Unemployment Hits 9.8%

If unemployment hits 10%, Obama and the Dems are totally burnt toast, no matter what happens after that...especially, if they go against the 60%+ who don't want Big Brother care with PO and then pass it with snide legislative trickery....that is not fooling anybody. Reply

The stimulus is working! The recession is over! Only 15,000,000 Americans are unemployed Only 200,000+ jobs were lost last month. The stimulus is working! The recession is over! Less bad is good! Biden says, "We've saved over 1,000,000 jobs." And I'm the prime minister of Yemen. Reply

9.8% is only including the people actually on UNEMPLOYMENT... If you want to tell the truth it's around 18% Reply

9.8%. Remember during the pitch for the stimulus, the White House promised the bill would never let the unemployment rate surpass 8%? Now, you can dislike me for it, but I'm stating the facts. The White House says the stimulus is working--just like the surge was working, right?--well how can you measure progress by the slowing rate of joblessness? We cannot measure success by the decline of failure. Let's wait until the numbers start reversing before we get all amped up. Reply

Robert, I found this article helpful in understanding how and if government stimulus spending works to our benefit. http://www.heritage.org/research/economy/bg2302.cfm The majority of Americans opposed porkulus 1 and 2 for good reason. We understand that the government cannot create jobs. The irresponsible Congress will bankrupt the nation unless we stop them in 2010. Reply

Economy ----LETS CUT THE CRAP The economy is in a bad way and sinking fast. This is largely a result of NAFTA which has cost the loss of jobs to foreign manufacturing . No one thought to level the playing field which was already tilted with their lower wages. We are in this together. It is not labor vs, management or government against corporations. It is simply American manufacturing vs, foreign manufacturing. Manufacturing is the backbone to our economy. Until we can level the playing field, we don't stand a prayer of recovering. Here is probably the only way to do that. 1. Government must become friendly with manufacturing, not adversarial. New jobs must start from manufacturing. The countries who have taken our manufacturing jobs don't have all the corporate taxes and government restrictions on manufacturing that we do. These taxes were a way our politicians could get money with out getting citizens outraged. Ultimately citizens have to pay these taxes which companies had to pass on in the price of the products. If manufacturing is going to come back this needs to be addressed in a big way. And o by the way, how are these taxes going to be made up now that companies are going bankrupt or have much lower earnings? 2. In addition, labor must become friendly with manufacturing management. Unions must work towards manufacturing effectiveness. Wages must be made realistic, but even more important, work rules that inhibit effectiveness must be abolished. Remember, we are in this together and hopefully learned that if corporations don't profit, there is no reason for them to stay in business. ; 3. Maximum manufacturing cost effectiveness can only be reached by leveling production rates. Changing rates disrupts the factory negatively effecting every cost in the factory BIG TIME. This was the real secret to the successful Toyota System. They call it smooth loading. This is what makes Just-in-time and kazians effective, not the reverse. This was Americanized, and successfully implemented in two large plants, and documented in a book entitled 'Level Loading Production'. The reason this has not been incorporated further is that the CEO's come from their financial and marketing divisions and don't understand manufacturing. Further exacerbating this is that most financial systems they use are built for pricing not manufacturing effectiveness. This gives out the wrong message leading to bad decisions. 4. We must lower the cost of energy. In the short run this means tapping our oil resources off shore and Alaska. In the long run, ways to develop alternate sources of energy must be encouraged. It appears that the development of alternate sources has been stymied by the threat of oil companies lowering prices making the alternate source non competitive which discourages capital going into this effort. Notice to treehuggers:- when we get cold and hungry- stand aside, that tree will become our firewood. The hard part is finding the leadership to get this... Reply