From the Wall Street Journal.
Excerpt:
Still, if anyone in the Occupy Wall Street movement wants an intellectually honest explanation for why they can’t find a job, they might start by considering what happens to an economy when the White House decides to make pinatas out of the financial-services industry (roughly 6%, or $828 billion, of U.S. GDP), the energy industry (about 7.5% of GDP, or $1 trillion), and millionaires and billionaires (who paid 20.4% of all federal income taxes in 2009). And don’t forget the Administration’s rhetorical volleys against individual companies like Anthem Blue Cross, AIG and Bank of America, or against Chrysler’s bondholders, or various other alleged malefactors of wealth.
Now move from words to actions. Want a shovel-ready job? The Administration has spent three years sitting on the Keystone XL pipeline project that promises to create 13,000 union jobs and 118,000 “spin-off” jobs. A State Department environmental review says the project poses no threat to the environment, but the Administration’s eco-friends are screaming lest it go ahead.
Then there are the jobs the Administration and its allies in Congress are actively killing. In June, American Electric Power announced it would have to shutter five coal-fired power plants, at a cost of 600 jobs, in order to comply with new EPA rules. Those same rules may soon force the utility to shutter another 25 plants. Bank of America’s decision last month to lay off 30,000 employees is a direct consequence of various Congressional edicts limiting how much the bank can charge merchants or how it can handle delinquent borrowers.
These visible crags of the Obama jobs iceberg are nothing next to the damage done below the waterline by the D.C. regulations factory, which last year added 81,405 pages of new rules to the Federal Register, bringing the total cost to the U.S. economy of regulatory compliance to an estimated $1.7 trillion a year.
Less easy to quantify, but no less harmful, are the long-term uncertainties employers face in trying to price in the costs of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, the potential expiration next year of the Bush tax cuts, the possible millionaire surcharge, the value of the dollar and so on. No wonder businesses are so reluctant to hire: When you don’t know how steep the trail ahead of you is, it’s usually better to travel light.
If you want to know who is really to blame for poverty, try looking at the Obama administration.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Oh, and they COULD look at the President’s PERSONAL holdings, while they’re at it. Or his Underlings and Czars….
LikeLike
@ Your Grannie- They could look? The problem is described well described in Isaiah 42:20 “You have seen many things, but you pay no attention; your ears are open, but you do not listen.” This is a worldview we’re dealing with, unfortunately they have already made up their minds as to who’s to blame for the poverty and they believe government is the solution.
We need a re-education. We need a generation who’s studying Sowell and Laffer and not Keynes. We must understand that there is a real difference between a desired outcome of a certain government policy and the actual outcome of that policy. That the ideas and goals of government programs rarely produce the desired results and normally extend the need for future government action. We have to understand as well that there are high prices to be paid by failed government policies. The CRA being the most recent example, but think of FDR’s decision to take America off the gold standard in order to prevent us from trading with enemy nations. The point is the more we rely on government to fix things the more susceptible we become as a nation to the reality of the long term effects of socialism. The Laffer curve shows us that beyond a certain point social programs hurt instead of help the economy, but Hayak points out that implementing social programs puts us on the slippery slope to serfdom and implementing social programs like Obamacare is like a cocaine addiction for the entire country – you will be assured of three things; everyone will be worse off for it, no one will want to give it up and it will result in death. We need to stop assuming that because certain activities have been handled by the government in the past, that that is the best way to handle it. The reality is that government powers don’t come with expiry dates and continue well after their required need has passed. We need to think of issues in truth and look for real market, and real lawful solutions to the problems that America is facing. Whether the problem is healthcare or immigration, we need to find real sustainable solutions that are workable for all time and not specific to a certain crisis situation. Solutions that don’t conflict with the country’s constitution or it’s free market system. The more the government has it’s hands on the pot the more chance for crises of morality to occur. Sowell says, “Government is of course inseparable from politics, especially in a democratic country, so a distinction must be made and kept in mind between what a government can do to make things better than they would be in a free-market and what it is fact likely to do under the influence of political incentives and constraints.” Sowell would be right.
LikeLike