTIES. With Bush’s wars and Obama’s idiotic keynesian spending; it is a wonder that were not living in subjugation to China now.

So, yeah, that’s the reality of America and its my reality for the last eight years.

Hope and Change? — August Unemployment Numbers are not looking good.

I hate repeating myself, but for the sake of blogging about something, I am going to have to repeat myself….again. However, for short, it’s just more of this here.

But for those of us, who want a longer version of the story; I give you this:

When you print more money, you devalue currency, and when you devalue currency, the price of everything goes up.  This, in turn, causes employers to have to pay for more everything, and this also causes them to look at their bottom line. This is the vicious cycle of inflation. Which is caused by a fiat currency, which is not backed by Gold.  I said this on my old blog, a million times back when Obama was being elected and afterwards.

So, here we have the story about August unemployment numbers being bad. Again, as I report this, remember what I said above:

Via Gallup:

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New Gallup unemployment data suggest an increase in the government’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for August when it is reported on Friday, Sept. 7. During recent months, Gallup’s measurements have been more optimistic than those of the BLS. Barring a sharp reversal in this relationship, the government’s unadjusted unemployment rate might be expected to stay the same or increase in August.

Gallup’s Daily tracking of the unemployment situation is based on interviews with more than 30,000 adults over the 30 days ending Aug. 15, and shows essentially no change in the unadjusted unemployment rate at 8.3% compared to 8.2% in July. In turn, this suggests that the government’s unadjusted unemployment rate could increase to 8.7% in July from 8.6% in June. The government’s measurement of the unadjusted unemployment rate has been known to differ with Gallup’s findings, but a drop of 0.3% in July is necessary to bring the government’s unadjusted rate down to Gallup levels.

More interestingly, there were no BLS seasonal adjustments in August 2011. If this remains the same in 2012, the Gallup seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for August would be 8.3% while that of the BLS would be 8.7%, assuming a similar increase to that shown in the Gallup data. Further, Gallup’s data show the labor force participation rate to be increasing in August. In turn, that could have an additional negative impact on the unemployment rate for August if the government’s data show a similar pattern.

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Trying to guess the U.S. unemployment rate has been a thankless task in 2012, even using Gallup’s 30,000 interviews as a basis for estimation — even worse than trying to guess the results of the government’s establishment survey. However, like ADP’s (Automatic Data Processing) estimates of the establishment survey results, Gallup’s numbers have been close to the household survey results much of the time.

Regardless, barring heroic adjustments or a sharp change in direction, Gallup data suggest the seasonally adjusted U.S. unemployment rate for August will increase — possibly substantially — when announced in early September.

So, if you cannot find a job, this is why: Employers are having to look at their bottom lines. They have to take in account for the fact that they have to pay for supplies, taxes, insurance, and equipment; this does not leave much left over for extra employees.  This is not rocket science my friends; this is textbook small business administration. It is too bad that progressives, Democrats and the Obama Administration simply do not seem to understand this concept.

(H/T Instapundit) Also: American Thinker, The PJ Tatler (via memeorandum)

Dear MSNBC: Obama is engaging in the ‘niggerization’ of America

Yes, I said that and do please, quote me on it.

Video: (Via Mediaite)

Via Mediaite:

Touré didn’t just say that – he said that Romney was “using the playbook Republicans have been using for decades now.” In other words, Republicans have been involved in so-called “niggerization” for decades.

This is disgusting. It’s a lie, and what’s more, it waters down racism to the point where anything qualifies – and to the point that real racism isn’t taken seriously anymore. According to Touré, it’s racist to suggest that Obama is the “food stamp president,” even if he’s elevated food stamp usage to record levels; it’s racist to call him angry; but it’s not racist for Joe Biden to suggest that freeing Wall Street will put black people “back in chains.”

Only MSNBC would put a fool like Touré on the air every night. And only the racially extreme left would consider Touré an eloquent spokesperson for their perverse views.

