Obama's Abysmal Record On Poverty

In celebrating 50 years since President Lyndon Johnson declared his war on poverty, Obama has now declared his own war on poverty; and well he should.  That's because, right now, the poverty rate in America is higher than it has been in 49 years; when, in 1965, it stood at just 15.1%.

If you listen to the President, poverty could be lessened if we force companies to pay a higher minimum wage, extend unemployment benefits, and pass another stimulus package which he now calls a Jobs Act.  But, we already did all these things before and the poverty rate has only gone up and is showing no signs of dropping.

What Obama doesn't seem to understand is the fact that half the jobs that he keeps taking credit for are low paying, entry-level, and minimum wage work.  The kind of jobs that put, and keep, people in poverty. 

References:

Half Of All Jobs Created In The Past 3 Years Were Low-Paying: Study: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/low-paying-jobs_n_3266737.html

Despite massive increase in welfare spending, no change in poverty level: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/06/despite_massive_increase_in_welfare_spending_no_change_in_poverty_level.html

More Proof That Obama's Stimulus Was A Failure

As most people know, the unemployment rate only proceeded to go higher following the passage and roll out of Obama's Stimulus Package. Now, comes some more proof that the "stimulus" was a failure.

A recently released report, Household Income Trends During the Recession and Economic Recovery, has determined that the average household income fell nearly 10% since the beginning of the recession in 2007; from $55,309 to today's $49,909. But, what's more disturbing is the fact that, during the years that the stimulus was being applied, household incomes fell at a rate that was double that of the actual recession years. In fact, during the recession (2007 to mid-2009), incomes lost 3.2 percent. But during the years forward of that period, at the height of stimulus spending, the average household income lost a whopping 6.7 percent.

It's facts like these that should make anyone uncomfortable about Congress' passage of another one of Obama's recovery plans; especially his current jobs bill which is just a repackaging of his original stimulus package with a new name and half the amount of money.

What The Unemployment Report Doesn't Tell You

Since 2007 and throughout these hard economic times, the workforce has remained constant at about 154 million workers. This is despite an average annual birth rate of approximately 1.25%. So, theoretically, and based on births alone, the workforce should have grown by about 8 million new workers (2 million workers a year); with this year's workforce totaling 162 million. Additionally, this country allows the legal immigration -- both permanent and temporary -- of about 200,000 to 300,000 work-eligible workers and their families each year. This, then, taken into consideration, means we should have a real current workforce of about 163 million workers. But, we don't.

Now, to the point of all these statistics.

Month after month, the employment reports have shown that we have added new jobs to the economy. Last month, as reported this morning, only 18,000 new jobs were added. But, is this real job growth? Not, hardly. The fact is that the 18,000 new jobs falls horribly short of any growth in our workforce. As shown above, we roughly add about 2.25 million new workers to the workforce each year. That's approximately 187,000 new workers per month. Therefore, if we don't exceed 187,000 new jobs in any given month, we're actually losing jobs. This month, therefore, we really lost about 169,000 jobs if normal workforce growth is taken into consideration. That is the story that this and every employment report never tells you. Since Obama has taken office, the workforce hasn't grown at all; despite nearly a trillion dollars in stimulus. In essence, 5.6 million new workers in the last 2-1/2 years have just fallen off the map and their fate has never been reported in our so-called monthly employment report. That's a sad story that ought to be told. Instead, we have a President touting that his policies have added 2 million jobs to our economy since his taking office. But, as proven here, that 's a very false claim in light of normal workforce growth. To me, it's just another Obama con-job!

BMI: The Imperfect Measurment Of Obesity

Well, the cats' finally out of the bag.

After 16 months of digging around the thousands of pages of the Stimulus Bill, it has now been uncovered that health care professionals will be mandated, by law. to include the calculated Body Mass Index (BMI) for each of their patients as part of a centralized, electronic health-record database that will be established by 2014 (Click here to See Story: Obesity Rating for Every American Must Be Included in Stimulus-Mandated Electronic Health Records, Says HHS).

