A Trip Down The Repug Road Of Economic Ruin

(And I also posted here about our favorite topic.)

This story tells us the following…

New seasonally-adjusted claims for unemployment insurance rose last week to 576,000, up from a revised figure of 561,000 the week before, the Department of Labor reports. Before this morning's report, analysts had expected new claims to drop to 550,000. This is the second week in a row that initial claims rose -- they had fallen for six straight weeks, but ticked up last week.

And even though Rasmussen’s polling skews conservative, I had an issue with this, which tells us…

Again this month, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% say the bad economy is caused more by Obama’s policies, but 55% blame President Bush. These findings are unchanged from the previous two months.

In May, 62% blamed Bush more, while 27% thought Obama’s policies were at fault.

Also, this tells us that there has been some discussion of a job creation stimulus in light of the following information (though I’m definitely not holding out hope for that - can't help but hear Paul Krugman saying "I told you that the 'stim' was too small" somewhere...)…

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at the start of the recession in December 2007, the ratio of job seekers to job openings was 1.5 to 1. Now six unemployed workers chase every available job. It's a brutal game of musical chairs in which a great many people lose and spiral downward economically with disastrous consequences, not only for themselves and their families, but also for communities that were once productive and prosperous.

And Bob Herbert of the New York Times points out the following in particular (here)…

For those concerned with the economic viability of the American family going forward, the plight of young workers, especially young men, is particularly frightening. The percentage of young American men who are actually working is the lowest it has been in the 61 years of record-keeping, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. In the age group 25 through 34 years old, traditionally a prime age range for getting married and starting a family, just 81 of 100 men were employed.

For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16- through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; they’re catastrophic.

This should be the biggest story in the United States. When joblessness reaches these kinds of extremes, it doesn’t just damage individual families; it corrodes entire communities, fosters a sense of hopelessness and leads to disorder.

I can’t think of any one demographic group of people who has it better than any other when it comes to unemployment, but there’s something particularly troubling when young workers aren’t able to become accustomed to a work day routine that will help them build good work habits through their lives (and to think, that knucklehead Suze Orman said here that young workers “have it so great that it’s not even funny”...).

Given all of this, the following information will probably not be of benefit to the wise 55-62 percent of those polled by Rasmussen who know where to place the blame for our present circumstance, but for the benefit of that 27-39 percent who should know better, let’s review some recent history, shall we?

The Murdoch Street Journal (no lie) tells us the following (from here)…

President George W. Bush entered office in 2001 just as a recession was starting, and (left) in the middle of a long one. That’s almost 22 months of recession during his 96 months in office.

His job-creation record won’t look much better. The Bush administration created about three million jobs (net) over its eight years, a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton’s administration and only slightly better than President George H.W. Bush did in his four years in office.

And those three million have disappeared as a result of the recession, with Bob Herbert telling us in his column that about ten times that many people are currently unemployed.

So how exactly did we get to this horrid place?

This Buzzflash post from May 2003 tells us the following…

Presidential Term and Jobs created per month:

Truman 1: 60,000
Truman 2: 113,000
Eisenhower 1: 58,000
Eisenhower 2: 15,000
Kennedy: 122,000
Johnson: 206,000
Nixon 1: 129,000
Nixon/Ford: 105,000
Carter: 218,000
Reagan 1: 109,000
Reagan 2: 224,000
G. Bush: 52,000
Clinton 1: 242,000
Clinton 2: 235,000
G.W. Bush: 69,000 jobs DESTROYED per month

Which led one time House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to say the following that month (the next day, actually - here - and if you think some of this is "deja vu all over again," it's not your imagination)…

“Mr. Speaker, today the House of Representatives has a very historic decision to make. Other speakers have referenced the sacrifice of our young men and women in uniform in Iraq and the gratitude we have to them for the sacrifice they were willing to make.

“They were successful in their mission. Our mission is to build a future worthy of their sacrifice. That cannot be done by voting for the reckless, irresponsible proposal put forth by the Republican majority on this floor today.

“The distinguished Majority Leader said we didn’t have a plan until yesterday. We had a plan the day before the President had a plan in January. A plan that was fair, fast acting, and fiscally sound.

“And the plan we brought to the Rules Committee yesterday was consistent with those provisions and those principles.

“But so frightened were the Republicans of the truth on this floor, that they would not allow the Democratic plan for job creation and economic growth to be brought to this floor.