Okay, now I am going to say what Ben did not have the room or even the heart to say up there in that quoted text above.  As a white man, who has been unemployed for the last eight goddamned years and has watched as family members, friends and neighbors of mine lose their jobs, their homes, and their dignity over the last eight years —- of which Obama has been in office for almost four years of that time.  Let me say that I have watched as Obama has engaged in the ‘niggerization’ of America.

I have watched as President Obama bailed out Wall Street and left people on Main Street to suffer.  I have watched as Barack Obama went out of his way to protect failing companies like General Motors and Chrysler (READ —- UNIONS!)  — Which are headed for bankruptcy again —- and then not do a goddamned thing for non-union working class folk  —-like myself.

The fact is that unemployment is up, food stamp enrollment is up, social security enrollment is up and the Nation’s GDP is down, manufacturing is down and economy is just goddamned awful.  Whose fault is that?  It is President Barack Obama’s fault.  If Barack Obama had just left the economy alone, it would have been just fine and would have recovered.  However, no, he spent like a drunken sailor and now this Country is $15 TRILLION dollars in debt and what do we have to show for it?  —– Not one goddamned lousy thing except for the debt itself.  Oh, we got something all right, a lousy goddamned healthcare bill that utterly robbed Medicare!

So, if the liberal Democrats want to talk about ‘niggerization’ of anything, I suggest they look in the goddamned mirror and also take a look in the White House and look real close at what the “magic negro” that they elected to the office of President of the United States is really doing!  Because I tend to suspect that, these clowns are just plain damned clueless.

This is what the Democrats have left, their leader has failed, and his reelection is in jeopardy.  They have nothing left in their bag; —- except for class and racial warfare.  This will cost them dearly too.  Because Independent people are going to see this and they are going to run away from it.  Racial resentment is a turnoff to most people.

This is not what Martin Luther King Jr. taught; this is the sort of thing Malcolm X preached and practiced.  It was wrong then and it is wrong now.  This is why Martin Luther King Jr. has a monument in Washington DC and Malcolm X does not.  Because preaching this sort of division does nothing to advance the black cause, all it does is cause hate and resentment.  It used to work in the 1970’s and even in the 1980’s.  However, I tend to believe the Americans, even black Americans, are just a little smarter than that anymore.  They are tired of the division and the warfare and just want to get along with everyone.  I mean, blacks can go to Selma, Alabama now and eat, shop and sleep about anywhere they want to there now.

Therefore, to MSNBC and this Toure character, I say this: Your racial resentment and “the evil white man” magic act are getting a bit stale.  I think it is time you found a new script and some new talking points.  Because smart Americans, like me, see right through this and reject it wholeheartedly.  By that, I mean; Black Americans, White Americans, Latino Americans, and every other goddamned race of Americans too.  All Americans see right now is the fact that there are no jobs, and that they have no money and huge bills and mortgages that are underwater — and the best thing you idiots at MSNBC can do is play the race card?  My God —- has defending hope and change gotten that bad?

In closing: ‘niggerization’ —- Nigga please!  You idiots do not even know the meaning of the word! 🙄

Others: Power Line, The Gateway Pundit and Washington Post, The Gateway Pundit, We are respectable negroes, The PJ Tatler, The Daily Caller and Riehl World View (Via Memeorandum)

Update: Toure apologizes

Why Scott Walker Won and the Democrats in Wisconsin lost

I was going to try avoid writing about this, but I am seeing some rather silly stuff being written about this win; So, I thought I would offer my thoughts as a former Democratic Party voter. Update: Greg Sargent over at The Washington Post hits the post a bit, but fails, as most progressives do; to see the full picture.

Putting it plain and simple, The Democrats in Wisconsin picked a fight that they could not win. — They were outspent, out-organized, and out-boxed; the Democrats had zero chance of winning this recall election at all. But yet, they still decided to fight for a recall election. They should have taken their cues from Michigan and left well enough alone. The Democrats in Michigan tried unsuccessfully to get Governor Snyder recalled here twice and both times they failed horribly. This is because residents of Michigan knew that the former Governor of Michigan was a incompetent moron who could not Govern worth a damn and they did not want a Democrat back in office again. Thus, the Democrats wisely dropped the issue and decided to try and win the 2012 election.  Wisconsin should have followed their lead, but they did not and decided to try and force their hand and failed.

