Fool(s) On the Hill (II)

Washington, DC, where "Dopes spring eternal"

I wrote a post the other day entitled, "Fools On the Hill (Part 1)".  If you missed that post, start there and come back to this one, it's 'linked' above if you want to click to it.  Will you learn anything more by starting there first?  Don't know, that's up to you, I suppose.  This was part of that post, but after running out of time and its being way too long, well, I lopped it in half to even things out. 

Read Part 1 if you like.  Regardless, I'll try to ease you in to this post I call...  Part 2.

Here you go...

Random Opening Thoughts:

• The 'average' Recession lasts sixteen months
• The Recession which began in December 2007 'officially ended' in June 2009 - just over eighteen months, making it the longest Recession since World War II
• The 'Great Recession' of 2007 - 2009 was the deepest ever (with respect to job losses) since the 'Great Depression'
• The majority of Americans believe that we are still IN a Recession
• In the months following a Recession, the economy 'typically' adds jobs rapidly and consistently (See graph below)
• Six months' after the official end of our 'Great Recession,' the US workforce had job growth of -.5%

Source:  New York Times "The Recession Has Officially Ended"  September 20, 2010

From the article quoted above, the following graph represents the 'post-Recession' job growth for each Recession throughout the past fifty years...

I added the 'YOU were here' balloon
I love balloons

Excerpting from the article referenced:
Still, the magnitude of job losses was certainly worse in the 2007-9 recession, he (Robert J. Gordon) said. From December 2007 to June 2009, the  American economy shed more than 5 percent of its nonfarm payroll jobs; through December 2009, the month that employment bottomed, the economy had shed more than 6 percent of these jobs.

In terms of unemployment, which is measured by a different government survey and considers only people who are actively looking for work, the rate most recently peaked last October at 10.1 percent. It had gotten higher in 1982, when it reached 10.8 percent. But the composition of the work force looked very different in the 1980s — it was younger, and younger people tend to have higher unemployment rates — and so if you adjust for age, unemployment this time around looks much worse.
...

But the anemic growth since the cycle trough in June 2009 is still extraordinarily worrying. The deeper recession of the 1980s was followed by a strong, robust bounce-back in growth; this current recovery is barely trudging along.

“What’s really unique about this recession is the amount of unemployment in combination with the slowness of the recovery,” he said. “That’s just not happened before. We had a sharp recession followed by a sharp recovery in the 1980s. And in ‘91 and ‘01 we had slow recoveries, but those recessions were shallow recessions so the slowness didn’t matter much.” 

...

“That’s why the political news is so entirely dominated by the word ‘jobs,’ ” he said. “The amount of unemployment we’ve already got and the slowness of recovery lead to predictions that we could have 9-plus percent unemployment even through the next presidential election.”  -- Robert J. Gordon, Professor of Economics, Northwestern University, September 2010

Quinnipiac released a poll on October 6, 2009, regarding a sample of the Average American Citizen's feelings regarding the state of the economy. 

The Result? 

77% of respondents (overall) believe that the US Economy is STILL in Recession.  I guess no one told them how much 'better' things are getting 'out here' since we turned the clock back on the 'failed policies of the past', blah, blah, blah...  

For details of the survey, check out the following graphic, you can click on the image to enlarge it:

Even worse is the discovery that 44% of Americans overall believe that the Economy is on track to get 'Worse' than it is today.   Source:  Business Insider.com 


The economy continues to be in the dumper as the American workforce sheds roughly 400,000 jobs per month, the Department of Justice, headed by Eric Holder, is facing 'really uncomfortable' questions about the 'Fast and Furious' investigation (according to Fox News, the "Subpoenas are in the mail"), and funding for Solyndra continues to raise questions about the White House's involvement in flushing roughly $535,000,000 down the proverbial 'green' crapper. 

Ah, this is old news.  Let's set our sights on the things which are impacting our Nation's recovery under the enlightened oversight of President Obama and his gaggle of Nobel Prize winning Laureates.  After spending TRILLIONS of dollars to jump start the economy, there must be significant and substantive issues holding America back.  The above items, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, and influence buying in the White House?  Nothing more than Republican Partisanship at its worst, and political posturing at its best.  Right? 

The answer, as always, is that it depends upon who you ask... 