Why this mandate is even in a law that was aimed at "stimulating the economy" just proves the kind of deceit that the Democrats have been practicing with the passage of these multi-thousand-page laws that nobody has the time or inclination to read. God only knows what else is hidden in the Stimulus bill, the ObamaCare law, and in the Financial re-regulation law; each over two thousand pages long.

The problem with BMI is that it is an imperfect measurement of obesity. It falsely assumes that height and weight are the sole determining factors in establishing obesity. It completely ignores the ratio of fat-to-muscle that actually makes up someone's body weight. Because of this overly simplified number, many people, who exercise regularly and who have "bulked up" and have low body fat levels, are going to be falsely categorized as obese. That's why almost every sports athlete and many "leading men" in Hollywood have been inaccurately categorized as obese using the BMI formulation.

First off, this means that obesity in America will be overstated when the numbers are finally calculated in the central database. Secondly, it is highly possible, somewhere down the line, that all people with high BMI measurements could be stigmatized; resulting in higher health insurance premiums or, even, the denial of some medical services.

In my opinion, the missing factors in the BMI calculation are the inclusion, somehow, of waist and hip measurements. Certainly, when it comes to men, it is the big bellies that separate the obese men from the George Clooneys' and the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the world. For women, it is typically the hips. That's why, whenever you see a TV media story about obesity, they always show lead-in videos with shots of men's guts and women's butts.

The currently calculated BMI is something that is best left between a health care professional and his or her patient. Only then is there true verification as to whether or not someone is healthy with a high BMI or truly obese. As far as keeping a centralized database to measure the BMI of Americans, let's develop a formulation that really works and that is 99.9% accurate; otherwise, every Gold's Gym member, and many many others, will be included on the government's fat list. Lastly, let's not forget, too, that people with extremely low BMI's can be at a higher health risk than many people with high BMI's. In fact, a low BMI can be an indicator of some kind of serious health problem; including things such as depression, anorexia, or, possibly, cancer.

Once again, the Democrats have demonstrated their desire to constantly separate Americans into little boxes. And, you know dam well that their intention will be to use this information to support future legislation against the things they don't like by possibly proposing legislation that would ban things like potato chips and sodas. Maybe, too, they'll use this info to come up with another form of taxation: The BMI tax. For Democrats, information is truly power -- the power of further developing a nanny state where the government directs your every move in life as if we were all mindless idiots who need saving from our selves.

John Maynard Keynes' Multiplier Effect

Those who follow the Keynesian economic theory firmly believe in the "multiplier effect" as was originally espoused by Mr. Keynes. The multiplier effect is a demand-side economic theory that assumes that, for every dollar that is spent by any government, the economy will actually be stimulated by 1.5 times that amount as that dollar of spending ripples through the system. Simply said, a dollar spent returns $1.50 in economic activity.

But, for me, and many in the economic community, Keynes ignores the supply-side effect in promoting this demand-side economic philosophy. That's because government spending, through higher deficits, additional taxes, and inflation that is ultimately caused by the printing of more and more money, will have a more negative effect, in the long run, because too much disposable income (supply) is being removed from the economy in that government's quest to spend the country back into economic health.

Additionally, there is an immediate "carrying cost" associated with all government spending. By this, I mean, that, for every dollar spent by any government, more than one dollar had to have been collected in taxes and/or penalties. That's because any dollar of government spending is only a dollar after all the administrative costs and interest on that money has been paid. In our country, that carrying cost can be as much as 30% as any dollar of collected taxes tries to make its way through our massive bureaucracy for final distribution. Further, that distribution, especially in the case of the Stimulus Package, is typically to State governments who, in turn, deplete the value of that dollar with their own handling costs before any final distribution to the private sector.

