Category Archives: 2009 Stimulus Bill

Obama jobs data, November 3, 2012, 7.9 percent unemployment record high, 14.6 percent actual, Jobs gained jobs lost net far below needed, Obama layoff bomb

“With a 63.7% labor force participation, “conditions in the labor market are considerably worse than indicated” in July’s report”…economist Joshua Shapiro, WSJ August 3, 2012

“We tried our plan—and it worked. That’s the difference. That’s the choice in this election. That’s why I’m running for a second term.”…Barack Obama

“the Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today’s issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston’s job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones.”…George Orwell, “1984”

US employers added 171,000 jobs in October. Whoopie!

Did they mention the planned almost almost 48,000 job cuts. Or the other job losses or the average work week?

The stated unemployment rate of 7.9 percent is nothing to write home about either. Especially since the U6 rate, which includes those still seeking employment, is 14.6 percent.

From One News Now November 2, 2012.

“Unemployment rate number labeled ‘deceptive'”
“The October unemployment rate inched up to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in September. But Dan Celia of Financial Issues Stewardship Ministries continues to insist this final pre-election look at the job figures is fictitious.

At the same time, U.S. employers added 171,000 jobs in October and hiring was stronger over the previous two months than first thought.

The Labor Department’s last look at hiring before Tuesday’s election sketched a picture of a job market that is gradually gaining momentum after nearly stalling in the spring. However, it is the highest unemployment rate of any incumbent president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney says the one-tenth-of-a-point increase in the unemployment rate to 7.9 percent is, quote, “a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill.””

“Dan Celia of Financial Issues Stewardship Ministries continues to insist this final pre-election look at the job figures is fictitious.

“I will remain in the camp — until I can have proven to me mathematically otherwise — that a 7.9-percent unemployment rate is a ridiculously fabricated, deceptive number about the unemployment rate,” he says. “We still have nowhere near those in the labor participation rate that we had in January of 2009, nothing close to it. It did go up, as would stand to reason; it went up two-tenths of one percent. That only means that it must have gone up a lot more than that …. I’m really being cynical here, but [they] couldn’t control it or spin it, so they had to add at least two-tenths of one percent, [which is] one of the reasons why unemployment went up to 7.9 percent.”

CeliaLong-term unemployment, according to Celia, still remains high.

“The U6 unemployment rate, that is the number of unemployment [plus] those still looking for jobs, is 14.6 percent,” he explains. “It did go down one-tenth of one percent. [But] there are still 23 million people struggling to find a job. There’s an 8-million job gap … between what the president said we would have at this time, compared to what we really have …. [That’s a] gap that I’m sure you’re not going to hear anyone talk about.”

He also predicts another aspect of the unemployment picture that likely will not be talked about very much.

“One of the big numbers here this week, today, was that hours worked per week did not change [dramatically]. It went down a tick [to] 34.4 hours per week,” he notes. “That is not a good forward-looking number, and that is some cause for concern.”

And what about the number of new jobs reported Friday?

“We are still staying on track of consistently adding close to 150,000 private sector jobs per month, which by the way this year is consistent with a do-nothing, just under two-percent GDP growth. That’s consistent. That’s about where it ought to be,” he offers.

“[But] just so you know, we need about 350,000 [new private sector jobs] average per month to really have any kind of a growing economy — which, by the way, is impossible to have in a two-percent GDP growth.””

http://onenewsnow.com//ap/politics/unemployment-rate-inches-up-again

From Market Watch November 1, 2012.

“Planned layoffs jump up in October: Challenger”

“Led by the automotive sector, planned job cuts jumped up 41% in October to almost 48,000, the highest level since May, outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Thursday. “The final three months of the year tend to see heavier downsizing activity as companies make year-end adjustments to meet earnings goals and to prepare for the new year,” said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “Certainly, the deluge of weak third-quarter earnings reports that resulted from declining sales here and abroad does not bode well for workers as 2013 approaches.” Job cuts in October were up 12% from last year.”

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/planned-layoffs-jump-up-in-october-challenger-2012-11-01

From GOPUSA October 31, 2012.