Okay, let's ask the President of the United States, Barack Obama:  In July, 2011 the President blamed our Nation's faltering Economy on several very specific factors:

1. The tsunami in Japan
2. The 'Arab Spring' for increasing 'tensions' in the Middle East 
3. Oil prices

Specifically, he said, "We’ve weathered the Arab Springs effect on oil and gas prices. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami’s effect on supply chains. The extraordinary economic uncertainty in Europe and recently markets around the globe have taken a bumpy ride,” Obama said this morning.     
Source:  InfoWars.com

"A bumpy ride?"  Folks, fasten your seat belts and make sure that your seat backs are in their upright and locked position.  You ain't seen nothin' yet.  While any real 'Captain' would turn his aircraft away from a dangerous storm front, 'Captain Obama' continues to steer US into the darkening horizon, towards the nastiest Thunderheads he can find. 

Why?  Is it because the President is a bad pilot?  No.  He's doing what he's been trained to do...  Just as a tick will latch onto your dog's ear and suck until it bursts (because it's what ticks, left un-checked, do), President Obama is genetically, philosophically, and morally compelled to do the things he does.  It's who he is.  He suckled upon the collective intellectual teets of Cloward, Piven, Mao, his Socialist / Marxist professors, Union Organizations, and even, (ewwwww)  LBJ. 

The following video clip is from the 'Think Progress' site.  They are proud of the President's comments.   I'm angry and (BONUS!) disgusted by the man's actions. 

Go ahead, click the video below, I'll be down there again when you get done.

Several months ago the President of the United States is blaming our regularly scheduled 'bumps in the road' upon un-controllable, external causes.   Certainly our continuously bleak economic outlook has NOTHING to do with his policies - right? 

He inherited the economy from GW.  He inherited the Tsunami from Japan.  He inherited oil prices from OPEC.  He inherited the Arab Spring movement (after HIS Administration encouraged the Muslim Brotherhood to overthrow nations in the Middle East). 

None of this was HIS doing.  It was the 'bumps' which tanked, and continue to rack our economy, plain and simple.

Then last week, the President of the United States 'feels the pain' of the protestors 'occupying' (their word, not mine) cities across the United States.  

His words, "I think people are frustrated. And the protestors are giving voice to a more broad based frustration about how our financial system works."   

You want to know who's REALLY frustrated? 

Me.  And a lot of people like me.

I'm frustrated because YOUR freaking economic Advisors don't know "how our financial system works."  Or, perhaps, maybe they know too well? 

I am frustrated by you, you useless piece of detritus, continually siding with people who have nothing on their minds other than taking 'stuff' from those who earn it. 

I am frustrated by your always siding with those who break the laws which you swore an oath to 'Defend and Protect'.   

I am frustrated knowing that when you leave office in 2013 that you'll travel the world explaining how hard you TRIED to make America more 'open', more 'diverse', and more 'World-Friendly', only to be stopped by mean-spirited idealogues who want to kill old people, pollute drinking water, and poison the air.  Dictators, foreign governments, and New World order-types will line up to pay you to criticize US for the remainder of his useless existence.    

You want to call me a murderer, poisoner, and hater of the Earth?  Do it to my face you impotent misuse of cartilage.  But no.  You won't say it to me.  You'll say you were talking about 'other' murderers, poisoners, and haters.  You were talking about them, not me.  You'll say I took your messages 'Out of context', I didn't understand what you meant, because I wasn't 'smart enough', 'educated enough', or 'open enough' to really 'get it'.  

You say that people who want the Constitution of the United States to be read by the elected officials in Washington are 'Extremists', and yet, when ACTUAL extremists occupy private and public property, you side...  With them.

I am done with you.  The American people gave an unproven, un-skilled, and emotionally stunted half-wit a chance to hold the highest office in the world because they were mad at GW Bush. 

I knew GW Bush.  You sir, are no George W Bush.

Bush may have made some bad decisions by accident, you make them by design. 

Enjoy the remainder of your first, and only term as President.  Somewhere in the World a third-world nation is crying for mediocrity.

They cry for you.  You're 'their-kind-of-guy'.

Oh, and I hope you enjoy spending time with your new-found friends on Wall Street.

You deserve each other.