Mother Jones has some good ideas as well:

1) Campaign Money is King

Walker crushed his Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, in the political money wars. The governor raised $30.5 million while Barrett pulled in $3.9 million—a nearly 8-to-1 advantage in candidate fundraising. Walker banked on in- and out-of-state donors, including heavyweight GOP contributors such as Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and Amway heir Dick Devos. Walker was able to raise so much money because of a quirk in state law that lets candidates potentially facing a recall raise unlimited funds for their defense. (The normal limit for individual donors in $10,000.) Barrett did not get to raise unlimited funds in his recall campaign—which placed him at a great disadvantage.

All that money helped Walker pound Barrett in the ad wars. An analysis by Hotline On Call found that Walker and his GOP allies outspent Barrett and his backers 3-to-1 on TV ad buys in the three months before Tuesday’s recall. The dark-money-peddling Republican Governors Association itself spent $9.4 million to keep Walker in office.

Just as the political money advantage proved crucial to labor’s win last year in repealing Ohio’s anti-union SB 5 law, campaign cash appears to have played a pivotal role in the GOP’s Wisconsin wins .

2) The Candidate

Filing nearly one million signatures to trigger a recall election, Democrats and union leaders and members had their sights trained on the governor. The recall election’s Democratic primary forced them to take their eyes off the prize. A primary fight between Barrett and former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk splintered the labor movement. The major unions endorsed Falk early on, sometimes over the opposition of their own rank-and-file. Several other unions held out until late March, when Barrett entered the race, and then endorsed the mayor. This primary drama knocked the anti-Walker effort off course for weeks, if not a month, in a race where every single day counts. It divided a unified movement into Barrett supporters and Falk supporters.

3) No New Ground

Democrats and labor unions touted their massive get-out-the-vote operation, which was supposed to tip the scales in their favor. Turn-out was way up in the elections, at 2.4 million, but the left failed to win over the types of people who elected Walker in 2010. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinelnotes, Walker’s Tuesday win is a mirror image of his 2010 victory—just with more voters. He won men and lost women; won independents and lost moderates; and won suburban and rural voters but not urban voters.

More notably, Walker won 38 percent of votes from union households—an increase of 1 percent from 2010. Remember, union members or their spouses didn’t know in 2012 that Walker planned to target them after the election with his anti-union “budget repair” bill curbing collective bargaining rights. Yet 16 months after Walker launched his attack on unions, just as many people in union households voted for him. The unions failed to rally their own ranks.

My thoughts on the Unions — One of the main reasons why the unions failed; not because of a lack of members or money. The unions failed because for the following:

  1. They over played their hand, by storming the capital building and occupying it. This made them look like total buffoons in the eyes of the people, not mention the heavy handed tactics that were on par with communist gulags.
  2. The second reason is a rather simple one; not all union members are on board with the progressive movement, just because someone has a union card, does not necessarily make him a Democrat. Some union members are free thinkers and some of them resent being culled in together with the socialist crowd.
  3. The last reason is this; some union members are just not happy with the Democratic Party and with Obama. I believe Obama fatigue played a big part in the loss in Wisconsin. I believe it will also play out in November as well.

Needless to say, Scott Walker won big and the Unions and Democrats lost big. The results of this will be far-reaching and the Democrats in Wisconsin would be wise to lay low and try to hang on in 2012. But if they do not, they should learn the lessons of the massive over-reach that took place in Wisconsin and with the Democratic Party as a whole. However, knowing Democrats like I do; they will not learn a thing from this.

 

Update on job

Remember that job possibility that I was telling you all about?

Well, it was a washout. This video here, tells more about it. Basically, I have not driven a semi truck or operated a manual transmission in a semi for about 7 or so good years…..and yes, it showed, badly.