“Malkin: The Obama Layoff Bomb”

“In June, a diffident and self-deluded President Obama claimed that “the private sector is doing fine.” Last week, the private sector responded: Speak for yourself, buster. Who needs an “October Surprise” when the business headlines are broadcasting the imminent layoff bomb in neon lights?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last Tuesday that employers issued 1,316 “mass layoff actions” (affecting 50 workers or more) in September; more than 122,000 workers were affected overall. USA Today financial reporter Matt Krantz wrote that “(m)uch of the recent layoff activity is connected to what’s been the slowest period of earnings growth since the third quarter of 2009.” Some necessary restructuring is underway in response to the stagnant European economy. But more and more U.S. businesses are putting the blame — bravely and squarely — right where it belongs: on the obstructionist policies and regulatory schemes of the blame-shifter-in-chief.

Last week, Ohio-based auto parts manufacturer Dana Holding Corp. warned employees of potential layoffs amid “looming concern” about the economy. President and CEO Roger Wood specifically mentioned the walloping burden of “increasing taxes on small businesses” and the need to “offset increased costs that are placed on us through new laws and regulations.”

Case in point: Obamacare. The mandate will cost Dana Holding Corp., which employs some 24,500 workers, “approximately $24 million over the next six years in additional U.S. health care expenses.” As Ohio Watchdog blogger Maggie Thurber reported, the firm’s Toledo area corporate offices laid off seven white-collar employees last Friday; company insiders told her more were on the way. They are not alone.

On Tuesday, Consol Energy issued a federally mandated layoff disclosure announcing its “intent to idle its Miller Creek surface operations near Naugatuck, W.Va.” The move will affect the company’s Wiley Surface Mine, Wiley Creek Surface Mine, Minway Surface Mine, Minway Preparation Plant and Miller Creek Administration Group, all in Mingo County, W.Va. Despite state approval, cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and myriad other agencies, and a stellar safety record, Obama’s EPA dragged its feet on the permit approval process. The impasse has forced layoffs of 145 Consol Energy employees that will hit at the end of the year. They are not alone.

In August, Robert E. Murray, founder and CEO of Murray Energy Corporation in Ohio, blasted the White House anti-coal agenda for the layoffs and closure of his company’s mine. He told Obama water-carrying CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien that “the many regulations that (Obama) and his radical appointees and the U.S. EPA have put on the use of coal, there are dozens of them and collectively by his own energy administration, have closed 175 power plants.” As O’Brien barked at her guest about purported environmental objections, Murray explained that “we cannot get permits for these mines. They are delaying the issuance of permits. If you can’t get the permit, you can’t have the mine. … I created those jobs, and I put the investment in that mine. And when it came time to lay the people off, I went up personally and talked to every one of them myself to lay them off. It’s a human issue.”

And it’s an innovation issue, too. As I reported in February, Obamacare’s impending 2.3 percent medical device excise tax has already wrought havoc on the industry:

Stryker, a maker of artificial hips and knees based in Kalamazoo, Mich., is slashing 5 percent of its global workforce (an estimated 1,000 workers) this coming year to reduce costs related to Obamacare’s taxes and mandates.

Covidien, a N.Y.-based surgical supplies manufacturer, recently announced layoffs of 200 American workers and plans to move some of its plant work to Mexico and Costa Rica, in part because of the coming tax hit.

Mass.-based Zoll Medical Corp., which makes defibrillators and employs some 1,800 workers in the U.S. and around the world, says the medical device tax will cost the company between $5 million and $10 million a year.

This July, Indiana’s Cook Medical Inc. shelved plans to open five new plants because of the imminent medical device tax hit. They are not alone.

The heads of Koch Industries, Westgate Resorts and ASG Software Solutions have all separately informed their employees of prosperity-undermining Obama economic politics. Left-wing groups have lambasted the executives for exercising their political free speech.

But they have remained silent while the White House corruptocrats bribed federal defense contractors into delaying federally mandated layoff disclosures before the election. In a memo now being investigated on Capitol Hill, Obama promised to cover the legal fees of Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors if they ignored legal requirements to inform workers in advance about so-called sequestration cuts to the military’s budget scheduled to kick in next year.

Truth suppression is a time-honored Obama tactic, of course. Remember: The administration and its Democratic allies on Capitol Hill attempted to punish Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon and ATT in 2010 for disclosing how the costs of Obamacare taxes were hitting their bottom lines — even though they were simply following SEC disclosure requirements. The White House also tried to silence insurers who dared to inform their customers about how Obamacare was driving up premiums. Not this time.

The administration’s bully boys don’t have enough whitewash and duct tape to cover up the past, present and future devastation of the president and his economic demolition team.”

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2012/10/31/malkin-the-obama-layoff-bomb/?subscriber=1