Lies about "stimulus" spending, job creation, and unemployment statistics


Related topic:  Pork products in the stimulus bill.

While the official numbers are much lower...
 Real Unemployment Hits 15 Percent.  In the past few weeks, Democrats have been trying to claim that the economy is getting better and that more people are finding full-time work, but when you take a look at the numbers, the real unemployment number is much higher than the media or the Left wants to admit.

Workforce participation is the metric that really matters.
 The True Unemployment Rate: 36%.  [Scroll down]  What is the current percentage of working-age Americans, eligible to participate in the civilian labor force, but not currently working?  Answer: 36.3 percent. That's the worst labor participation rate in three decades, and it's part of the worst employment picture we've seen since the Great Depression.  Labor force participation is the number we should really be looking at, even more than the unemployment figures cooked up on the monthly basis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Newest Government Magic Trick: Disability Fraud Holds Down Unemployment Rate.  Looking for another reason for an artificially low unemployment rate?  Consider disability fraud, people claiming disabilities they do not have such as mental illness.  Prior to the great recession 33% of applicants claimed mental illness.  The number is 43% now.  There was fraud before, of course.  There is even more fraud now.

Can We Rely on the Executive Branch for Unsullied Data?  The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) — which, keep in mind, is part of the Department of Labor, which in turn is headed by the Honorable Linda Solis as secretary of labor — is part of the Obama administration.  Since the Department of Labor is part of one of the most partisan administrations in recent memory, how can anyone simply assume that the data that issues from the BLS is completely untainted by politics?

Fudging the Numbers.  The Obama administration is touting the latest unemployment numbers released last week by the U.S. Department of Labor as proof its policies are working.  But a closer look at the actual number of able-bodied people who are willing to work, but are not, reveals a different picture. ... The way government counts things, slowing the rate of increased spending amounts to a cut and reducing the percentage of unemployed people by two-tenths of 1 percent counts as more people finding jobs, which then counts as progress.

Missing: 5.4 million workers.  Millions of Americans have vanished from the US labor force in the past three years, many of them so discouraged by long, fruitless job searches that they have given up looking for work, convinced that no employer wants them, according to a new study.

Obama's bogus jobs data.  While the overall population jumped 1.6 million in January, the workforce declined a record-setting 1.2 million.  This figure represents those who out of sheer frustration or for other reasons have dropped out of what the government defines as the active labor pool.  They are worse than simply unemployed; they are both jobless and hopeless.  The good news for Obama administration statisticians is that these unfortunates don't factor into the official unemployment rate, which only counts those thought to be looking for work.  So while five people drop out of the system in despair for every new job created, the official unemployment rate declines and the White House enjoys a good news day.

Here is what the official unemployment figures don't say:
 Economic Statistics for 3 Feb 12:
  •   In November, 2007, 63.15% of Americans had a job.  In Feburary, 2012, it was 57.76%.
  •   In November, 2007, there were 147,118,000 Americans working.  This month, that number was 139,944,000.  That's 7.1 million jobs that have disappeared.
  •   If the labor force participation rate was the same today as it was in November 2007 (66.1%), today's unemployment rate would be 12.61%.

David Stockman: It's True, The BLS Data Is Made Up.  After countless attempts to discredit or defend Friday's jobs report, we can all agree on one thing:  The data is complicated.  So complicated that the BLS could make the economy look better than it was and no one would be sure.  Former Reagan budget director David Stockman said as much in an email to Bruce Krasting, in response to Krasting's criticism of the jobs report.  Stockman writes:  "If you spend a little time with these numbers you will know that they are being made up."

Fake But Accurate Job Numbers.  This morning [2/3/2012] we get the January jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  And if this January bears any resemblance to those of the past decade, the report will offer a misleading, possibly deceptive view of the employment situation in the United States.

It's the Fourth Quarter in America.  Just last month 1.2 million formerly employed people disappeared into the black hole of a political unemployment equation — never to be counted again.  This isn't a game to those millions of Americans who are out of work or under employed — this is their life.  But the other team doesn't see it that way.

Rosy report a ruse.  Some day, the government is going to put out a good economic report and I'll be able to say, "Yeah, that really is a good report."  This isn't that day.

New BS BLS Report Shows Obama Costs US $20 Trillion.  Another 1.2 million people dropped out the workforce, which means that Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) economists can say that unemployment has moved down to 8.3 percent without that messy job-creation thing getting in the way. ... ZeroHedge says that if you add back in the 5 million people who have permanently dropped out the labor force, as reflected in the historical average workforce participations rates, the "implied" unemployment rate is 11.5 percent and rising, not falling.

1.2 million driven out of the workforce in a single month.  All you're seeing in the headlines is good news, because the official, heavily-massaged U-3 unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent.  Fewer people in the workforce means the percentage of unemployed people in the workforce drops.

It's Not a Job Loss if They Say You Retired.  American Airlines apparently does not need to layoff 15,000 employees.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, all 15,000 employees are retiring and dropping out of the workforce.  In addition, those 15,000 employees will not be counted in the unemployment statistics, thereby helping to ensure President Obama's quest for 0% unemployment by Election Day.

Why the official 8.3 percent unemployment rate is a phony number.  Does anyone believe an "official" unemployment rate of 8.3 percent really gives an accurate picture of the U.S. labor market? ... If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office — 65.7 percent then vs. 63.7 percent today — the U-3 unemployment rate would be 11.0 percent.

Obama Speech Brags About 3 Million New Jobs.  What is the point of all that talk in the [State of the Union] speech about creating jobs when the federal government is importing so many new workers?  Although the number of work permits issued is primarily controlled by Congress, Pres. Obama could be asking for reductions to give relief to all those Americans who have been unemployed for such long periods.  He said nothing.  And he gave no sign tonight of having the slightest interest in how immigration affects the labor market.

Our "Interesting" President.  Americans need jobs, but Obama is just out to save his.  This detachment is nothing new.  We saw it in the State of the Union — when the president repeated old, broken promises but gave no mention to the millions of unemployed Americans he's ignored or the trillions of dollars in debt he's created.  We saw it also with the Keystone energy pipeline.  America had an opportunity for a source of affordable, secure energy, but the president blocked it.

Obama's Auto Bailout Lies.  In what has become part of his general re-election strategy, president Barack Obama is touting the government bailout of automakers GM and Chrysler as a great success.  "The American auto industry was on the verge of collapse.  And some politicians were willing to let it just die.  We said no," Obama told college students last week in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  "We believe in the workers of this state."  Yet much like other pronouncements of "fact" that come from this president, the devil is in the details, many of which don't remotely square with the reality.

How Obama created 22 million jobs:  I have been forced to concede that Barack Obama is one of the foremost and accomplished economic minds in the US today.  Yesterday [1/30/2012] he claimed he has created 22 million jobs since becoming president, yet those of little faith quickly belittled him and his claim.  But they simply do not understand how a truly brilliant mind operates and that he is infallible and incapable of admitting a mistake.  Therefore he must have created nearly 22 million jobs.  He just didn't say where or how.

Dem lawmaker says 20,000 Keystone XL jobs 'not that many'.  Chicago Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) drew fire from Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) on Wednesday [1/25/2012] when she dismissed the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, suggesting the 20,000 jobs it could create were relatively insignificant in the scheme of the greater economy.

Lying About the Stimulus:  [James] Pethokoukis lists 11 main points that tell us all we need to know about the economic stimulus package that the Democrat-controlled Congress passed at Obama's behest.  Chief among them is this:  the nearly trillion-dollar expenditure package was primarily about implementing Obama's political agenda, not fixing a damaged economy.  The Summers memo is clear evidence that much of the rhetoric put forward by the administration and allies was patent hogwash.

Whatever he claims, creating jobs isn't what motivates Obama.  Obama himself has insisted time and again he cares only about "what works" and not about ideological or partisan point scoring.  Nary an utterance from the president doesn't include some claim that his "top," "chief," "first," and "number one" priority is to create jobs and get America working again.  Just last week he announced that he wants to streamline government to cut red tape and make both government and the economy more efficient.  It's all a farrago of lies.

Obama: EPA Regulations Create Jobs.  In a speech to employees of the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday [1/10/2012], President Barack Obama said that EPA regulations are good for the economy and create jobs and that the agency "touches" the lives of every American every day.  "We can make sure that we are doing right by our environment and, in fact, putting people back to work all across America," Obama told the federal workers.

More about the EPA.

Don't believe bureaucrats, unemployment is really 11.4 percent.  President Obama benefits from a flawed formula that generates a positive outcome when frustrated potential workers simply give up.  This is what passes for progress in the jobless economy.  A lower official unemployment statistic makes a good headline and a good talking point, but it would be better if more Americans were actually finding good jobs.

Obama's Low Expectations On Jobs.  The White House spins the new job numbers as evidence the economy is coming back from the Bush recession.  Truth is, the economy continues to struggle against the weight of Obama's misguided policies.

On Those New Jobless Numbers:  Break out the party hats!  Unemployment is all the way down to 8.5 percent!  Whoo-hoo!  Zero Hedge spotlights the steady increase in the number of Americans not in the labor force; he points out, "the labor force itself declined by 50K from 153,937 to 153,887.  In fact, persons not in the labor force have increased by 7.5 million since January 2007."

Obama's Bad Policies Bear The Blame For Bear Market.  To "it could be worse" — the administration's lame depiction of the economy — we can add the equally pathetic decree that 2011 was a "pretty good" year for stocks.  Is this what it's come to?  The weakest recovery in modern times being spun as fair-to-middling just because it hasn't plumbed depression depths, and investors being told that a stock market that ends up unchanged isn't all that bad, especially when bourses were down 20% to 40% from Frankfurt to Mumbai?

Why Obama's 'new math' is a jobs killer.  President Obama's math skills leave something to be desired.  As a matter of fact, based on Mr. Obama's recent interview on "60 Minutes," the president deserves a grade of F in math.  When confronted by the reporter with the reality that his economic stimulus package failed, he decided to lie to the American people.  He said his stimulus had indeed worked just fine.  As a matter of fact, according to Mr. Obama, it created 3 million jobs.

Pelosi: Extending Unemployment Benefits Would Create '600,000 Jobs'.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that extending unemployment benefits would add "600,000 jobs to our economy."  She also said that the money from unemployment benefits creates a "safety net" for the U.S. economy because it "injects demand into the economy — creating jobs."

Another Load of Trickle-Up Economics.  So... if rich people opening businesses aren't creating jobs in the private sector, then who is?  For the answer, we turn to an even greater economic genius, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA, current net worth $35.5 million.)  Yesterday she repeated a theory she made famous some years ago, and which has become one of the bedrock principles of the Obama Administration:  jobs are created by people who don't have jobs, through the magic of unemployment insurance, whose extension will create 600,000 jobs.

Obama is the Jobs Grinch.  Labor Department numbers came out recently showing soft job-creation for the month of November.  This is nothing new, of course.  Job-creation has been weaker than expected ever since Obama began his attack on capitalism.  What's new is a shift in the quality of jobs available.  Most of the jobs created last month were temporary, low-wage positions in the service industries.  Of the 120,000 new jobs created, 50,000 were in the retail sector.  Most of these are minimum-wage positions, many of them temporary holiday hires.

