It’s kind of cute how this Administration believes a bus tour and campaign style event will bring the economy roaring back. In his latest attempt to win back young voters (did he pass an executive order I’m unfamiliar with allowing himself a third term?) Obama hit the road talking about education, healthcare and – you guessed it – how those mean ole Republicans are standing in the way of economic utopia. See, according to congressional Democrats (and this White House), a few millionaires holding onto roughly 70 percent of their wealth is devastating the economy for the rest of us.
As the President tries to bolster public support for more “shovel ready” initiatives, “fair-share” tax proposals, and increased government spending on entitlement programs (which Pelosi refers to as “stimulus” efforts) it might be beneficial to see where his policies have taken the economy so far. For example: The President is talking to students this week about the growing cost of higher education. Of course, under this President, student debt has surpassed a trillion dollars. Hooray for massive debt after graduating into one of the worst jobs markets since the great depression!
For all of his stimulus (remember that bill that nearly cost a trillion dollars in the summer of ’09?) and government spending, what have we got to show for it? Our unemployment number is roughly where it was when he took office. Jobless claims are roughly where they were when he took office. Job growth is atrocious, even after ignoring the virtual disappearance of full time positions. Oh, and rather than paying the $1.85 per gallon for regular unleaded (like we did when he was elected President) we’re now paying roughly $3.60. But it turns out those metrics are only the tip of the Detroit sized iceberg that is our flailing economy.
After increasing our debt to GDP ratio well over 100% by adding $6 trillion to our national credit card, we have surprisingly little to cheer about. During this administration’s first four years, nearly 8.5 million people left the labor force. This is unsurprising, given that the average time spent between jobs (collecting unemployment benefits) has also increased to an average of 37 weeks. But even us lucky few who have a part time job (and a looming Obamacare penalty) are worse off than those years before the Messiah.
Household wealth has been dropping every year of this President’s tenure, with over half of all Americans now making less than $30,000 per year. Zero Hedge put this into perspective by pointing out that 40 percent of all workers in the United States now make less than what a full-time, minimum wage, worker made back in 1968 after inflation. Of course a lot has changed since 1968. For example, back then we used to fly our own astronauts into space rather than hitching a ride with the Russians. Oh, and there wasn’t a nuclear North Korea.
Even Liberals should be upset with the Community-Organizer-in-Chief. As a one term Senator, and former community organizer, he promised to bring America back to prosperity and wealth. Instead he has taxed, spent, and borrowed us into a state of increasing poverty. The current poverty rate is actually higher than when LBJ declared a war on it. It makes you wonder if Obama miss-read the Democrat platform, and thought he was supposed to wage a war on the poor, rather than on their behalf.
And let’s not forget the soaring healthcare costs, and insurance premiums. Despite the Pelosi approved talking points of making health insurance more affordable with the “Affordable Care Act” (Democrats should be sued for false advertising) costs have been increasing several times the rate of inflation. . . And they’re expected to go up even faster as more of the law is (probably) implemented.
Even Obama’s pet banker, Ben Bernanke, can’t help out the struggling American worker (or, for that matter, the American non-worker). Despite “printing” well over $1.5 trillion, and pouring it into the bond market, official inflation has remained near zero while economic growth struggles to keep from contracting. Even the Fed’s new “and improved” calculation for GDP – you know, where they count Miley Cirrus songs as intellectual property with a monetary value – can’t mask the fact that jobs are being lost, workers are dropping from the labor force, and only the stock market has been on the rise. That’s because under the Bernanke/ Obama regime, monetary velocity is virtually non-existent. How ironic that under the most Liberal President since Woodrow Wilson, income inequality has actually been getting worse. And why wouldn’t it be? Would you spend cash you didn’t have to in this economy? Who knows when you’ll need it to pay all those new taxes Obama wants Congress to approve.
This administration came to power, largely, with a message of “change”. Of course we were unaware that his campaign slogan, “Hope and Change”, was actually just a list of what we’d have left after two terms. The American people were told that insanity is trying the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result. We were told that only a fresh approach, a new tact, and an innovative perspective would bring us back from the cusp of a great-depression-two-point-zero.
Well. . . It’s time we hijack the President’s message. His recycled 20th century progressivism doesn’t seem to be panning out for the vast majority of Americans. When he first spoke about the need for “shovel ready” jobs, few Americans were aware that we would need those shovels for our economic grave.
PS: For a far more comprehensive list of economic metrics that highlight Obamanomic’s complete failure, visit ZeroHedge.com. . .