Lastly, Keynes does not take into consideration what ultimately happens to every dollar of spending; once it makes it's way to the private sector. It's taxed! And, because a lot of stimulus money is given to small businesses and contractors for government-let projects, the tax rates are some of the highest in the country. Then, after the contractor pays his taxes on his/her portion of the stimulus money that remains as profits, any stimulus that was distributed to their employees in the form of pay is also taxed.

To me, there is no multiplier effect. If anything, a dollar of government spending was probably more than a buck and a half before the government got its hands on it, completely negating that supposed $1.50 multiplier effect. That's why the Stimulus Package hasn't worked and that is why Keynesian economics has never worked in the past. Further, as governments continue to grow in size, the false theory of the multiplier effect gets even weaker as more and more of any collected tax money yields less and less value after being digested by the government.

This is why lowering taxes is the best mechanism to stimulate the economy. Lower taxes means that any dollar of stimulative spending is a real dollar in spending; long before the government gets its value-shredding hands on it. Then and only then, is there any true multiplier effect!

Capiche, all you Keynesians out there!

Another Bad Employment Number

This morning, those filing first time unemployment insurance claims rose to 496,000. That's a 22,000 claim jump from last week and substantially higher than the drop that was expected by most economists. Except for a holiday and weather related one-week drop in claims, the amount of claims has been rising in the last 7 weeks of reporting. That is the opposite of what would be expected in a recovering economy.

The Associated Press (AP) is trying to spin this as being "snow-related layoffs" (Click to See Full Story: Jobless claims rise on snow-related layoffs). Please! Since when does any employer, even in construction, let people go because of a week or two of bad whether? If anything, the weather will only delay business activities; not cancel them completely. But, the AP will do anything to soften bad news for this President.

The reality, and not some slobbering defense of Obama by the Associated Press, is that mass layoffs are on the rise again -- as I reported two days ago. Believe me, Harry Reid's $15 billion jobs bill -- the one that was passed just this week -- isn't going to do anymore to improve things than his more than 50 times that amount in the $787 billion Stimulus Bill of last year. These people just don't get it. It is both current and future Federal spending, taxes, and regulation that is killing this economy. Give businesses a stable expense and tax outlook and, I guarantee you, the economy will grow and the employment situation will turn around. Past history shows that it was Reagan's policies and not those of FDR, Carter, and, now, Obama that can turnaround and grow an economy.

Schwarzenegger Sucks Up To Obama

From the tax and social spending capitol of America, California, the quasi-Republican Governor of that state, Arnold Schwarzenegger, claims that Obama's Stimulus Plan created and saved jobs (Click to See Full Story: Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger defends Obama's stimulus plan).

The reason that Schwarzenegger's comment is so laughable is the fact that California has an official 12.4% unemployment rate -- the 5th worst in the country. But, for sure, the unofficial or "real" underemployment rate that includes discouraged workers is probably well above 20%. That fact coupled with the reality that California is the most populous State in our Union means that more people are out of work in California than probably any other ten States in the country, combined.

On top of all that, the State of California has enough red ink in deficit spending to draw a red line from it's capitol to the far outreaches of our solar system. The State is literally on the verge of defaulting on a wide variety of financial commitments.

So, what's up with "Arnold" and how could he be such a "stoopid Kallyfornyan"; especially, since we are on the eve of this Congress and this President passing a "new" and improved jobs bill. Obviously, Arnold doesn't understand that having to pass another jobs bill after the billions that were spent on the Stimulus Bill is an admission that the Stimulus Package really didn't create job.

My guess is that Arnold has decided to suck up to Obama and the Democrats so that, when California goes completely belly up, he will be able to garner a few dozen billions of dollars in bailout monies for his state. That fact is inevitable because the liberal legislature of California and the all-powerful labor unions would rather have California go down in financial flames than become fiscally responsible by taking cuts in all their outrageous social programs, expenses, and pension payouts.

Instead of criticizing Republicans, Mr. Schwarzenegger should spend some time learning to properly pronounce the State's name for which he is the Governor. I'm sure with some dedication and practice, he might just get that "one thing" right before he leaves office.