DNC Chair Denies Unemployment Has Gone Up Under Obama.  Gretchen Carlson on FOX News interviews Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC Chair. [Video]

Captain Trainwreck's White House whitewash.  The current Occupiers of the White House will claim the slight dip in the unemployment rate from 9 percent to 8.6 percent is proof the economy is beginning to lumber out of the recession they imposed on it.  Don't believe the spin.  The economy continues to sink.  Once the employment data is analyzed and the economic truth comes out, it will be seen that one of the probable reasons for the dip in the unemployment rate is that 315,000 more Americans have quit looking for work, making them persona non grata when it comes to being counted in employment statistics.

Democrat Economic Illiteracy Has Consequences.  The Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, visited Capitol Hill last week and claimed that the unemployment rate will increase if Congress fails to extend the eligibility period for federal unemployment benefits.  My first reaction to this Orwellian assertion was a quiet chuckle.  Then it dawned on me that most Democrats will believe this nonsense.  These are, after all, people who believed that health care would be made cheaper by a law that increases demand for medical services while reducing the supply of health care providers.

Time's up for Obama.  President Obama is horrible at governing.  He's not bad, though, at moving goalposts.  The stimulus was supposed to "save or create" a bazillion jobs.  When the jobs on the "create" side of the ledger were smaller than predicted, the administration did away with the term and started using jobs "funded."

8.6% unemployment? Baloney.  The federal government said employment increased by 120,000 in November (an increase of less than 1/1,000th) and the unemployment rate fell by 0.4%?  Baloney.  It is a statistical lie aimed at making it sound as if the economy is growing.  Indeed, Bloomberg reported that 315,000 people left the workforce — meaning the number of dropouts was nearly triple the net gain in jobs.

Real Unemployment 11 Percent; Total Unemployment 15.6 Percent.
  •   In the last year, the civilian population rose by 1,726,000.  Yet the labor force fell by 67,000.  Those not in the labor force rose by 1,793,000.
  •   In November, those "Not in Labor Force" rose by a whopping 487,000.  If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed.
  •   Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.

Unemployment Decline To 8.6%: A Statistical Fluke?  Americans woke up Friday to the good news that the unemployment rate had dropped sharply from 9% to 8.6%.  On closer inspection, the decline is highly questionable — and doesn't warrant a surge in optimism.

Unemployment Rate Falls Due To Workforce Contraction.  The November unemployment report is out, and it's one of those good news / bad news deals.  Well, actually, it's more like horrible news that will be spun as good news.  The economy created 120,000 jobs in November, and the official unemployment rate fell to 8.6%, which is a two-year low... but the drop was mostly due to 315,000 people leaving the workforce entirely.
Emphasis in original.

Steven Chu's Solyndra testimony: Misleading jobs stats and missing context.  We always warn readers to be wary of claims about the number of jobs created by some government, congressional or corporate initiative.  These are almost always suspect and based on dubious assumptions.  (Chu, we should note, carefully used the word "employ" instead of "create.")  As it happens, Carol D. Leonnig and Steven Mufson of The Washington Post examined the job-claim figure two months ago and found it wanting.

Math Fun with President Obama.  With math skills like this, no wonder the federal deficit is $1.3 trillion. ... One half of 1 percent of $1.1 million is $5,500, not $500.  But, hey, even though he said it three times, cut the president some slack — he's off only by about factor of ten.  But even if the president meant to say $5,500, his math continues to pose some challenges.  According to the IRS, a total of 235,413 taxpayers earned more than $1 million last year.  If each "was willing to pay $[5,]500 extra to help the country," that would generate only $1.3 billion in revenue — approximately what the federal government spends every three hours.

Did the Stimulus Create Jobs? Yes, at $412,500 Per Job.  Vice President Joe Biden said yesterday [10/23/2011] on CNN that nobody can say "that the stimulus did not create jobs," but he did not specificy how many jobs he believes President Barack Obama's stimulus created and how much each of those jobs cost.  According to the most recent report on the stimulus by the Congressional Budget Office, the law had created a maximum of 2 million jobs as the fourth quarter of 2011 at a cost of $412,500 per job.

Where do the stimulus horror stories end?  The Obama administration handed $7.2 million to four Oregon logging companies to hire loggers in a severely depressed industry.  But according to a Department of Labor inspector general report, only two of jobs thus funded went to U.S. citizens:  "Only two Oregonians were listed on the employer recruitment reports, indicating that workers in Oregon were likely unaware these job opportunities were available.  In fact, although 146 U.S. workers were contacted by the three employers regarding possible employment, none were hired.  Instead, 254 foreign workers were brought into the country for these jobs."

Infallible Obama.  Democrats argue that as bad as things are in the country, they could be worse.  Earlier this month, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Democrat, claimed that without the 2009 economic-stimulus plan, unemployment would be 14.5 percent, a ludicrous claim not even asserted by the cheerleaders of the original nearly-trillion-dollar stimulus plan. ... The central theme of the Obama 2012 campaign seems to be shaping up as:  Yes, times are bad, but they could be much worse.

Twisting Words To Political Ends.  When it became clear to President Obama and his economic and political advisers that spending more than a trillion dollars would not create many jobs, they decided that the problem wasn't their policies; it was the word "create."  And so we endlessly heard promises of all of the millions of jobs their massive stimulus and government takeover of health insurance would "save or create."  But with unemployment at 9.1% — not the under 8% they boldly predicted — and 14 million Americans jobless less than 13 months before Election Day 2012, "save or create" has worn kind of thin.

Obama disconnects rhetoric, reality.  In President Barack Obama's sales pitch for his jobs bill, there are two versions of reality:  The one in his speeches and the one actually unfolding in Washington.

The Big Jobs Bill Lie.  The president claims economists heartily endorse his jobs bill, predicting it will boost growth by 2% and add 1.9 million jobs.  That would be news to most economists.

Tall tales from President Obama on employment.  There haven't been 850,000 jobs created by non-government employers in the past nine months — not even close.  That's just the way it is, and repeating a lie isn't going to turn it into a truth.

Applying Alinsky:  Why Obamacare Makes No Sense.  [T]he ordinary American can be excused for being confused, frustrated, and angry.  That's exactly where President Obama, the Chicago political mafia around him, Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi want people to be.  At one point in the pointless all-day meeting on Thursday, she even claimed that passing Obamacare would create four million jobs overnight!  Even for Speaker Pelosi, that's a new level of insane babble.

Did someone mention the big Health Care Summit?

The President's Bogus Green Economics.  The Obama Administration's recently released "Economic Report of the President" devoted an entire chapter to "Transforming the Energy Sector and Addressing Climate Change".  Whenever the government promises to transform an entire sector of the economy, we know to watch out. ... Since the report says the stimulus package provided "$60 billion in direct spending and $30 billion in tax credits" to "jump-start" the transition to a "clean energy economy," there is a whole lot of 'splainin' that the administration must do.

Is the kettle black enough?  If ever there was a case of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, it is the cluster of new financial "reform" regulations Washington politicians are trying to foist on the back of Wall Street.  In a typical political smoke-and-mirrors misdirection, President Obama wants us to believe greedy Wall Street bankers are to blame for our economy sinking in financial quicksand and that more government regulations and controls are the answer.  Don't believe it.

Deception as a Principle of Governance.  Every economic indicator during Clinton's last year in office turned decisively downward — the surplus, government revenues, and the markets included.  Economic projections made at the very top of an economic bubble are foolish, but the dot-com bubble had long since popped, and everything was going south by the time Clinton left office.  Consequently, the Democrats' projections of surpluses years into the future at a time when all indices were falling are not just foolish, but dishonest.

CBO Report Was Pre-Ordained to Show the Stimulus Succeeded.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has produced a new report estimating that the $862 billion stimulus has thus far saved or created 1.5 million jobs.  Yet the CBO's calculations are not based on actually observing the economy's recent performance.  Rather, they used an economic model that was programmed to assume that stimulus spending automatically creates jobs — thus guaranteeing their result.

Vote for him or the wife gets it!  Yesterday Politico reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pushed for a $15 billion jobs bill Monday by suggesting that unemployed men are more likely to abuse their wives:  "Men when they're out of work tend to become abusive," Reid said as he argued in favor of a cloture vote on the jobs bill.

Obama A Moderate?  Saying So Doesn't Make It So.  To make the Tea Party movement look extremist, the president's backers are trying to portray him as a moderate.  Here is Obama Administration waterboy E.J. Dionne:  "Obama, after all, is the man who saved the banks and the capital markets.  Now the bankers are secure and most of them are still rich." ... [That] is little more than a distortion.  Then-Sen. Obama supported the bank bailouts, which were proposed by then-President Bush.  Further, it leaves out the fact that Obama has since let his "pay czar" Ken Feinberg dictate the salaries of those banks, not to mention the nationalizing of General Motors.

Con jobs:  When will Obama stop lying about the stimulus?  The administration boasts that it has "created or saved" about 1 million jobs, even as the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced a loss of 558,000 jobs in October.  Not only is unemployment still increasing, but the rate of job loss is still accelerating.  "The 'created or saved numbers' are meaningless," Joseph Lawler writes on Politico.  "Employment is 3 million jobs below what the president's Council of Economic Advisers had predicted it would be."  The Associated Press discovered that an outfit called the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council reported that the stimulus had enabled it to save 935 jobs — out of 508.

Jobs 'Saved or Created' in Congressional Districts That Don't Exist.  Here's a stimulus success story:  In Arizona's 9th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending.  At least that's what the website set up by the Obama Administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.  There's one problem, though:  There is no 9th Congressional District in Arizona; the state has only eight Congressional Districts.

Obama creates 30 new jobs in non-existant congressional district.  Chicago politics, where voting is such a revered civic duty that people do it even after they're dead, cold, stiff, stuffed, boxed and buried beneath the permafrost for years, has now come to D.C. with the Obama administration.

Stop lying about those stimulus jobs.  Give the mainstream news media some credit:  They have diligently dug into President Obama's fanciful boasts of job creation.  When Obama claimed earlier this month that his $787 billion economic stimulus package had "saved or created" 640,000 jobs, a dozen news organizations pounced.  They soon highlighted some of the most egregious cases of sketchy job creation in about 20 states.

Phantom districts in Texas receive millions in 'stimulus'.  According to the Obama administration's latest count, the President's economic stimulus package has created 45 jobs in Texas' 58th congressional district and 30 jobs in the state's 91st district.  The White House's recovery.gov web site declares that Texas' 52nd district received exactly $8,937,289 in stimulus funds, while the 68th district has had precisely $310,963 funneled into it.  Trouble is, none of these congressional districts exist.

Stimulus Fraud.  We knew something was funny when the White House claimed that 640,000 to 1 million jobs had been created from this year's stimulus.  What we didn't know was that it would turn into a massive fraud.  Not only have 640,000 new jobs not been created from the stimulus — an absurd claim, given the economy's loss of nearly 4 million payroll positions this year — but it now seems that even the jobs themselves are fictional.