“So frightened were they of the truth that they have tried to silence the voice of over 100 million people in our country who are represented on this side of the aisle

“We’re building a visitors center outside for people to come and witness democracy.

What do we tell them when we say that so many Americans cannot have their voices heard on this floor around the debate of a proposal for economic growth and job creation?

“This day is an historic day. In many ways a sad day. And I’d like to put it in perspective.

“Ten years ago, faced with a struggling economy and a growing deficit, a new Congress and a new President courageously passed a budget bill that took us on a path to fiscal soundness. The stock markets responded, the economy prospered, and we had a record of economic growth that is unsurpassed in our nation’s history.

“We did that with Democratic votes only. Not one Republican was willing to step up to the plate for fiscal soundness and economic growth and job creation.

“At the end of the Clinton Administration, 22 million new jobs had been created, the country was on a path to a record surplus of $5.6 trillion, and the unemployment rate was at an all-time low. To achieve that, it took leadership and it took courage.

“Mr. Speaker, the debate today is about leadership. Sadly, that leadership is lacking from both President Bush and from the Republican Congress.

And for an example of that “leadership” concerning one potential growth area of our economy, I give you the following from Republican Presidential Candidate George W. Bush in 2000 (here, from a January 2000 debate in New Hampshire)…

Q: Should we spend government funds to address the “digital divide?”

A: Our technology is changing so quickly that government programs are often obsolete as the marketplace changes. And I think about my rural Texas, where we’re going to have two-way satellite technologies, broad-width technologies that will enable us to beam information from big cities to rural Texas and I worry about government funding and government programs that are haphazard and will be obsolete before they’re even funded.

Of course, answers like that should have been a warning, but we are where we are.

And as a result of Dubya’s aversion to “haphazard government programs,” I give you this…

At a symposium entitled "Economic Empowerment for Low-Income Workers Through Broadband Training," Applebaum joined other panelists who touted the necessity of an aggressive expansion of U.S. broadband capacity. The United States currently ranks fifteenth in the world, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

…

The implications for the future of America's workforce are bracing, particularly given the current state of the U.S. economy where high rates of job loss and financial insecurity are fueling increased competition for jobs. But even in the long term, the perception that the knowledge economy will be limited to employment opportunities for those with highly technical training, like engineers, physicists, and computer programmers, underestimates the impact that evolving technologies will have on the world of work, Applebaum said. In fact, "the knowledge economy really extends to every kind of job there is," she explained.

Technology can improve the quality of jobs, but it also changes how tasks are executed. As the implementation of technology ripples through the global economy, not only are new skills needed, but workers will be called on to be more adept at problem-solving tasks and to be better trained to provide enhanced customer service.

The Internet can be a phenomenal tool to acquire job training skills, but using dial-up "inhibits the richness of the experience," said Applebaum, because educational curricula may include interactive video links with teachers, or the need to download photographs, charts, or other materials. These features are particularly critical as "one-half of all Americans do not possess the literacy skills to participate in the knowledge economy."

And three years after Nancy Pelosi spoke about leadership, Paul Craig Roberts told us the following (here)…

Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked the payroll jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don’t know what worry is.

Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That’s one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration.

Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities--primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government.

US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.

But in the midst of telling us that US military manufacturing did well under both Dubya and The Sainted Ronnie R (at the expense of practically everyone else), we also learn the following (from here, echoing the Obama campaign last year)…

The GOP today is focused on having a “Market Driven” economy. This means that there should be no help or support of any kind from the government. Big business should build and support the market. They believe that “market forces” alone will determine which companies will succeed or fail. Even in education today, the concept of the affordable college education is almost non-existent for most families. In retrospect, it must be noted that based on a historical review of past world economies, no country or region of the world has ever succeeded with a concept of being “Market Driven”. Every successful democratic or representative economy has required some level of support from their government in order to flourish, grow and continue to succeed.

And the fact that the Republicans refuse to recognize that basic fact is one reason why they never should be entrusted with governmental power again.

I don’t know when we’re going to emerge from our economic tailspin, and I don’t think anyone else does either. But I also don’t know how anyone, let alone President Obama, can be expected to undo the economic negligence of the last eight years of Oval Office “leadership,” given that our 44th president will have occupied the same position for exactly seven months as of tomorrow.

Update 8/21/09: This is really scary stuff, but it's the reality at least (and good luck trying to find something like this from CNN, the AP or Fix Noise).