One Step Forward, 85,000 Steps Back

So said JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli in regards to today's "disappointing" unemployment report. While experts had predicted a flat jobs report, reality in the new era of Hope & Change proved them all wrong once again as 85,000 Americans lost their jobs last month. The December data now puts the total number of lost jobs for 2009 at 4.2 million and an average rate of unemployment at 9.3%. So how does this compare to the "disastrous" Bush years? Let's consider: the 2008 average rate was 5.8%; the 2007 average rate was 4.6%. Today it stands at 10%, and this is on the heels of Obama's insistence that an unemployment rate of 8.0% would not be eclipsed if the stimulus bill was passed post-haste! Moreover, when one mixes in the number of discouraged workers and part-timers (due to down-sizing), the broader underemployment rate is 17.3%! Commenting on the accelerated jump in the number of discouraged workers, Bank of Toyko-Mitsubishi economist Chris Rupkey said it's "a simply astonishing number that borders on the frightening...If they were still looking for work and counted as the unemployed, the unemployment rate would have been 10.5%" I'm not so sure about the hope, but I can certainly see the change, and it's one for the worse.

Finally bellying up to the bar is the GOP, which has produced its latest research briefing that can be viewed here. Citing BLS statistics, press releases, and newspaper reports, the briefing lists the annual jobs gained during Bush's 2 terms, and the concomitant Democrat attacks surrounding the economy's supposed horrid performance. How refreshing it is to read the facts alongside quotes from these nattering nabobs of negativism. As Reagan used to say, "Facts are stubborn things."

The bottom line here is that the economy grows fastest when it is unleashed from central planning. This has been proven time and again, and yet liberals constantly try to bully the free market into submission for fairness' sake. What other nation can equal the performance of our markets in such a short period of time? None. Why? Because our founders appreciated and understood the sanctity of God's freedom bestowed upon us all. Government can only take away those freedoms, which is why our forefathers left Europe to establish something unique here in the US; something the world had never seen. A country with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. When private citizens and the entrepreneurs who create, build, and run our businesses, are allowed to keep more of the income they produce, then our economy grows like no other. Despite Obama's comment that "we have to continue to explore every avenue to accelerate the return to hiring," he still refuses to drop his centrally planned economic policy. Tax cuts are verboten. And yet when those moneys are retained by the private sector, they are used to purchase more goods, which creates more demand, which builds business, which then requires a larger labor force, and so on. Think it can't happen? Well, it already has - right here in the USA! No other country has produced as much as we have in such a relatively short period of time. And as such, we have become envied by other nations that have much longer histories than we do.

So while the Obama administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill revert to their core beliefs on the economy (i.e. - if it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it; if it stops moving, subsidize it), we must bear in mind the following axiom:

"When the government takes away incentives to work and save, the economy goes flat - millions are thrown out of work and government revenues plunge."[Reagan, White House briefing, February 1985] It's a fact.