$6.4 Billion Stimulus Goes to Phantom Districts.  Just how big is the stimulus package?  Well for one, it has doubled the size of the House of Representatives, according to recovery.gov, which says that funds were distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist.

Imaginary Districts Receive Stimulus Money.  There are questions about how the federal government is spending tax dollars.  It appears millions of economic stimulus dollars are being spent in Congressional districts that do not exist.

Many California jobs 'saved' by stimulus funds weren't in jeopardy.  Up to one-fourth of the 110,000 jobs reported as saved by federal stimulus money in California probably never were in danger, a [Sacramento] Bee review has found.

$230,000 per job.  The administration will report this week that roughly 650,000 jobs have been created or saved on spending of $160 billion.  [But] The Associated Press checked the administration's initial jobs claims and found numerous exaggerations, duplicate counts and outright misstatements.  Even using the administration's more generous projection, it's still $160,000 spent for every job created or saved.

Stimulus saves nine out of every five jobs.  I've always believed that President Obama will take credit for saving 2 million jobs as long as there are 2 million jobs left in the United States.  But his jobs report apparently goes beyong this, the Associated Press reports, taking credit for saving jobs that really don't exist.

Lies, damned lies and stimulus jobs.  "If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job," HHS spokesman Luis Rosero said.  Save a portion of a job?  That doesn't make sense on any level.  How can they justify plundering stimulus funds to preserve already existing government jobs?  To do that and claim it's evidence that of the stimulus' success at "creating or saving" jobs is simply deceitful.

Painting a street green hasn't stimulated one new job.  In Baltimore, the 300 block of East 23½ Street is getting patched up in time for winter.  One economic stimulus program is paying to insulate 11 rental rowhouses, another is paying for furnaces and a third is covering the cost for reflective roofs to be installed by prison inmates in a job-training program.  The block is part of one of the biggest initiatives ever undertaken by the federal government, a nationwide push to improve the energy efficiency of buildings.  But ... the work on East 23½ — even with all of its activity — has so far not produced a single job.

Jobs Created or Saved' Is White House Fantasy.  When the government distributes lucre or loot, people spend it.  If your interest is national income accounting, spending other people's money is great.  Spending is a back-door way for government statisticians to measure what matters, which is the real output of goods and services.  But the government has no money of its own to spend; only what it borrows or confiscates from us via taxation.

GOP on health care:  In 568 words, what's wrong with 1,990 pages.  Texas Republicans on Friday [10/30/2009] ridiculed claims by the White House that President Obama's stimulus package had created or saved exactly 19,571 jobs in Texas — and 640,329 jobs nationwide.  Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio.  Citing recent Labor Department figures, said the Obama administration promised the stimulus would create 269,000 jobs in Texas "but we lost 225,300."

NY jobs don't add up.  [Scroll down]  The spokesman could not immediately give a breakdown of what the new jobs entailed.  But a memo issued by Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler suggested the number of stable new jobs was under 300.  The memo had a footnote explaining that the city used a formula required by the feds to count 2,882 "full-time-equivalent" as created jobs. That number was based on 19,518 youths who took part in a summer employment program, Skyler said.

GOP challenges job stimulus data.  The government watchdog in charge of tracking stimulus dollars said he can't be sure how many jobs the $787 billion program has created, admitting it "could be above or below" the 640,000 jobs the administration touts.  Republicans said false numbers amount to "propaganda" and that the uncertainty should cool Democrats' talk of passing a second stimulus bill.

Kelo, GM, and the Stimulus:  Three Examples of Government-Induced Failure.  [Scroll down]  The chairman of the government's Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board has told lawmakers that he cannot "certify that the number of jobs reported as created/saved on Recovery.gov is accurate and auditable."  What is transparent is that these people don't know what the heck they're doing and that the mother of all boondoggles looms on the horizon.

A $787 billion waste.  So many billions out the door — and nary a clue about what Americans got in return.  That's the tragic-but-too-true story of last February's $787 billion federal stimulus program — the first major legislative package out of Washington after the Democrats took control of the city.  What a monumental waste.  The Obama folks claim that, as of Oct. 30, stimulus funds "created or saved" 640,329 jobs.  They might as well claim 640 billion.  The truth?  No one really knows if the package "created or saved" any jobs.

Stimulus benefits at least 14 percent phony, and counting.  California's state government said it took its share of stimulus money and saved 18,229 corrections jobs.  But fewer than 5,000 of those jobs — perhaps fewer than 1,000 — were ever in any danger of being lost, according to a letter released this week by the state's auditor.

The New War against Reason.  Over the last nine months, the official government website Recovery.gov has informed us how the stimulus has saved jobs — even as hard data reflected the unpleasant truth of massive and spiraling job losses.  In other words, not the real number of jobs lost, but rather the supposed number of jobs saved by Barack Obama's vast dispersion of borrowed money, was to be the correct indicator of employment.  The message?  In superstitious fashion, the public is to ignore what statistics say, and trust instead in the Obama administration's hypotheses.

These Boots Are Made for Talking.  According to a report from a shoe store in Campbellsville, Kentucky, the Army Corps of Engineers "created or saved" nine jobs when it used money allocated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to buy nine pairs of work boots.  The Wall Street Journal reports that the store's owner, frustrated by the government's confusing online forms, enlisted the help of his 42-year-old daughter, who figured nine — the number of people who would use the boots on the job — made as much sense as any other answer.

The biggest lie yet.  Now, after a quick assessment of the Obama Recovery through October, one is stuck with the conclusion that his spending spree has resulted in 10.2 percent unemployment — except, of course, in such places as Washington, DC, where government jobs are immune to recession.  That would be double-digit unemployment — so now you know why Obama cleverly framed his recovery program in terms of jobs "created or saved."  His administration announced that through October, the American Recovery Act had "created" or "saved" 640,329 jobs.  However, a growing number of skeptics, even among his once-adoring media, found some very questionable accounting methods used to come up with that figure.

Who In the White House Has Ever Created a Job?  After 10 months and the authorization of $787 billion in government spending, the economic policies of the White House and the Democratic Congress have failed.  15.7 million Americans are out of work, 3.2 million of them since the stimulus was first passed in February.  Unemployment, at 10.2 percent, is higher than the President promised it would be if he did nothing.  The Obama-Pelosi-Reid economic policies are hurting, not helping.

Saving more jobs than there are.  He promised that in exchange for $787 billion, he would create 4 million jobs, later downgraded to 3 million jobs created or saved.  If we do nothing, the president warned in January, unemployment will rise to 9 percent.  In November, doing nothing looks pretty good.  Unemployment is now at 10.2 percent.

Time to corral 'Sheriff Biden'.  President Obama's early, overeager claims of his stimulus package's success have crumbled under media scrutiny.  After making big promises, he needed to make claims about "jobs created or saved," but polls show that the public hasn't bought it.

Jobs Summit Charade.  The very idea of a jobs summit does not make sense.  To begin with, we don't wish to create jobs.  It is possible to create jobs by hiring people to dig ditches and fill them up again.  The strength of the economic system of market capitalism is that it allows people to be productive, much more productive than any other economic system.  So the very title of the summit is misguided.

The title is off topic, but the article is not.
 I was a birther before Obama's certificate questions.  We now know that the job gains reported by Washington this past spring were an illusion.  Early in 2010 the Labor Department will subtract about 824,000 jobs from its official count in what is called a "benchmark revision" to more accurately reflect the jobs that weren't created this past spring.

Jobs or Snow Jobs?  President Obama keeps talking about the jobs his administration is "creating" but there are more people unemployed now than before he took office. How can there be more unemployment after so many jobs have been "created"?

Greenspan:  Census will save Obamonomics.  Since he became president, unemployment has gone up by a third, topping 10% and there has been a net loss of 3.3 million jobs.  We spent $787 billion and have to show for it 640,000 jobs "saved," including jobs in 440 imaginary congressional districts that the administration made up.

Stimulus Watch:  Now it's fake zip codes.  Recovery.gov, the Obama administration's supposedly transparent attempt to let citizens know how every dollar of the $787 billion stimulus package was spent, is turning out to be a lot more comic fiction than fact.  Not only have fake jobs been reported in phantom congressional districts, Steve Allen Adams of NewMexicoWatchdog.org discovered that some of the $27 million of federal money his state received also went to nonexistent zip codes.

Now stim bill money being sent to fake zip codes.  Jim Scarantino of New Mexico Watchdog was the first to uncover the fact that stim bill money was being listed as spent in non-existent congressional districts.  Now he's uncovered another tasty tidbit; the money is going to fake zip codes.

Phantom zip codes also found in Virginia.  As much as $9.5 million in federal stimulus dollars went to 14 zip codes in Virginia that don't exist or are in other states, Old Dominion Watchdog reports.  The fake zip codes were listed on Recovery.gov, the federal Web site that is supposed to track how the stimulus money is being used.

Stimulus money sent to phantom ZIP codes in North Carolina.  The federal government sent 2.5 million stimulus dollars to North Carolina ZIP codes that don't exist.  The information came from the government's own Web site — Recovery.gov. ... It lists 479 North Carolina ZIP codes as the destination of $4.2 billion in grants, contracts, and loans.  Four of those ZIP codes — 24858, 28389, 23854, and 27600 — are nowhere to be found on U.S. Postal Service maps.  In the four ZIP codes, the Web site reports, the $2.5 million created 0.5 jobs all told.

The Editor says...
 How does the government create half a job, and who has that half-job now?

You Have to Watch Both of Obama's Hands.  It comes down to this:  Borrow and spend to create jobs, regulate to destroy them.  The original $787 billion stimulus package is due for a supplement that will bring the total to around $1 trillion.  Spending so far has created or "saved" between 1.7 million and 2 million jobs says Christina Romer, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers...

The Editor says...
 Just a reminder:  One trillion dollars divided by two million jobs equals $500,000 per job.  That's assuming that two million jobs are actually created, which they probably won't be.

Democratic Payoffs, Er, Stimulus.  [Scroll down]  Consider the $787 billion stimulus bill.  Veronique de Rugy and Jerry Brito of George Mason University report that "a total of 56,399 contracts and grants totaling $157,028,362,536 were awarded in this first quarter for which Recovery.gov reports are available.  The number of jobs claimed as created or saved is 638,826.54 — an average of $245,807.51 per job."

A Big Snow Job.  As the economy continues to destroy jobs, we hear a new excuse.  Frigid weather, the White House says, made the jobs report look worse than it is.  Actually, even without snow, it's worse than you think.

'Anti-Lobbyist' Obama Administration Recruited Left-Wing Lobbyists to Sell Bogus 'Green Jobs'.  A FOIA [request] reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to help cover up two economic studies pointing to the failure of European wind energy programs.

How the Labor Dept. finessed the jobs report.  As you know by now, the Labor Department last Friday [3/5/2010] announced that the country had lost another 36,000 jobs in February.  Sure, that's a lot fewer than the amount of jobs the economy had been shedding last year.  But if the pace of early 2009 had been maintained, none of us would be working by now.  So the slowdown in bad news was to be expected.

