Thursday, September 3, 2009

One Who Lives In The Cuckoo's Nest

Today was quite the day for economic data:
Yet, despite all that, Joe Biden had the gall to state that the stimulus bill is doing more than they hoped (Click to See Full Story: "Biden: Stimulus doing more 'than we had hoped'"). He points to the fact that 500,000 to 750,000 jobs have been "saved" or "created" by the stimulus in the last 20 weeks; or about 25,000 jobs a week. Putting aside the fact that this is truly an unprovable and unquantifiable set of numbers, this guy has apparently strayed a little too far into the cuckoo's nest with that nonsensical comment.

He seems to overlook the fact that Americans have been losing their jobs, on a weekly basis, at a clip that is greater than all the jobs he seems to think were being saved or created by the stimulus plan. To say that the stimulus is more "than we hoped" is just as dopey. We are well past the 8% unemployment rate that Obama promised would be the unemployment ceiling when the stimulus bill was being rammed through Congress. Many economists now feel like we are beginning another downward fall in what could easily be a double-dip or "W-type" recession.

I don't know if Joe is off his meds or if he just woke up from some kind of "midsummer's night dream"; but, he must think that Americans are totally unaware of the real facts about the state of this economy. Maybe he was somewhat confused. Maybe he was referring to the 10-year budget deficit as being "more than we had hoped" which is now project to be $9 trillion after this President's economic team had originally said -- just 5 months ago -- that it would "only" be $7.4 trillion. Is that it, Joe!

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