I have been puzzled by the extent of the media coverage of some crank’s prediction that the world would come to an end today. People are always predicting the end of the world. So far they have always been wrong. Was there something about this particular prediction that was newsworthy? Did any significant number of people expect to wake up this morning and see graves opening and people ascending into Heaven? This morning, there were news stories to the effect that the world still exists. Really! Did reporters expect their readers to be surprised? Why, in short, was this silliness a major media event?
I wish reporters would pay as much attention to a more important failed prediction: the Obama administration’s assurance that its policies, including the “stimulus,” would foster job creation and prevent unemployment from reaching 8 percent.
And here are some charts from John’s post.
Community organizer Obama predicted that his $800 billion dollar stimulus program would keep unemployment below 8%:
Stimulus Job Creation Prediction
Ooops! Never send a community organizer to do an economist’s job.
How about all that spending? Surely ALL the spending must have created more jobs?
This should be the end of the belief that government spending creates jobs, but it won’t be, because the university is not committed to teaching what gets results, but what produces feelings of superiority. The secular elites feel that they should be allowed to redistribute the wealth created by businesses and workers. This feeling of entitlement to control and distribute is best put into practice with large-scale taxation, spending and redistribution of wealth. The professors think that their good feelings (subjective) will somehow, mysteriously, cause good effects in the real world (objective). The chart proves their mysticism wrong, but the university is insulated from feedback from the real world.
That is why we need to elect business owners like Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain.
A new pro-life website set up by two teen siblings exposes the links and connections between the Girl Scouts of America and the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
Last year, the Girl Scout organization came under fire nationally when the World Association of Girl Scouts and Girl Guides hosted a no-adults-welcome panel at the United Nations where Planned Parenthood was allowed to distribute a brochure entitled “Healthy, Happy and Hot.” The brochure, aimed at young people living with HIV, contains explicit and graphic details on sex, as well as the promotion of casual sex in many forms.
In 2004, a report from a pro-life group that monitors Planned Parenthood indicated more than one-quarter of GSA troops work with the pro-abortion group. Of the 315 Girl Scout councils in the U.S. at that time, 17 councils reported having a relationship with Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, and 49 reported they do not. The other 249 refused to disclose any relationship.
After learning of these disturbing links, teen siblings Sydney and Tess Volanski decided to leave their local Girl Scout group after eight years of involvement and they have decided to launch a new web site called “SPEAK NOW: Girl Scouts” exposing the distribution of the brochures at the UN meeting and other links between the young girls’ organization and the abortion business.
Sydney told the pro-life group Concerned Women for America, “Even though they denied this involvement … we wanted to make sure that we knew what we were supporting by being a Girl Scout, so we continued to research the connection.”
“We found shortly after this ‘Healthy, Happy, Hot’ issue, that The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts also called WAAG, which is the international organization that Girl Scouts is a part of, had a post on their website demanding safe, affordable, and accessible abortions for women as young as I am, 15,” she said.
[…]In fact, Kathy Cloninger, CEO of the Girl Scouts of America, appeared on NBC’s “Today” show many years ago and said, “We partner with many organizations. We have relationships with our church communities, with YWCAs, and with Planned Parenthood organizations across the country, to bring information-based sex education programs to girls.”
I would NOT send my future daughters to Girl Scouts or YWCA. These are not good organizations for children to be involved with.
The number of Americans filing for jobless aid rose to an eight-month high last week and productivity growth slowed in the first quarter, clouding the outlook for an economy that is struggling to gain speed.
While the surprise jump in initial claims for unemployment benefits was blamed on factors ranging from spring break layoffs to the introduction of an emergency benefits program, economists said it corroborated reports this week indicating a loss of momentum in job creation.
New claims for state jobless benefits rose 43,000 to 474,000, the highest since mid-August, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists had expected claims to fall.
[…]Other reports this week showed weaker employment growth in the manufacturing and services sectors in April and a step back in private hiring, suggesting Friday’s closely watched data could prove weaker than economists have been expecting.
An industry survey released on Thursday found hiring by U.S. small businesses almost ground to a halt in April.
This isn’t surprising. Government spending takes money OUT of the private sector and puts money IN to the non-productive public sector.
Indeed, President Obama’s stimulus bill failed by its own standards. In a January 2009 report, White House economists predicted that the stimulus bill would create (not merely save) 3.3 million net jobs by 2010. Since then, 3.5 million more net jobs have been lost, pushing the unemployment rate above 10 percent.[1] The fact that government failed to spend its way to prosperity is not an isolated incident:
During the 1930s, New Deal lawmakers doubled federal spending–yet unemployment remained above 20 percent until World War II.
Japan responded to a 1990 recession by passing 10 stimulus spending bills over 8 years (building the largest national debt in the industrialized world)–yet its economy remained stagnant.
In 2001, President Bush responded to a recession by “injecting” tax rebates into the economy. The economy did not respond until two years later, when tax rate reductions were implemented.
In 2008, President Bush tried to head off the current recession with another round of tax rebates. The recession continued to worsen.
Now, the most recent $787 billion stimulus bill was intended to keep the unemployment rate from exceeding 8 percent. In November, it topped 10 percent.[2]
So obviously government spending reduces employment – it could never happen any other way. And everyone who has ever held a job in private industry knows this. Government spending only works in the university classrooms, where the right answer is always the answer that makes academic wordsmiths feel good about themselves. Good intentions are the right answer in the classroom – good results are the right answer in the free market.
Drilling moratorium = higher gas prices = low consumer confidence
Consumer confidence dropped last week to the lowest level in more than a month as rising fuel costs squeezed American household budgets.
The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index decreased to minus 46.2 in the week ended May 1, the lowest level since the end of March, from minus 45.1 the prior period. Another report showed claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly surged last week, raising the risk the improvement in the jobs market has stalled.
Stocks dropped and Treasury securities rose on concern that rising expenses, including the highest gasoline prices in almost three years, may prompt companies and households to cut back on spending. The reports bolster the arguments of Federal Reserve policy makers like Chairman Ben S. Bernanke who’ve said job growth is too slow to remove record monetary stimulus.
Obama has been printing money in order to goose people into spending more instead of saving. The problem with devaluing the currency, which is what he is doing, occurs when you reach the stage where consumers stop spending because prices must increase when you print money. We are now at that stage, and our economy is about to go down the drain. Interest rates will have to rise, which is going to slow economic growth even more. This is all known.
When you don’t understand economics, you take the whack-a-mole approach to fixing the economy. That’s what Obama has done. He keeps trying to control things from the top instead of trusting businesses and consumers with their own money. Everything Obama does makes the economy worst. He doesn’t know what he is doing, and he won’t listen to people who do know. His baseless confidence (arrogance) should have been a red flag to the American people. There is nothing worse than hiring someone who thinks that they know everything, but who hasn’t the qualifications to run a lemonade stand.
WINTERY KNIGHT 