Media Plays Along With WH Employment Report Whitewash.  As many have pointed out for months, the expanded version of the unemployment rate has been well above 15% for quite a long time, and it at least occasionally gets referenced in media reports and political pronouncements.  But on the jobs added/lost front, what the press, pundits, and even opposition politicians are continuing to ignore is the key information that leads to the "seasonally adjusted" figure on which everyone seems to fixate — to the point where it's not unreasonable to believe that almost everyone in America believes that 36,000 jobs lost is what really occurred during the month.  It isn't.

Your "Stimulus" Dollars Hard at Work:  Social Engineering and Tax Increases.  [The "stimulus" package] has clearly failed to meet its stated goals (after all wasn't the unemployment rate not supposed to go above 8 percent with its passage?).  Instead, taxpayers have had to watch helplessly as their money is being doled out to prop up government rather than stimulate job creation in the private sector, and is being spent on questionable projects under the even more questionable — and debunked — claim of "saving and creating" hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Lucre for lobbyists.  The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), or stimulus, has been subject to a great deal of criticism since its enactment in February 2009. ... The stimulus package was supposed to alleviate the Great Recession's burden on struggling Americans. ... Since President Obama placed his signature on the stimulus, 2.16 million Americans have lost their jobs, total unemployment is at 14.9 million, and the Great Debt stands at $12.7 trillion.

Underworked Americans hit 20.3 percent.  We've heard it all before, but no matter what the Obama administration claims, economic recovery has not arrived.  Last Friday in North Carolina, President Obama said the economy is "beginning to turn the corner."  At the end of May last year, he claimed, "We are already seeing results." ... Mr. Obama's profligate policies have destroyed vast amounts of wealth, and all there is to show from the stimulus is massive debt.

White House Caught Altering Stimulus Baseline Projection by 7 Million Jobs.  The number of jobs in the U.S. is currently 129.7 million.  So to justify the Administration's current claim of 2.8 million jobs "created or saved" by stimulus, they need to also claim that without that stimulus there would be only 126.9 million jobs.  That's exactly what they do, displayed as the "baseline projection" level in the graphic [shown in this article] from an April 14, 2010 report.

An Age of Untruth.  Recoil from the word "stimulus" — whether used by a Republican or Democratic administration.  There is no such thing as an easy, fuzzy notion of instant money creating economic growth.  Instead it is a euphemism not for borrowing, but for massive borrowing and unsustainable debt.  Indeed, note that we do not even use words like "borrowing" or "debt," but instead prefer "deficit" (e.g., It's only a year-to-year thing) and "stimulus" (e.g., spending what we don't have somehow makes us richer in the future).  "Stimulus" is thus a lie as it is used, or at best a half-truth.

$1,152,642.36 for every job created — if the report is true.
 Stimulus created nearly 683,000 jobs in first quarter.  The White House's $787 billion stimulus plan funded 682,779 jobs in the first quarter, administration officials said Friday [4/30/2010].

Only 6,662,000 More Needed in 2010 to Fulfill Obama Promise.  Any positive job growth is good news to be sure.  But in order for Obama to meet his pledge of 4 million jobs created by the end of 2010, the U.S. economy would have to add 932,000 jobs each and every month between now and the end of the year, taking into account both temporary jobs and the number of new positions needed to keep even with population growth.  According to the BLS, 2,662,000 jobs have been lost since February 2009.

Obama Hypocrisy on Small Businesses and Jobs.  After 15 months in office, Obama has yet to make any good decisions to help small business or create jobs.  Instead, additional levels of Obama Administration bureaucracy stifle innovation and burden American entrepreneurs with silly new rules buried in thousands of pages of legislation.  In short, Obama is killing the American growth machine.  Evidence of Obama's assault on business, capital and innovation is everywhere.

There's a noticeable boom in the fake job market.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 430,000 new jobs appeared in the US economy in May.  That, of course, would be reason for profound joy, except for the fact that 411,000 of those jobs were temporary, part-time positions created by the US Census.  And we don't really know whether the Census is making its employment statistics look better by churning workers and hiring unnecessarily.

Obama:  Not as honest as FDR.  [Scroll down]  The United States in the 1930s recognized that government-funded make-work jobs were not the same as real jobs.  To be sure, jobs financed at taxpayer expense were plentiful.  But back then, the Bureau of Labor Statistics didn't count people on work relief as employed.  In fact, persons listed on Depression-era work-relief rolls were not included in the labor force at all.  Nowadays, the unemployment rate equals the number of unemployed persons divided by the total civilian labor force.  If you are working as a temporary census enumerator or planting road signs along the highway courtesy of a government "stimulus" grant, you are considered employed.

Obama Jobs.  The Obama White House, stung by criticism of the recent May employment report, which showed virtually no job growth beyond the 411,000 temporary census workers, is attempting to find ways to put as many of the 411,000 in permanent government jobs. ... Another byproduct of the census hiring?  "It's essentially a new job created if these volunteers move back to the unemployment rolls [and then back to a fulltime job in the federal government]," says a Senate Democrat leadership staffer.

Obama's Problem Isn't Leadership — It's Liberal Policy.  [Scroll down]  People want jobs and, despite Obama's claim of "saving" them, the most recent job-growth numbers prove that federal spending is insufficient to the task of raising employment levels.  (Nevertheless, the president has just asked Congress for an additional $50 billion in recovery funds.)

Obama's endless summer of spending.  The White House kicked off a "recovery summer" public relations blitz yesterday to promote the alleged benefits of stimulus spending.  The mood of self-congratulation was interrupted by a Labor Department report that found initial jobless claims for the week climbed by 12,000.  A Conference Board survey showed the average wait in unemployment lines increased from 30 weeks at the start of the year to 34.4 weeks in May.  It won't be a summer of love in those households.  Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was enthusiastic, declaring the stimulus "an absolute success" on Wednesday [6/16/2010].

The Truth about the Unemployment Rate in America.  Changes in the unemployment rate are driven by interaction of job destruction, which consists of job losses through voluntary and involuntary job termination and job creation resulting in the hiring of employees.  This interplay of job destruction and job creation drives the changes and direction of the unemployment rate.  James Sherk at the Heritage Institute points out in his latest article that job losses in the current recession are not as severe as they were during the recession in 2001.  The reason the unemployment rate is so much higher in the current recession is due to the lack of job creation.

Obama's Funny Numbers.  Last week, as Congress failed to pass a bill that would have extended unemployment benefits, the Obama White House put out talking points for Democrats on Capitol Hill going home to their districts, as well as to the talking head class, pushing the message that Republicans were "sabotaging" the U.S. economic recovery for political gain.  By Sunday [6/27/2010] those points were being pushed on the blogosphere and elsewhere, but some Republicans on Capitol Hill are wondering whether the Obama Administration isn't cooking the books itself...

I'll Take a Double-Dip.  While Obama spins rising GDP and a falling unemployment rate as proof that his economic policies are making our economy stronger, the Thief-In-Chief is engaging in a campaign of bald-faced lies and he knows it.  Our economy is essentially dying, the victim of institutionalized chaos and growing uncertainty.  The only thing keeping it alive at this point is money seized from those who earned it and given to those who didn't, while the government coerces them into buying cars, or appliances to prop up the federal government, or its major propagandists and campaign contributors at General Electric and SEIU.

Results not matching Obama rhetoric.  The administration pushed the $862 billion stimulus package last year as a measure to keep the unemployment rate from going over 8 percent.  It's at 9.5 percent and would be at 10 percent if hundreds of thousands of people had not simply stopped searching for a job.  A New York Times/CBS poll found 6 percent of Americans believe the last stimulus created jobs.

Obama awards huge loan guarantees to solar companies promising scant jobs gains.  During his weekly address to the nation over the Fourth of July weekend, President Obama announced that the Department of Energy was awarding $2 billion in loan guarantees to two energy companies — Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing.  The plan, Obama said, is for the companies to use the money to construct solar plants and panels to power thousands of homes — and create 5,000 jobs in the process.  Only about 1,600 of those jobs are slated to be permanent, though, meaning that the total cost to the taxpayer for each permanent job would exceed $1 million.  But over the past week, observers have questioned whether even that high figure accurately represents the total cost of the president's plan.

Obama aborted the recovery.  The Obama administration has declared "Recovery Summer," basically an ad campaign claiming wondrous job-creation results for $1 trillion or so in stimulus funding.  Even more impressive, however, are the steps the administration has taken to destroy jobs at the very time it claims to be focused on their creation.  And if we consider the sorts of jobs under attack by the administration, it's clear there is method to the mayhem.  Many thousands of existing jobs have been killed, and many thousands more that could be created are instead being aborted.

Squandering the Stimulus.  The strategy behind Obama's latest stimulus sales pitch goes like this; a large portion of the stimulus funding is about to be spent this summer and Obama, like Superman, plans on swooping down upon various stimulus funded projects to declare, as only a President as arrogant as Obama can, that his policies have saved the day.  In truth, the "Summer of Recovery" is nothing more than a political ploy that was built in to the stimulus with the hope that it will lift Democrats' prospects in the mid-term elections.

More about the so-called stimulus.

Recovery summer?  Obama can't spin this one.  In May, total non-farm employment grew by 431,000 jobs — and 411,000 of them were temporary Census worker positions.  In June, 225,000 Census jobs ended, and the private sector created only 83,000 new jobs in their place.  Last week, Obama traveled to Missouri and Nevada to sell his "Summer of Recovery" propaganda.  But the people aren't buying it.

"Fruit Loop" Nancy's Stimulus.  Does Nancy Pelosi actually expect Americans to believe extending unemployment insurance is the fastest way to create jobs?  Just a reminder:  This ridiculous woman is two-short-steps from the presidency.  Nancy claims that handing out unemployment checks to the 10% of the jobless labor force is "one of the biggest stimulus' to our economy."  The Speaker supports such an absurd statement by saying "economists will tell you this money is spent quickly."  Nancy can you name the brilliant, and I use this title loosely, economist?  Wait; let me guess, economic genius Paul Krugman?

Obama is pro-growth (of government).  President Obama and his top officials embarked on a public relations blitz last past week evidently designed to portray him as "pro growth."  All such political PR pushes tend to bear tenuous relationships with reality, but in this case the gulf between the truth and what the politicians are saying is about as wide as the Grand Canyon.  Say what he will, Obama's actions since his first day in office have made clear that his business is growing government.

One Job Forward, Two Jobs Back.  The Great Obamanomic Job Creation Machine rumbled into action again over the Fourth of July weekend, promising to spend as much as $2 billion to support creation of 1,585 "permanent" jobs by two solar energy companies.  That comes to a potential cost of over $1.25 million per job.

More about green jobs.

Signs of the Times.  If you could spend vast amounts of other people's money just by saying a few magic words, wouldn't you be tempted to do it?  Barack Obama has spent hundreds of billions of dollars of the taxpayers' money just by using the magic words "stimulus" and "jobs."  It doesn't matter politically that the stimulus is not actually stimulating and that the unemployment rate remains up near double-digit levels, despite all the spending and all the rhetoric about jobs.  And of course nothing negative will ever matter to those who are part of the Obama cult, including many in the media.

