1851- IS THE PRIVATE SECTOR DOING
FINE?
The other day I posted about the
‘new narrative’.
I talked about the argument that
austerity [cutting spending] in the Euro zone- as well as the U.S. - is the new
reason to blame for the globes economic woes.
I won’t re-post my rebuttal-
suffice it to say I don’t agree.
So- when the president made his recent
gaffe ‘the private sector is doing fine’ the right went nuts- and the left ran
with the new [false] narrative.
With all the talking heads out
there- you would think that they would have put these things together- after
all they get paid lots of money.
I mean even though I’m a regular
critic of MSNBC- I do see them as family.
How so?
When the Nielsen ratings come
out- and Chris Matthews rating is 2 people- at least he knows his wife watches
the show [or has it on mute?].
And I’m number 2.
So let’s weave the web here.
When Obama kicked off his
campaign year- he had some very rough starts.
The Bain capital thing- well that
didn’t work too well.
Then they jumped to the Massachusetts
job record of Romney- when he was governor.
Okay- that’s fair game.
But the argument they were making
was Romney was a failure while overseeing the state.
Yet when he left office-
unemployment was under 5 %- under Obama- we have 8.2.
Yeah- they dropped that line too.
So- the new story is that the
Repub led congress [house] are to blame for the unemployment rate.
That Obama put a ‘jobs bill’ on
the table- and the Repubs refuse to sign the thing.
Thus ‘the private sector is doing
fine’ but because the jobs bill- which is geared towards providing around 250
billion dollars to the states- and union and govt. workers- that because the
Repubs won’t pass it- therefore the ‘public sector’ is dragging down the
economy.
This is the same argument that
says austerity measures are the cause of all the worlds woes.
Last night as I was news surfing
I saw some fill in for Maddow on her show- he seems to be a nice kid- have
heard him before [Ezra something?]
He did the whole show based on
this argument.
He said Romney and the Repubs are
hypocrites because when they are in charge they are for public sector workers
[cops- firemen- teachers].
But now that Obama is in charge
they are cutting them back [note- they were never for trillions of stimulus- as
a regular means of providing jobs. They were for the regular fed money that
would normally go to the states].
Of course- this is the attack on
the dumb [it was dumb] Romney line ‘we don’t need more firefighters and
teachers and cops’.
What did Romney really mean?
He is arguing the conservative
view that says the jobs market really isn’t a function of spending more federal
money.
That even though the fed does
provide money to the states [teachers] yet in the long run it’s the local and
state economies that will decide whether or not to hire more of these ‘public’
sector workers.
As a firefighter- we did not get
federal money to hire new guys- but if our city was doing well financially-
then we had the tax revenue to hire new guys.
That’s Romney’s point.
Last year- the govt. did
distribute billions [yes- with a b] to the states to stave off the laying off
of many teachers and cops and firefighters.
Basically the original 800
billion stimulus simply paid the checks for another year.
But in reality you can’t keep
propping up the jobs like this.
For one thing- it’s not ‘fair’.
What?
Look- any president can say ‘let’s
spend another trillion- during my term- to simply pay people so they stay
employed’.
If the majority of the money-
like in this case- is going to workers who give your party lots of money
[unions support Dems] then it would be like Bush giving money just to oil field
workers- during his whole term
Second- we already have spent a
little under 2 trillion fed dollars- propping up the economy.
We had the 900 billion dollar
bail out of the banks- and the 800 billion dollar stimulus money.
Obama is blaming the Repubs for
not passing his ‘jobs bill’.
Is this really a jobs bill?
No.
It was simply another 250 billion
dollars of ‘stimulus’.
We- as a nation- can’t keep doing
this.
Overspending is what got the Euro
zone in deep trouble- not austerity.
Our very high debt is what is getting
us in trouble- as a nation.
Right now- 40 cents of every
dollar the govt. spends simply goes to pay the interest on the debt.
Imagine if almost half of your
household income was simply interest on your credit card.
Would the answer be ‘lets get
another card’?
So- the pres- and some
progressive economists [Krugman- and the MSNBC crowd] are saying ‘let’s get
another card’.
The Repubs are saying ‘no- let’s
start paying the card down’.
You can decide which road is
better.
While the president does have
some truth to the argument he made the other day- the ‘macro’ picture looks
much different.
What was he right about?
When the terrible jobs number
came out last month- the 69,000 new jobs- part of the bad number did have to do
with govt. layoffs.
The private sector created a
little over 80,000 new jobs.
The govt [public sector] lost
around 20,000.
So he was trying to make the
point ‘see- if the Repubs let me spend another 250 billion- then the govt.
would not have laid off folk- and the economy would be fine’.
This argument is being made right
now- on both sides of the pond- but it is really not the full story.
In our country we have millions
of people without work- the unemployment rate is 8.2%.
And the small % of govt. jobs
that are being lost is not the reason why the country is in trouble.
And the solution- long term- is
not to keep getting the country in debt.
Anyone can say ‘pass this jobs
bill’.
If they simply mean ‘let’s spend
billions more- to keep people on the job- just until my election [or term] is
over’ then it really is not a jobs bill.
It’s another 250 billion in
stimulus.
I think we already spent too much.
Note- Do me a favor, those who
read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read
them on. Thanks- John. Don’t forget to ‘click’ the note App on my Facebook
Profile- I have posted lots.
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