So, I’m back to square one, unless I can find a local trucking company that will let me putter around in one of their trucks, which really will not happen, because of the insurance industry’s tight grip on trucking companies, by demanding that ALL driver’s have two or more years of experience. Problem is, I just cannot go OTR or “over the road.” so, that knocks that out.

So, once again, here I sit, painted into a corner. 🙁

Some positive news on the job front

I have some good news to report. On Monday, I have to call a local company that hauls around “roll-offs” for scrap yards. I have just had some new neighbors move in across the street here and the oldest daughter’s boyfriend works for the place and told me they are hiring. I got the number and the people to talk to; so, on Monday I am calling them. This is not a sure thing or anything; but, I am hoping that something good comes of it.

I am beyond happy to get back to work. Seven years is plenty of time to be off, and to be quite honest, I want to get back to it. I fought the good fight of faith here in the blogosphere and I am quite ready to go back to being just another face in the crowd.

The blog will continue, I just will not be updating it as often; who knows, maybe I will start a trucking blog. 😀

Wish me luck, pray for me or whatever suits your fancy. 😉

Thanks!

-Pat

 

IBD: Job Recession 49 months, Worst Since World War 2

Continuing with my line of thought that I started yesterday; it seems that things are just plain bad.

Just how bad is it?

This bad:

The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs in February vs. expectations for 206,000, continuing a recent trend of decent hiring activity. The unemployment rate held at 8.3%.

But America remains mired in the longest jobs recession since the Great Depression. It’s been 49 months since the U.S. hit peak employment in January 2008. And with nonfarm payrolls still 5.33 million below their old high, the jobs slump will continue for several more years.

The previous jobs recession record — 47 months — came during and after the comparatively mild 2001 recession, which saw unemployment climb to only 6.3%. The average job recovery time since 1980 is 29 months, not including the current slump.

The labor market won’t truly return to health until some 10 million positions are created to rehire all those who lost their jobs and to absorb new workers.

The longest jobs recession in decades coincides, not coincidentally, with the longest stretch of anemic economic performance on record.

U.S. gross domestic profit hasn’t risen 4% or more in any quarter since the first quarter of 2006. That’s by far the longest such stretch on record going back to 1950. The only other sizable sub-par stretch was a three-year span from late 2000 to mid-2003 during the prior recession and sluggish recovery.

I would advise you to go read the rest of that report, as it is quite a depressing read.  Ace over at Ace of Spades HQ likes to call it DOOM.  I simply look at it as grim reality.  This reality was created by the Democrats, who sought to game the system during a time of prosperity.  This should be a textbook example of why wealth redistribution simply does not work.  Instead, the Democrats will use this as an excuse to try to push their green energy polices and why we all should have healthcare, at the taxpayer’s expense.  All the while painting Republicans as racist, money grubbing, thugs who wish to keep the poor, black and disabled down.

Arguing it, in my opinion, is an exercise in futility anymore, because most Republicans are too stupid to know how to make the argument properly.  Instead, Republicans come off sound cold, aloof, uncaring, and cold-hearted —- or simply, like Mitt Romney.

This all affects me in many ways.  I would get into all of that, but because I do not want to be accused of being a whiner, I will not bother.  Therefore, I will simply say this, this all was happening in Michigan, long before it began happening in the entire Country.  Thanks to Jennifer Granholm’s inability to govern a state, we suffered long before the rest of the Country did. This is why I like to say, welcome to my world.  Because this mess we are in now, has been my world, since about 2000.  Admittedly, it got bad around here in about 2003 and after that, it was downhill around here.  I have out of work since 2005; and part of that is my fault and part of it is not.  My physical health is not in the best of shape either, my back and knees are hosed from years of trying to be superman, when I was working.  It all catches up, as I have learned; there is not day that goes by when my back and knees are not in pain.  The pain is just a part of life, of getting old, I suppose.  I do not have any sort of healthcare insurance, so I live with the pain.