If This is "Recovery Summer," I'd Hate To See "Recession Winter".  President Obama is in Michigan today [7/15/2010], begging voters to believe that his economic plans and policies are helping the state, the region and the country recover their economic bearings.  Voters aren't buying the spin, however, and the White House aide who came up with the slogan which Team Obama is deploying along with the president, "Recovery Summer," must be a GOP plant.

Batteries included on tour.  Just a few years ago, the U.S. produced only 2 percent of the world's electric car batteries, but the Obama administration says that if the stimulus is allowed to work that could rise to 40 percent by 2015. ... But so far, it's been a tough sell — voters tell pollsters they don't think the stimulus has helped much, they have a pessimistic view of the direction the country is taking, and are increasingly taking a dim view of Mr. Obama's economic leadership overall.

$287,333 per job:
 Obama looks to Bill Clinton for help on jobs as stimulus argument falls flat.  President Obama summoned former President Bill Clinton and business leaders to the White House on Wednesday [7/14/2010] to talk about how to improve the nation's employment situation, on the same day that the administration released a report alleging that their $862 billion stimulus has saved roughly three million jobs.

He came, he saw, he insulted.  [Scroll down]  But the green economy looks like a lot of green for the well-connected.  The president handed $150 million in stimulus money over to Korean CEO Peter Bahnsuk Kim of LG Chem.  LG Chem is an $11 billion Korean conglomerate that hardly seems a candidate for the American Recovery Act.  No wonder the program is so unpopular. ... Obama said his benevolence would create 300 jobs in Holland — but that's $500,000 per job.

This material came from akdart.com
Real Joblessness Grimmer Than Gov't Stats.  Writing in the New York Times in November 2003, Austan Goolsbee, then a professor at the University of Chicago, flamboyantly accused the government of "cooking" the books regarding unemployment.  "The situation has grown so dire," he said, "that we can't even tell whether the job market is recovering.  The time has come to correct the official unemployment statistics to account for those left out."  Professor Goolsbee is now a top economic advisor to President Obama.  Would he admit that the official jobless of 9.5% grossly underestimates the pain of job losses in America and do something to correct the situation?

The Flight of the Money:  Where Has It Gone?  If you go to a movie set, you will see perfect-looking streets, each building front rich in detail, looking as real as real can be.  Yet it's only façade.  One thin piece of painted sheetrock propped up.  Walk around behind it, there's nothing there.  That's GM.  State pension funds in 30-plus states people are counting on, upside down in toto by trillions.  Obama's stimulus.  There are signs stuck here or there with his logo on them, proclaiming the dirt mound or torn up street his "stimulus at work."  The sign-maker was stimulated.  Who else?  That's this entire economy.  A façade.

Update:
 Obama Railroading Propaganda Signs.  The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has dropped its requirement for "stimulus" project propaganda signage, according to a communiqué from the department's inspector general.  As of July 15 the policy changed, the I.G. says, and signs and plaques promoting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) at jobsites and on things like "stimulus"-funded railroad cars were "strongly encouraged" in lieu of the mandate.

Obama's Economic Time-Bomb Set to Explode in 2011.  If you listen to the lies spewing forth from the lips of the Obama Administration, the US economy is improving, millions of jobs are being "saved or created" and we're well on our way to a strong recovery.  But, the volatility of the numbers that Obama and economists in his pocket use to try and convince us that our financial situation is improving tell an entirely different story.

Barack Obama's Endless Crises:  Only [Barack] Obama and Joe Biden believe that the job trajectory in America is positive. Everyone else — those who actually look at data or look for work — are scared witless. Each job opening has five to six applicants. The average unemployment period now extends to 35 weeks, the highest since the end of WWII. Last month, more than six hundred thousand Americans gave up looking for work. The same report revealed that average hourly earnings for those lucky enough to be working have fallen. Average hours worked also dropped. These figures simply get worse from month to month. But somehow, all of this deteriorating evidence leads the smartest man who ever held the office of president (according to historian Michael Beschloss) to proclaim that we're on the right track.

Stimulating Unemployment.  [Scroll down]  But Mr. Obama was nonetheless obliged to concede that, 18 months after his $862 billion stimulus, there are still five job seekers for every job opening and that 2.5 million Americans will soon run out of unemployment benefits.  What happens when the 99 weeks of benefits run out?  Will the President demand that they be extended to three years, or four?  Only last week Vice President Joe Biden was hailing the stimulus for "saving or creating" three million jobs.  This week the White House says we need even more stimulus, in the form of jobless checks, to make up for the jobs his original spending stimulus didn't create.

Are Barack Obama and Gibbs really this ignorant or are they being dishonest?  Last week President Obama did a photo op at a GM plant.  In remarks to the assembled GM workers Obama took credit for saving their jobs.  In fact, he took credit for saving the "American auto industry."  The problem with this is that he was being dishonest or showing his ignorance.

Presidential Self-Adulation Hits New High.  Since mid July, the president and vice president have been on the road crowing about all the jobs they have "created or saved" — some three million to eight million jobs in all, depending on who's talking (Biden and the administration's top economist go with the more conservative three million figure, while the president jacks it up to eight million).  Either way, the number is way up from where it stood when the president appeared before the nation on the Oprah Winfrey show (the administration was then claiming to have rescued only about a million jobs).  Now this is a remarkable accomplishment, given the fact that the economy (I mean the real economy) has suffered a net loss of 2.35 million jobs since the passage of the National Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Obama:  I saved Ford by bailing out its competitors.  They didn't take his bailout money, but the president claims credit all the same.

Jobless Nation:  Heckuva Job, Barack.  Earlier this season, Team Obama launched a PR offensive designed to convince Americans that a real economic recovery was underway.  They called it "Recovery Summer!" Note the exclamation point.  They wanted you to really, really get that they believed we were in "recovery."  It wasn't just a "recovery."  It was "Recovery Summer!"

Welcome to the Second Great Depression.  Last Tuesday morning, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner "welcomed" us to the recovery. ... In fact, the Second Great Depression is just beginning.  And just as during the First Great Depression, economic liberals are declaring that it doesn't exist.

Barack... You're 30% Right, but 100% Wrong!  Like the fuzzy-math Team Obama uses to tell us that so many millions of jobs have been "saved or created" due to stimulus funds. ... Yes, I understand that his speech on the state of our American economy was geared towards pumping up unions and union workers so they feel the need to get out there and raise the dead to vote for more pro-government interventionist ideologues in November, but Mr. Obama can't even complete a sound analogy (the teleprompter must have froze).

O looks silly pushing 'creation' myth.  I Don't have the heart to break any more bad news to President Obama.  So, if you happen to have his phone number, please deliver this message:  Go easy on the upbeat chatter about the number of jobs being created by private companies.  Your information is inaccurate.  The president, I'm sorry to say, is starting to look very foolish.

What's Holding Back The Hiring?  Start With Obama's 10 Job Killers.  President Obama claims that he's concerned about "jobs, jobs, jobs," but he has signed laws, issued executive orders and approved regulations that create incentives for private-sector employers to lay off people or delay hiring people.  It's no wonder high unemployment persists.

Summer of No Recovery.  Against [a long] list of facts, President Obama claims that the economy is getting better.  This administration's ineptness at promoting growth is equaled by its ineptness at spinning facts.  The Obama administration also touts that the stimulus passed in February of 2009 created or saved 3.5 million jobs.  Of course, the president has chosen a standard of measure that is not and has not been tracked before.

New fairy tales from Obamaland.  [Obama, Reid and Pelosi] spun two new fantasies just this week.  The first was that without the latest Obama-Reid-Pelosi government bailout, at least 100,000 teachers would lose their jobs this fall. ... [But] the vast majority of those dire warnings of 100,000 teachers being laid off were mostly just hot air.  And here's something else to ponder:  If it cost $10 billion to save 100,000 teachers' jobs, they are each being paid $100,000 a year.  Since the national average teacher salary is just over $54,000 a year, somebody — federal bureaucrats? — is making a bundle on overhead.

Jobbed In America.  Obamanomics has done more than just keep unemployment high during a modest recovery.  It may also be keeping high joblessness permanent by raising the costs to businesses of hiring new workers.  July's 9.5% unemployment level was bad enough.  But the real problem is that the private-sector jobs machine, which is usually going full tilt at this point in a recovery, now seems to be broken.  To many, it's becoming clear that if President Obama's radical job-killing agenda stays in place, job growth will be nonexistent.

Have You Ever Noticed?  The dog days of August have arrived.  The "summer of recovery" is evolving into a "winter of discontent" as virtually anywhere one looks, reality overwhelms the rhetoric of the ruling class.

Stop Obama's tax-paid propaganda.  Recovery.gov, for example, is a tax-paid website that cost $18 million to create, yet does little more than peddle job-creation data that are discredited almost as soon as they are posted.

The Ride Down.  Revised numbers from the Labor Department show negative job growth during June 2010.  For each job opening, there were five persons looking for work, and 300,000 fewer workers were hired in June than in May.  The ride down continues.  Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Geithner, erstwhile cheerleader for the Obama economic team, announces that unemployment rates could rise "for a couple of months."

Obama Job Claims Undercut by Report.  Rep. David Camp (R.-Mich.) revealed Friday that, based on Department of Labor data, 48 of 50 states have lost jobs despite the administration's prediction that the 2009 stimulus would save or create over 3 million jobs.

Recovery Bummer.  [Scroll down]  No matter how well-documented the economic wreckage wrought by progressive "solutions" is, or how many times Keynesian economic models have failed, we have a Democratically-controlled Congress and an Obama administration willing to "double down" against history, common sense — and the wishes of most Americans.  Ask yourself how many times in the last year alone you've heard the word "unexpected" attached to an economic report, as in last Thursday's "unexpected" rise to 500,000 unemployment insurance filings — or the "unexpected" rise of unemployment to almost ten percent, despite the Obama administration's assurance it wouldn't top eight percent when American taxpayers were fleeced for $865 billion in a "stimulus" package.

These days, it's best to expect the 'unexpected'.  The national economy is in the tank — unexpectedly.  At least it's "unexpected" by the mainstream media, and professional economists.  After all these months, these pampered pukes remain flummoxed by how clueless their hero Barack Obama has shown himself to be on economic (and other) issues.

Honey, I Shrunk My Approval Ratings.  In what will rank as one of the all-time presidential PR disasters, we're now well over half way through what the White House called "the summer of recovery."  And what a recovery it's been.  Earlier this month, first-time claims for unemployment hit a nine-month high.  The unemployment rate remains at 9.5% and 18.4% of workers are out of a job, can only get part-time work, or have given up looking for a job altogether.

Explaining 'Lives Touched' to the Mainstream Media.  In late July, a Government Accountability Office report circulated which analyzed stimulus funding being spent by the Department of Energy.  The main gist of that report involved the cost of each job being generated by the stimulus bill — a staggering $194,000.  Tucked away in that report was a phrase that was new to most of us, a way to calculate jobs through a term called 'lives touched'.

