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Texas and Governor Perry make a statement to demand state’s rights. Whether it is political posturing or not, it’s still the right statement.
Are you surprised by rising unemployment numbers? Do you still see “Now Hiring” signs in windows of businesses?? Doesn’t make sense does it? Or does it?
The first reason that I think this makes total sense is that jobs are a “trailing number”. The term trailing number is pretty simple it means that the job numbers won’t react until after the economy reacts. So, when the economy is booming and starts to slow, jobs will remain solid for a while then will start to fall. The opposite is also true. When the economy rebounds, the jobs won’t rebound for a period of time after the economy starts. It’s for a very simple reason, businesses have to get busier before hiring people.
The second reason why we shouldn’t be surprised by increasing unemployment rates is because the politicians in Washington increased the length of unemployment benefits. This really has two impacts:
- People can be counted for a longer period of time in the numbers
- People can survive longer on unemployment
By extending unemployment, people can stay on the numbers longer. When it used to be a shorter duration, people stayed on for that period of time and then once it was done (whether they found a job or not) they were removed from the numbers. Now that it has been extended the people stay on the rolls longer while they look for a new job.
Also if people CAN stay on them longer it gives them the ability to hold out longer. Before you get mad about that statement read on… As an example, if you were making $30 an hour and unemployment is now providing you 60% or the equivalent of $18/hour are you going to take a $10 job to be “employed”. No. But when unemployment stops and you are making $0/hour the $10/hour job starts to look much more appealing. Even though it’s not your ideal job or salary, it is better than $0.
So, the numbers that we use in the U.S. for unemployment don’t actually represent the people who are out of work. They represent the number of people who take unemployment benefits. So by altering the unemployment benefits you alter the numbers.
Over the past weeks since Obama passed the “Stimulus” bill I have heard a couple of silly arguments of why he should be allowed to.
First: “Bush spent billions on a war so at least Obama is spending it on our country”
Second: “Republicans sure liked the spending when Bush was doing it, but now they are complaining because Obama is doing it”
I think that the first argument is insanity. Just because Bush was nuts with spending shouldn’t give every President after him a blank check.
The second argument has validity. Many Republicans are extremely guilty of that. Just a few short months ago they were voting FOR the TARP bill but now they’re complaining about spending too much money.
I just read an article on HumanEvents that outlines the situation like few that I have read. I am 100% on-board with the ideas that D.R. Tucker discusses. You have to take a look at this one!!
A couple of key points stand out to me:
The conservative movement let its guard down in the 2000s. The American right decided to embrace George W. Bush despite explicit evidence that he was closer ideologically to his father than he was to Ronald Reagan. Looking back at the 2000 primary, it’s clear that Bush and John McCain were two sides of the same moderate coin.
And
It’s good to see conservatives standing foursquare against socialism now. However, the electorate will not suddenly forget how conservatives tolerated socialism when a big-spending Republican was advancing it.
All I can say is AMEN. Both quotes are dead on. Conservatives need to get back to principles and stop electing people (Republican or Democrat) that don’t meet the views! Stop acting like this is the NFL and picking a team and sticking with it through good and bad years. This is much more important.
Well they passed the government spending bill that they call “stimulus”. It is one of the largest spending bills ever enacted by Congress. There isn’t a huge amount of stimulus that is actually built into it. Much of the spending will only stimulate the debt and the size of government.
Federal obligations exceed world GDP: Does $65.5 trillion terrify anyone yet?
My question is when will the people in this country finally realize what we are doing to ourselves and start pushing for politicians who are going to start trimming the spending instead of drastically increasing spending?
Much of the electorate in this country is more worried about what’s in for me than where we are headed. With continued deficits like this prices are destined to increase. The Fed is going to have to print more money. Ready for your salary to be worth less and prices and taxes to rise? Here it comes!!
