jobs

March 3, 2010 - Tomorrow morning, the latest job numbers are due to be released by the federal government. They are expected to be bleak and the White House is now in full-on finger pointing mode. But they aren't pointing the finger where you might think. They're not blaming those pesky Republicans or tea baggers. They're not singling out individual members of Congress that they consider to be obstructionist. No, they are blaming the weather; specifically the snow fall that has blanketed much of the country. Who would have thought that with global warming being such a big problem that snow could possibly result in an additional 100,000 or so job losses? Maybe we should track down Al Gore to explain how this all works!

All kidding aside, the White House is running as fast as it can to distance itself from the latest job numbers and they are blaming the weather. Larry Summers, an economic advisor to the President told CNBC that, "The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics."

This morning, President Obama stood before the cameras and announced that the most recent unemployment numbers released show that the economy is improving. According to those numbers, the unemployment rate dipped to 9.7%; down from 10% last month. But at the same time these numbers were released the government also said that there were fewer people employed in January than there were in December. So how is it possible that with fewer people working that the unemployment rate is also down? The answer is that it isn't possible unless the government tinkers with the numbers. And that is exactly what they are doing.

Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too? Someone needs to tell that to the number crunchers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). They have found a way to take people off the rolls of the unemployed, even though they are not working. At least, that is what they want you to think. And it is especially what the President and members of Congress want you to believe.

When the BLS compiles unemployment numbers, it adds new claims for unemployment. At the same time, it subtracts discouraged workers. A discouraged worker is someone who wants to work but who has not been able to find a job and who has given up looking. According to the BLS's own numbers, when you include discouraged workers in the unemployment numbers, current unemployment numbers are above 18%. But even that doesn't tell the entire story.

February 2, 2010 - By virtually any standard, the economic stimulus package passed last year has failed to pay dividends in the form of jobs. Unemployment remains at 10% and while many economists are claiming that the worst is behind us, there is little evidence of this on Main Street. If we are in recovery mode, it is a jobless recovery. Yet the Obama administration continues to push for additional government spending - supposedly to create or maintain jobs even though there is no evidence that the first spending package has created any dividends. At the same time, in the administration's new budget, it is cutting funding for NASA's Constellation program. And the immediate effects of those cuts will be thousands of layoffs.

January 13, 2010 - The FED has just posted its numbers for 2009 and at first glance they are impressive. They made a profit of $46 Billion; more than in any other year. And, also at first glance, that is good news for taxpayers. After all, all FED profits are turned over to the Treasury Department. $46 Billion in profit means that taxpayers should have to pay a lot less in taxes. Unfortunately, all of these first impressions are wrong. A closer look at these profits leads one to wonder if the FED has actually hired Bernie Madoff as a consultant?

The FED's mission is to keep inflation low and to work to see that employment remains steady. They do this by controlling the money supply - that is the amount of money that is available in the economy - and by setting interest rates for borrowed funds. The FED is the only organization that can actually legally create money out of thin air. And creating money has been at the core of the FED's business since late 2008. Between September 2007 and the end of August 2008, the FED more than doubled the money supply. And although they did reduce the amount of money available over the course of 2009, the supply is still significantly higher than it was at the beginning of 2008. This will eventually lead to inflation.