Biden Recovery Tour:  Making Stuff Up in Toledo.  The White House's "Recovery Summer" tour is beginning to resemble a jalopy wheezing from town to town, consuming whatever fuel will keep it going.  Throw in Veep Biden, and it is a full-blown farce.  Biden dove into Toledo, Ohio, on Monday [8/23/2010] amid evidence of a stalled economy to once again boast to yet another UAW audience of the president's "transformed U.S. auto industry."

Cooking the books on job claims.  Administration officials passed around the champagne Tuesday [8/24/2010] as the Congressional Budget Office reported that the $814 billion spent on the first stimulus bill created between 1.4 million and 3.3 million new jobs.  President Obama's policies "put the country on a path to recovery by getting Americans back to work quickly," Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. crowed.  "We've created 3 million jobs, and we're adding jobs every month."  As is obvious to anyone living outside the Beltway, there's not much cause for celebration in this economy.

How is your "Recovery Summer" going?
 Debt, Depression, Default.  America is in Deep Trouble.  Consumers are spending less.  Small retailers are closing shop — even cable television subscriptions are seeing a loss in revenue.

A perfect pitchman.  Joe Biden was an inspired choice as spokesman for the "summer of recovery." ... Biden is still hawking his recovery summer, even as GDP growth slows to a crawl, and he'll still tout the marvels of the stimulus even if we dip into negative territory again later this year.  He makes the late, great pitchman Billy Mays look restrained and rhetorically scrupulous by comparison.

Obama:  Stimulus Stopped Possibility of Second Depression.  Before President Barack Obama began touting the political bonafides of Michael Bennet — at a fundraiser for Bennet — he made sure to mention that his year old stimulus stopped a second depression.  "One year later, thanks largely to the Recovery Act, we can stand here again and say that a second depression is no longer a possibility," Obama said, adding all the statistics about job growth ("about 2 million") and economic growth ("nearly 6%").

15 Reasons Why Obama's Claim Is Dead Wrong.  There is no way in the world that Barack Obama should have ever said that "a second depression is no longer a possibility."  In fact, as the U.S. financial system continues to crumble, it is likely that those words will be exploited by his political adversaries again and again.  If you are a politician and you are going to issue a guarantee, you had better be able to deliver the goods.  In this case, Obama is making a promise that defies all of the economic data.

President Obama Reacts to August Jobs Numbers.  Flanked by members of his economic team — including outgoing Council of Economic Advisers Dr. Christina Romer, whose replacement has yet to be named — President Obama chose to look at the silver lining in the economic clouds of today's jobs report — not even mentioning that August saw a net job loss of 54,000 jobs.

Is Obama Dishonest, Naive or Both When He Talks About Our Economy?  Last week President Obama spoke to the White House press corps — and by extension the nation — to claim that the nation saw job growth of 67,000 jobs in August.  Even if this number was real it would be a pitifully tiny percent of the 14,885,000 who are both on unemployment (1 in 10 Americans) as well as those 23,768,000 who are underemployed (working but not earning enough for basic needs — 1 in 5 families).  The bigger problem for the president, however, is that the number isn't real.  The fact is the nation saw 114,000 people added to the unemployment lines in August and the net jobs lost for the month sat at 54,000.

Obama to offer new stimulus measures.  "The key point I'm making right now is the economy is moving in a positive direction, it's just not moving as quickly as we'd like it," Obama said.  Obama was asked if he regretted describing the last three months as the "recovery summer."

Obama Did Create 3 Million Jobs — in China.  President Obama should be saying, "My economic stimulus plan has preserved or created 3 million jobs — in China."  He keeps leaving out the words "in China."  His plan is stimulating American demand for imports, not demand for American products.  The latest unemployment report (9.6% in August) shows that the U.S. economy is stagnating, not recovering.  Unemployment has stayed in the 9.5% to 10.2% range for the past 13 months...

The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Guilty.  These days, Barack Obama would rather talk about his birth certificate than use the word "stimulus."  At the press conference that wouldn't end last week, Obama was asked if his latest and greatest spending proposal amounted to a second stimulus.  He answered, "There is no doubt that everything we've been trying to do is designed to stimulate growth and additional jobs in the economy," but adamantly avoided the dreaded s-word.

Reaping the Whirlwind.  There is a sense of foreboding rising in this country. ... Every jobs report is a "surprise" of increasing unemployment, the real level of which is around 22 percent, not the 9.5-percent fiction the Obama administration touts.  Great-Depression levels of unemployment do not support the "recovery summer" propaganda.  Teen unemployment is at levels above 25 percent as adults take jobs traditionally filled by teens.  Americans are not fooled by the government spin; they see the evidence every day.

Even Obama Is No Longer Pushing Green Jobs.  [Scroll down]  Whip out your calculators:  82,000 into $20 billion means those green jobs cost about $243,902 each.  Let's hope they pay well.  The high cost per job should come as no surprise; despite the hype from green groups and the administration, cleantech jobs generally require enormously expensive subsidies.  For example, back in January, the administration was touting the $2.3 billion in manufacturing tax credits as creating 17,000 jobs — or about $135,294 per job.  Even that tally proved to be overly optimistic, given the fact that many of those jobs went to other countries.

Clueless panel declares end of US recession.  Official economy-watchers announced yesterday [9/20/2010] that our worst recession since the Great Depression quietly ended when we weren't looking — back in June 2009.  While it's hard to swallow for those who stand in longer jobless lines and for others who see paychecks shrinking, a panel of top economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that we hit a formal bottom — and end — to the economic dip 15 months ago.  Oh, really?

Obama team uses flimflammery to inflate job numbers.  Are you a financial adviser?  You may not know it, but you've got a green job.  Are you a wholesale buyer?  You've got a green job, too.  Or maybe you're a newspaper reporter.  You, too, have a green job — at least according to the Obama administration.  For months, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley has been pushing the administration to substantiate its claims of having created nearly 200,000 green jobs.  More fundamentally, Grassley has asked Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to state clearly what a green job is.  So far, he hasn't gotten an answer.

Obama's Costly Green Jobs Project.  The transcript of President Obama's weekly address on whitehouse.gov is titled, "President Obama Lauds Clean Energy Projects as Key to Creating."  Creating what? one might ask.  The word "Jobs" seems to be missing, perhaps like the jobs themselves.

Obama vs. Reagan.  The phrase "Great Recession" is an Obama Administration term intended to give the impression that when Barack Obama came to office, the nation faced the greatest economic challenges since the Great Depression.  Actually, Ronald Reagan faced a much more daunting situation when he first took the oath of office.

Every Month, They're Lying.  Figures for the last significant jobs report before the November election are a major embarrassment for the administration.  On October 8, the labor department reported a decline of 95,000 workers, a figure much worse than economists had estimated.  This decline in jobs is inescapable proof of the failure of the president's economic policies.  As if the September employment numbers were not bad enough, the figures for August were revised downward by 57,000.

Bam job-boost claim a lame shame.  As head cheerleader of the stagnant and stumbling economy, President Obama has lost all the frills on his pompoms.  Exhausted, he stood before cameras yesterday [10/8/2010] and, in dreary cadences of despair, did his best to draw lipstick on the mouth of a sick pig.  Any way you try spinning it, the latest job numbers are disastrous for Democrats desperate to hold on to power in next month's elections.

Oops. Obama's 'Saved Job' Was Just Lost.  Oh, it was a thing to be celebrated when Obama's payoff to the teachers unions back in August "saved" the job of Ohio school teacher Amanda VanNess.  It was such a thing of wonder that the big guy flew the elementary school teacher all the way to D.C. for an Oval Office signing ceremony.  Happy days were here again... and it lasted less than three months because VanNess still lost her job this month anyway.

'No such thing as shovel-ready projects'
 The political suicide of President Obama.  Liberals sit down with the New York Times the way Catholics enter the confessional:  To make a clean breast of their sins and to ask for absolution.  Except that the Gray Lady offers no promise of confidentiality.  President Obama has given an interview to the Times Magazine that will appear in full next Sunday [10/17/2010].  Already, however, his quoted remarks are causing a political earthquake.

America, we have a problem.  In a New York Times interview last week, President Obama acknowledged that there's "no such thing as shovel-ready projects."  This was one of his main selling points for the $862 billion stimulus package.  He now admits they don't exist, and the stimulus is clearly not working.  The public was told that unemployment would not go above 8 percent if the stimulus package passed.  They passed it and unemployment went to over 9.6 percent and stayed there.  So now the president and his economic advisors say we might have to just get used to high unemployment.  And they want to spend even more money.

Obamanomics 101.  Since Obama came to office in January 2009, the unemployment has risen from just under 8% to close to 10% — where it has stayed for the past year.  There has been a net loss of about 2.5 million jobs.  Even so, the Obama administration continues to claim that it has "created or saved" about 3 million jobs.  That is a meaningless metric, which is not based on any evidence.

Obama's Impossible Leap.  Early on, candidate Obama pontificated about the need to end tax breaks for companies moving jobs offshore.  More recently, the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act attempts to institutionalize that goal in law.  Unfortunately, what Obama and many members of Congress on both sides of the aisle fail to realize is that most of the jobs they propose to save have already left or no longer exist.

White House takes credit for Bush-era wind farm jobs.  The Obama administration is crediting its anti-recession stimulus plan with creating up to 50,000 jobs on dozens of wind farms, even though many of those wind farms were built before the stimulus money began to flow or even before President Barack Obama was inaugurated.

The Ego-in-Chief.  Should the president take a victory lap for an unemployment rate that has increased by 2 percent since he took office?  His economic stimulus package, the laughably titled "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009," was supposed to keep unemployment below 8 percent.  It now stands right at 10 percent.  The fact is that, despite the misinformation that Obama's stimulus kept the economy from getting worse as some would have you believe, it has only succeeded in slowing the recovery.

Green lipstick on the stimulus pig.  Jobs that carry the "sustainable" stamp of approval will siphon precious taxpayer resources away from the private sector.  It's simply putting green lipstick on the stimulus pig that has squandered more than a trillion dollars with no positive effect on the jobless rate.

Obama's 'Green' Energy Plan Infringes on Liberty.  Since the 2008 campaign trail, Obama has been claiming that his overall "green" plan would create 5 million green jobs over the next 10 years.  However, Obama's "green" agenda will kill more jobs than it aims to create.

Fantasy Figures, Real Pain.  Early Friday morning [12/3/2010], before the Department of Labor released its monthly jobs report, the mainstream media was reporting job gains of as much as 200,000 as more or less the consensus figure.  Never mind that 200,000 was not the consensus among reputable economists.  The mainstreamers wanted the jobs report to turn up as an assist to the Obama administration, and so they fudged their predictions.

Obama's Green Economy Mirage.  In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were made and sold worldwide.  Not one was made in the USA.  Dell, one of the largest manufacturers of computers, closed its last plant in Winston-Salem in November and laid off 900 workers.  Computer manufacturing in the U.S. employs fewer Americans in 2010 than it did in 1975.  Printed circuit boards were perfected in the U.S. after World War II and are used in thousands of products worldwide.  84% of circuit boards are now made in Asia.  In 2001, the U.S. ranked fourth in per capita broadband Internet use; today we rank 15th.  What next?  Obama has touted the "green economy" as the answer to the need for new good paying jobs.  It's not happening either.