However, I simply refuse to see myself as a charity case.  I refuse to take a handout from the Government.  Social Security is out for me; hell, I have a friend in Ohio that I have known since childhood — we used to live across the street from one another in Southwest Detroit — and he has a legitimate heart condition and he has a lawyer fighting to get his social security.  You want to talk about someone unfairly losing his or her career.  My friend Joe, who I have known for an eternity, was a well-paid and very well skilled automotive mechanic.  Let me state emphatically that the auto industry is much worse off without his skills.  Anyhow, Joe was working in this area not far from where I live, at an automotive dealership.  Joe ended up having to move to Ohio to be closer to his family.  In the process of moving, he just happened to have a check up and that is when he discovered he had a heart condition.  This might help you to understand why it is that I simply do not like dwelling on my own misfortune at all.  This is simply because there are those out there, who have it much worse than I do.

The point I am making is this; if my friend Joe is having to lawyer to even get social security disability and he has a legitimate condition, what makes you think I could even remotely get it?  I just cannot see myself trotting in and saying, “Hi, I have ADHD and I think I am entitled to social security.”  I tried that once, after being pestered by my Mom about it and I tried that and it failed.  I will not try that again.  I felt like a fool.  My point is, I do want to work, doing something that I can do, that will not end up screwing my knees and back up even worse than they already are now.

I have made three major mistakes in my life and I will always regret them.  The first was thinking that I could go to Commercial Truck Driving School, on the State of Michigan’s dime no less and then think that I could just waltz into a local driving job.  I know now that the commercial vehicle insurance industry just does not allow that to happen.  The second mistake was getting a job that was related to the retail industry; retail stores suck and those who work in them are usually complete and useless assholes.  Believe me when I tell you this; I know from experience.  With the exception of my first job ever, every job I have ever tried work in, which was related to retail was a total disaster.  I just do not have the personality for retail sales at all.  The main reason for this is that, frankly, people can be just plain nasty.  I could tell you horror stories of working in the retail business.

My third mistake was allowing my family to talk me into getting a job where they worked, that was major mistake.  I believe the biggest reason I am where I am today is the result that mistake.  I love my family, all of them; but I have tried working with them more than once and it was a disaster.  Even when my job was not working around them, it ended up with me getting into with them, over something.  Lesson learned there, never again.

Therefore, here I sit, writing, hoping that this will all turn around for the Country and me.  Something tells me, I am going to be waiting for a very long time.

The real unemployment rate? Try 14.9%

I have one thing to say about all this below; welcome to my world.

1. If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7% then vs. 63.9% today—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.8%.

2. But what if you take into the account the aging of the Baby Boomers, which means the labor force participation (LFP) rate should be trending lower. Indeed, it has been doing just that since 2000. Before the Great Recession, the Congressional Budget Office predicted what the LFP would be in 2012, assuming such demographic changes. Using that number, the real unemployment rate would be 10.4%.

3. Of course, the LFP rate usually falls during recessions. Yet even if you discount for that and the aging issue, the real unemployment rate would be 9.5%.

4. Then there’s the broader, U-6 measure of unemployment which includes the discouraged plus part-timers who wish they had full time work. That unemployment rate, perhaps the truest measure of the labor market’s health, is still a sky-high 14.9%.

5. Recall that back in 2009, White House economists Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer used their old-fashioned Keynesian model to predict how the $800 billion stimulus would affect employment. According to their model—as displayed in the above chart, updated—unemployment should be around 6% today.

6. As Ed Carson of Investor’s Business Daily points out, it’s been a whopping 49 months since the U.S. hit peak employment in January 2008. The average job recovery time since 1980 is 29 months, not including the current slump.

7. And how long might it take to get back to the 4.4% unemployment rate that existed under President George. W. Bush? Well, let’s say the goal was to get back to that rate in 5 years. And let’s assume the LFP rate returns to the CBO trend. According to a jobs calculator created by the Atlanta Fed, the U.S. economy would have to generate about 225,000 jobs a month, every month, for the next 60 months to hit that target. But few economist think we’ll see sustained job growth like that, especially since it assumes the economy would avoid recession during that span.