Green Jobs Promises Dwindle as Obama Policies Backfire.  The subject of green jobs was conspicuously absent from President Barack Obama's most recent $50 billion stimulus proposal.  By contrast, about $92 billion in taxpayer funds — more than 11 percent of Obama's original $814 billion stimulus package, enacted in early 2009 — went to an assortment of renewable energy projects.  But the jobs that were supposed to be created never materialized — at least not in the United States.

The Immortal Tyranny Of Climate Change.  A year after the Climagate scandal decisively exposed the fraud of global warming, and acting in the face of a new Republican House that does not look kindly on climate change flim-flams, the Obama Administration is preparing to enforce their ideology through EPA greenhouse gas regulations.  So much for the latest "hard pivot to jobs," announced only five days ago by President Obama.  These EPA regulations are guaranteed job-killers, dropping a huge new tax on every affected business... which will, ultimately, be every business that uses energy.

Hiding A Depression.  No, we have not emerged from "recession" and there will be no "double dip" — because the first "dip" was straight down to a depression-level economy in 2008/2009, and we haven't come back up.  Creating artificial "free money" on a massive scale that artificially boosts short-term employment is how you segment depression level unemployment into the separate boxes and hide what is really happening.

Jobs Report:  Don't Be Fooled, It Was BAD.  The Labor Department December jobs report is out and when you hear that the unemployment rate dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent, you might be excused for thinking that it was a good report.  Don't be fooled -- it was actually a bad report.

Spinning the Data.  The White House will spin the lower unemployment rate as a great triumph, but it's because people are giving up.

Junk Government Statistics.  The White House, including departing spokesman Robert Gibbs, has steadfastly maintained that the stimulus has created lots of new jobs — 3.5 million, to be exact.  This number has been repeated ad nauseam, despite the fact that our official data show a 9.8% unemployment rate, a full percentage point higher than when President Obama took office, and a loss of 3 million payroll jobs.  For months we've been saying the White House numbers were phantasmagorial — more wishful thinking than reality.

Top 10 Obama Administration Investigation Targets:  [#2]  Stimulus:  The American people deserve to know what they got for the $787 billion stimulus package that Obama signed in February 2009, including how much money was spent frivolously to publicize the legislation.  And where exactly are all those jobs that the administration claims were "created or saved?"

Voters Not Buying What Obama Is Selling.  Most people don't buy the claim that Obama has been busily engaged in pulling the economy back from the brink, or out of a ditch, or whatever.  The Fox News poll finds that more Americans believe the Obama administration's policies have hurt the economy (32%) than helped it (28%).  Thirty-seven percent think they have made no difference.  So, while Obama will inevitably reap some credit as the economy improves, his "back from the brink" narrative (one aspect of which is the "jobs saved or created" theme) hasn't sold, and many voters will think that the improvement between now and 2012 is too little, too late.

Obama: We Can't Predict Where New Jobs Will Come From, But We'll Spend Tax Dollars Trying.  It's no secret that presidents use speechwriters, teams of them.  That's why big speeches often have a flat, written-by-committee feel.  It can also lead to some awkward moments where, in an effort to cover all the bases, contradictory ideas are put in the text.  President Obama's State of the Union address last night had a major example of this.

Obama "Invests" America Into Oblivion.  Don't be fooled.  These aren't investments.  These are confiscations of private-sector capital that Obama has neither earned nor knows how to earn, for that matter.  The left uses the word "investment" each time they're after your wallet.  In fact, Obama sold the failed "stimulus" plan as a package of... investments!  Seriously.  Before he signed the inaptly named "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," Obama called it "an investment that will create jobs building 21st-Century classrooms and libraries and labs for millions of children across America."

Obama's Ongoing War on Inspectors General.  A cloud of suspicion hangs over the data Barack Obama and his team have been presenting us regarding the purported success of their own programs.  The figures presented regarding "jobs created and saved" have been contested.  The new metric regarding jobs "saved" has been ridiculed as just a tactic to burnish the numbers.  Analysts have looked at various expenditures and have shown in example after example that each job created is often temporary in nature, sometimes occurs overseas, and is often extremely expensive.

Why Can't Obama Do the Math On Jobs?  Unemployment fell last month, but only because Americans have given up looking for work in record numbers.  On net, 319,000 quit looking for work and left the work force in December.  In November, it was even worse, 434,000.  Over 1.5 million American have left the workforce since August.

The Failure of Obamanomics.  The monthly jobs numbers are both tragic and telling.  Each report brings forth spin from the White House asserting how the economy has turned the corner and the recovery is occurring.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

Is Your Job an Endangered Species?  Eight-hundred billion in stimulus and $2 trillion in dollar-printing and all we got were a lousy 36,000 jobs last month.  That's not even enough to absorb population growth.

Borrowed jobs: A stimulus update.  The Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the Federal Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the stimulus bill) "will increase budget deficits over the 2009-2019 period by $821 billion."  That's confirmation that a) the stimulus bill was much more costly than we were told it would be, and b) it wasn't paid for.  What did the United States get for this credit-card spending spree?  The CBO estimates that the stimulus bought us an increase in "full-time equivalent jobs" of between 1.8 million and 5 million.  For that kind of money, you'd think we'd be able to know the results with more accuracy than plus or minus 3.2 million.

A secret Obama doesn't want you to know.  No doubt by now you've heard the story on the nightly news that the Obama economy grew at a weaker pace in the fourth quarter of last year than was expected.  What's that you say?  You didn't hear that on the evening news?  I wonder why.

Jobs Report — Strange Once Again.  So the new jobs report has the unemployment rate below 9 percent for the first time in two years, with 220,000 new private-sector jobs having been created. ... But as is now sadly usual, the overall employment number makes no sense.  It's down nearly 10 percent from November's 9.8 percent, which is amazing — but over the course of those months, only 300,000 new jobs have been created, which shouldn't have been enough on its own to shrink the employment rate at all.

The phony drop in unemployment.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics has again issued data that appears to contradict what the average American sees in his neighborhood and instinctively questions.  The official unemployment rate of 8.9% is a factor of data input which reflects how many people are looking for work, how many ceased to do so, and an estimated size of the current labor force.  However there is a statistic the BLS puts out that does cast a more accurate shadow on the labor situation.  That is the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate — which is essentially the ratio of the labor force as compared to the total working age (over 16) population.  In November 2008, when Obama was elected that ratio was 65.5%.  In February 2011 it is 64.2%.

Our Workforce Lost 2.33 Million People in One Year?  If you remove 2.33 million people from the labor force within one year, that will indeed help lower the unemployment rate.  It is, however, not the same as helping the unemployed find jobs.

Democrats Not Governing, But Lying in Wait.  [Scroll down]  You'll remember [Obama's] boastful promises that if we would just indulge his "stimulus" idea, he would jump-start the economy and ensure that unemployment would not exceed 8 percent.  Despite getting his way, he has managed to achieve the worst of both worlds:  He'll double the national debt in five years and triple it in 10, yet unemployment is just now — after two years of hovering between 9 and 10 percent — dipping below 9 percent.

Education Spending Won't Create Jobs.  Contrary to President Obama's political rhetoric, more taxpayer spending to send more students to college will not reduce unemployment or improve the economy.  It's just Obama's way of finagling the unemployment statistics by listing young people as students instead of as unemployed.

Faux job numbers could lead to real trouble.  Deception is a dangerous thing.  You never really know when a lie may turn on you.  Take, for instance, the Labor Department's annual springtime boost in the faux jobs market.  While it's nice that the government thinks there is an employment boom coming, this won't be a good development if that boom turns out to be imaginary yet still causes the Federal Reserve to prematurely tighten credit conditions.

Hi Ho, Hobby-Horse — Barack Obama Rides Again.  The president sold the stimulus bill on the prediction that it would keep the jobless rate below 8 percent.  How then to explain why it rose to 8, 9 and then 10 percent in the months that followed?  No problem.  The president hopped on the "jobs created or saved" hobby-horse — claiming credit for keeping the unemployment rate from going even higher... to "12, 13 or 15" percent.  At first, the administration based the numbers game on a computer model that applied a Keynesian multiplier to government spending (or "investment," in Obama-speak).  If the administration had spent enough money to support two jobs, then it figured that it had "created or saved" three jobs.  The Cartesian logic here was:  It is assumed, therefore it is.  But soon the calculation of how many jobs had been "saved" became even more airy-fairy.

Cooling on global warming.  The fight against climate change has fizzled, with much of the public not believing or not caring.  That's why Obama tries to change the subject to jobs when he talk about energy policy.

President Obama, Completely Wrong on Reason for High Unemployment.  CBS' Mark Knoller, covering a town hall on the economy with the president this morning, reports:  "President Obama blames high unemployment rate on 'huge layoffs of government workers' at federal, state and local levels."  This is completely wrong.  Extremely and mind-bogglingly wrong.

Liberal Media Skip Study That Found Stimulus 'Forestalled or Destroyed' Jobs.  On the front page of Wednesday's Investor's Business Daily, reporter David Hogberg reported that a new study found President Obama's "stimulus" plan "may have destroyed or forestalled employment, including more than 1 million private-sector jobs."  Destroyed or forestalled?  Our media only cites studies which estimate the number of jobs Team Obama "saved or created."

President Obama's Non-Acknowledgment of Today's Jobs Report.  President Obama's comments today made no specific mention of the disappointing jobs report or the fact that the unemployment rate ticked upward. ... But when the jobs numbers are good, the president likes to acknowledge them, and tell people the number.

The Obama Economy.  The Obama administration is 0-for-3 in meeting economic expectations.  In 2009, President Obama and his advisers believed the bountiful stimulus package would give the economy a strong jolt.  It didn't, and still hasn't.  In 2010, Obama declared Recovery Summer and predicted a surge in employment.  The economy lost 283,000 jobs over the summer.  This year, Obama expected a significant ratcheting up of jobs and growth.  There's been a ratcheting down.  The White House always has an excuse.

WPost Fact-Checker shreds Obama auto recovery claims.  President Obama's claims to have saved the U.S. auto industry with government bailouts, takeovers and buyouts in 2009 don't quite square with the facts.

Obama's Phone-It-In Economy.  According to Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller, home prices in twenty U.S. cities are at an eight-year low, down an average of 29% across the country.  Democrat pundits spin is that "home prices threaten economic recovery."  Recovery?  Really?

Read this article:
 Obama's Road to Nowhere.  "There are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery," President Obama said at a Jeep plant in Toledo the other day.  "We're going to pass through some rough terrain that even a Wrangler would have a tough time with."  His audience booed.  They're un-fire-able union members with lavish benefits, and even they weary of the glib lines from his twelve-year-old speechwriters.

Obama wants credit for cleaning up 'big mess'.  President Obama told supporters at a fundraiser in Miami Monday night [6/13/2011] that he deserves credit for cleaning up the mess he inherited.  "My job over these first two years has frankly been to clean up a big mess," Mr. Obama said at a $10,000-per-ticket event at a gated mansion in Miami Beach.  "We were able to make sure we yanked an economy out of what could have been a second Great Depression."