Indeed, JPMorgan just cut its GDP forecast for this quarter to 1.5% from 2.0% and says there is “some downside risk” to its second-quarter forecast of 2.5%.

via The real unemployment rate? It sure isn’t 8.3% « The Enterprise Blog.

What gets me is that I keep getting these people coming here and telling me to get a job.  My answer to them: Find me one.  Truth is there are not any jobs around here.  Especially if you have been out of work for a long while, as I have; so, basically, I am screwed.  I will most likely be forced onto the Government dole, because of the Democrats screwing of our system into the ground.  I have paid into it; so, I guess I am entitled to it.  What sucks is, I really want to work; at least doing some sort of delivery product; at least in a straight truck; but because I have been out of work so long, most employers will not hire someone out as long as I have been.

It does truly suck; but it is my reality of my life.  You would think that I would be able to find work for a political publication; but anymore, if you do not have some sort of an inside connection somewhere, you will not be hired.  Again, more of that suck business; but it is the reality of life.  One can either suck it up or whine about it.  I choose not to whine, but rather keep writing.  I figure whining about it will not change anything anyhow, so why bother?

Anyhow, that is the facts life.  One can either deal with it and move on or complain.

 

Is this the best that the AFL-CIO can do?

Shocker! Not.  (Via InstaPundit)

Protesters at Friday’s “Occupy CPAC” event, organized by AFL-CIO and the Occupy DC movement, told The Daily Caller that they were paid “sixty bucks a head” to protest outside the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

One protester told TheDC that all the “Occupy” activists were being paid to protest, and that his union, Sheet Metal Workers Local 100, approached him about the money-making opportunity.

“I have nothing nice to say about Local 100. … They just told me ‘you wanna make sixty bucks? So c’mon,’” the protester said.

Other “Occupy CPAC” protesters were unwilling to speak on camera because they were unaware what they were protesting and what the CPAC event was about.

via Occupy CPAC | Union | Paid | The Daily Caller.

Allow me to say this; as the son of a retired General Motors worker and retired member of the UAW —- is this is the best that the AFL-CIO can do for a protest? If this is the case, and I do fear that it is — then I do fear for the future of the labor movement. Because this is how lame, desperate — pick a damn adverb — that they have become. The once great AFL-CIO, which stood for the common man and made sure that crony capitalists were held in check; is now nothing more than a casting service for the far liberal left.

Another thing too; if the AFL-CIO is paying people to protest — my question is, what else are they planning on paying people to do? I mean, and I hate to be the one to say it — But these people are a part of the far liberal left, we used to call them communists. Anyhow, what else will they pay people to do? All I am going to say is this; it was a glitter bomb used here here recently on Mitt Romney, I just hope the secret service is up for the job. Because I will say this; in 1970 Walter Reuther‘s plane went down near Black Lake, Michigan. Most union people believe the plane was sabotaged. They also believe that the crony capitalists at the big three were responsible; I disagree with that. I believe the the communists did him in. Because in 1949, Reuther expelled the Communist-backed unions from the CIO. Who is to say, that they did not kill Reuther in an act of revenge? Communists, much like their brothers-in-arms — Muslim Terrorists — are very patient people and will wait for their moment of revenge, years if it takes that long.

Because you have to understand, these people on the far communist left; they know no valor, no morals — nothing. They are power hungry people and they have much invested in Barack Obama and they will stop at nothing to protect him. This is why I worry about whomever becomes the nominee of the GOP. Because in 2008, they had nothing really to lose.  In 2012, it is another story; they have a whole bunch to lose. I am not saying that I have any sort of inside knowledge at all. However, I know these people and I know how they play their game.  I just hope the GOP, the secret service and everyone else on the right is on their game. Because to be quite honest, in this election; I fear the worst. I don’t know why. But I do. You can call it a gut feeling that I have.

I just hope, for everyone’s sake — that I am wrong. 🙁