The Obama Job Lies Pile Up.  For the last week President Obama and his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness — a council that's supposed to be jump starting hiring — have been going around the country claiming that there are 2 million manufacturing jobs available right now that are going unfilled because the U.S. doesn't have the skilled workforce to fill those jobs.

The Fountain of Prosperity.  Earlier this week, President Obama attempted to blame high unemployment on automation, specifically the rising popularity of ATMs and airline ticketing kiosks.  The idea is that such machines wipe out jobs by making human bank tellers and ticket counter attendants obsolete.  In reality, such machines are among the tools that help us realize a level of wealth beyond the dreams of our forefathers.

The Audacity of Hype.  How could President Obama have sat in the U.S. Senate for four years and not know that there are no shovel-ready projects?  Every senator who wants to build a post office in, say, Dixon, Illinois, knows you must wait years before putting the first spade to the dirt.  Franklin's cousin Theodore "made the dirt fly in Panama," true, but neither the U.S. nor Panama had to do environmental impact studies a hundred years ago.  Barack Obama should have known that what he was really selling was snake oil.  And his opponents should have been bolder in stopping his raid on the Treasury.

White House Corrects Job Creation "Laughter" Line in Transcript.  Most of the time the lines "Laughter" and "Applause" in a press release of a transcript don't normally garner any attention -- except when President Obama is talking about jobs and the two words were interchanged.  At a fundraising event Monday night [6/20/2011], Obama said, according to the White House's official release sent a couple hours later, this line that was noted to be apparently funny to the crowd:  "Over the last 15 months we've created over 2.1 million private sector jobs.  (Laughter)," the release stated.

W.H. flags Drudge-mocked transcript.  The Drudge Report Tuesday morning cheekily linked to an official White House transcript of President Obama's remarks from a fundraiser the night before, which noted the audience laughing at his jobs claims.  "Over the last 15 months we've created over 2.1 million private sector jobs.  (Laughter.)"  said Obama per the transcript, emailed to reporters Monday night at around 11:30 p.m.  It did seem a little strange — because why would Obama supporters laugh at job creation?

The Editor says...
 Doctoring the transcript to make the President look better is exactly the same thing as revising history.  The official record has now been changed, but don't ever forget that Obama's dishonest minions tampered with it.  Obama stood there and claimed he had created millions of jobs, and even his most partisan supporters knew immediately that it was either a joke or a lie, and they laughed at him.  That's why they had to change the transcript.

Fudging The Jobs Data.  In Obama's speech at a DNC event Monday, he bragged that "over the last 15 months we've created over 2.1 million private-sector jobs."  Apparently, according to the revised transcript, the audience applauded.  Instead, they should have booed him off the stage.  Sure, 2.1 million jobs sounds like a lot.  But you don't have to look very hard to see that it's definitely not something to boast about.  For starters, the number of private-sector jobs is still down by more than 2 million since Obama took office.

Did Obama Really Prevent A Second Great Depression?  IBD reviewed records of economic forecasts made just before Obama signed the stimulus bill into law, as well as economic data and monthly stimulus spending data from around that time, and reviews of the stimulus bill itself.  The conclusion is that in claiming to have staved off a Depression, the White House and its supporters seem to be engaging in a bit of historical revisionism.  Economists weren't predicting a Depression.

Obama The Luddite.  Before citing the many ways Washington's policies impede job creation, let's first consider Obama's pet theory, which is centuries old and as fallacious as ever.  Believe it or not, he blames high joblessness on automation, technology and efficiency.

Lies And Job Statistics.  The Weekly Standard did the math and pointed out that that amounts to "a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job."  Early in the Obama administration, the CEA said that about $92,000 in government spending would create one job for one year.  But it's likely the real cost is far higher than the Standard reckoned.  The Heritage Foundation ... put the price tag at $3.27 trillion, pegging the cost per job at $900,000 to $1.3 million, depending on which figure on job creation or saving you accept.

Oops I Forgot To Create Jobs: A Review Of Obamanomics.  Since the early days of his presidential bid in 2007, many have marveled at Barack Obama's dulcet-toned voice and charming demeanor, while applauding at every word he utters — including what he says about the economy and employment.  Now, roughly two and a half years into his presidency, it is painfully apparent that mere charisma and smooth talk don't "create jobs."

Those Awful June Unemployment Numbers Are A Candy-Coated Fantasy.  On Friday [7/8/2011], the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report was released, showing that unemployment rose to 9.2% in June, with only 18,000 new jobs added to the economy.  The BLS also revised the already dismal job creation numbers for April and May down by 44,000 jobs.  These "downward revisions" are a standard feature of labor reports nowadays.  The numbers for any given month always seem to be "revised" a few months later, always for the worse.  This raises the understandable suspicion that the initial unemployment report has been massaged by the BLS to keep the headlines a bit less apocalyptic upon its release.

He rescued us?  On Sunday [7/10/2011], on Meet the Press, Treasury Secretary Geithner said "The Amercian economy was falling off the cliff in the Fall of 08 and the first months of [President Obama's] Administration and he put in place the most creative, the most forceful set of economic measures we have ever done as country, and because of that we prevented a second Great Depression ...." If you haven't seen this performance, you should — the forcefulness and conviction with which the Secretary delivered these lines is impressive.  There's something I don't understand.  Why didn't David Gregory, the host of MTP, laugh in Geithner's face?

Are You Better Off?  White House adviser David Plouffe was hammered this week when he offered that "the average American" isn't going to "vote based on the unemployment rate."  His remark gained instant notoriety after Friday's dismal jobs report showing an unemployment rate up to 9.2%.

At last they approach the truth -- inadvertently.
 The White House: We Don't Create Jobs.  As President Barack Obama once again pivots to focus on economic growth, Press Secretary Jay Carney declared Thursday that "the White House doesn't create jobs."  While undoubtedly true, it was certainly not a sentiment Obama wants to project as Republicans ratchet up criticism of his leadership on economic issues, and his presidential campaign kicks into high gear.

Zero tolerance for job creation.  "The White House doesn't create jobs," President Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, said last week.  He's more right than he knows.  The policies the administration and Congress put into place have a profound effect on job creation — a profoundly negative one.

Facts? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Facts.  [Scroll down]  Here's two ideas, Mr. president: one, give up the ghost on your tedious and ultimately destructive allegiance to re-distributionist Marxism, masquerading itself as Keynesian stimulus.  It hasn't "created or saved" anything other than government budgets and public sector unions.  Those priorities demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that getting re-elected, rather than fixing the economy, is your first priority.  Second, show Tim Geithner the door.  His credibility, highlighted by his assurance in April that the U.S. would never get a ratings downgrade, is completely gone.  He should be completely gone as well.

Amazing White House Discovery: Unemployment Creates Jobs.  President Obama has lately been pushing a number of policies that he says will create jobs, including extending unemployment benefits.  This is puzzling, since new benefits obviously will not create jobs for unemployed people, who after all are the ones who need work. ... [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney attributed miraculous qualities to these government handouts, saying "every place that, that money is spent has added business and that creates growth and income for businesses that leads them to decisions about jobs, more hiring."  By that logic the whole country should go on unemployment.

Obama media cheerleaders log overtime.  While the unemployment rate barely moved from 9.2 percent to 9.1 percent last month, it was largely because of 193,000 Americans who last month stopped looking for work and just dropped out of the job market in frustration.  That means they are no longer counted among the unemployed and thus drive down the overall jobless rate.

White House Thinks Unemployment Creates Jobs.  [Scroll down]  So there you have it.  The unemployed create jobs.  If only we had millions more unemployed, we could create millions more jobs, simply by giving the unemployed more money.  I suppose we could triple unemployment benefits and create three times as many jobs on the theory that the unemployed would still spend every penny of three times as much money.  We could be even more creative and extend unemployment benefits to infinity thereby creating an infinite number of jobs.

Obama's Department of Failed Ideas.  The Obama administration is finally going to focus on jobs — again.  Jobs, jobs, jobs.  And nothing says jobs like food stamps, unemployment insurance, and a shiny new federal department of ... yes, jobs!

The Job Wrecker in Chief.  President Obama often tells us that his No. 1 focus is creating jobs, but his record makes you wonder what he might have done differently if his goal were to destroy jobs.  Those who've examined Congressional Budget Office data have calculated that each job allegedly created by Obama's stimulus — and this is if you accept the fantastically generous guesstimates — cost between $225,000 and $600,000.

None dare call it a recession.  Under President Obama, there are three phases of economic news: First, the estimate by the experts ahead of the official announcement, second the official announcement (unexpectedly below what experts predicted), and finally, the revision a month later that shows the news was worse.  Further revisions come later that show things are even worse.

Well, I guess I'm a fervent partisan.
 White House: Only 'Fervent Partisan' Would Suggest Obama To Blame For Job Losses.  When asked questions about the president's upcoming speech on jobs and economic growth yesterday [8/29/2011], White House Spokesperson Jay Carney claimed that only the most 'fervent partisan' would suggest the 8 million plus jobs lost in this recession were lost because of actions Barack Obama took.

White House bluster hides truth.  Everything but the administration's own policies are responsible for the faltering economy.  Irene is only the latest of the "head winds" White House officials blame for feeble economic growth and persistent high unemployment.  There was the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the fiscal crisis in Greece, the civil war in Libya on top of Arab Spring uprisings in other Arab countries and, of course, Republicans refusing to go along with President Barack Obama's spending binge, er, "investments."

Obama's Hope and Lies.  One thing about the Obama White House:  you can't fault them for a lack of optimism.  Obama has been operating on little more than "hope" for three years now, with rosy predictions of economic improvement just around the corner.  Back in June 2010, the president kicked off "recovery summer" with "groundbreakings and events across the country."  When that recovery failed to materialize, he insisted that we were just going through a "soft patch."  We're still in that soft patch, which is starting seem more like an endless swamp.  No problem.  When rosy predictions fail, one can always resort to lies.

Republicans Grill Officials Over 'Offensive' Definition of Green Jobs.  In a series of tense exchanges, Republicans on a House oversight panel sharply questioned whether the Obama administration was looking to inflate the number of "green" jobs by using a broad definition — which, as it turns out, counts virtually anybody working in mass transit.

"Biggest one month drop in retail sales in history".  Many people associate the song, "Happy Days Are Here Again" with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and while he used it, too, the song was popularized under President Hoover.  It is meant to be sung in the key of D for Denial.  And so it goes with this month's breathless "advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January" released by the Bureau of labor Statistics, that fine group of people who tell us every month that the unemployment rate is dropping.

Gallup shows U.S. unemployment at 9%.  Gallup released new information on Monday [2/13/2012] showing that the unemployment rate has managed to creep back up to 9.0 percent.  Gallup gathers daily unemployment information of U.S. adults in the workforce, ages 18 and older, who are underemployed, unemployed, and employed full-time for an employer. ... Gallup also shows the underemployment rate is at 19.2%.  Those who are underemployed, according to Gallup, are individuals who "are employed part time, but want to work full time, or they are unemployed."


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