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Chris Wysocki
Caldwell, NJ

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Friday, 21 October 2016

Hillary will continue Obama's economic policies which Donna Brazile admits aren't working

Behind the scenes, Democrats don't believe their own bullshit. And DNC Chair Donna Brazile got caught telling the truth.

In an email to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta from February 2016, released Friday by WikiLeaks, now-acting chair of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile gave a frank and honest assessment of the Obama economy — it wasn't good.

"I think people are more in despair about how things are … yes new jobs but they are low wage jobs," she admits. "HOUSING is a huge issue. Most people pay half of what they make to rent," she continued.

Guess who's not getting invited to the coronation?

Nevermind that guys like me have been saying the same thing for 8 years now.

But then, if Hillary is elected, we'll likely look back on this time as The Good Old Days. Because if anything her policies will be even more distrastrous.

She'll tax us into "prosperity."

She'll put 12 million illegal aliens on the dole and push millions more Americans into poverty.

She'll pass out "free" college degrees like candy. (Repeat after me slackers, "Do you want fries with that?" It'll come in handy when your free degree turns out to be worthless.)

She'll finish Obama's war on cheap energy, so I hope you'll enjoy paying $8 a gallon for gas. And deciding whether to feed your kids or heat your house, there's a fun choice we'll all look forward to making, right?

Oh, and don't forget how Obama quietly and without fanfare just made air conditioning illegal. Not that you'll be able to afford it, but still, don't expect Hillary to feel sorry for you.

Because face it, if you don't come bearing a 6-figure check made out to her family foundation she won't give you the time of day. Heck, the King of Morocco dropped $12 million into her lap and all he got was a visit from Chelsea. Oh, wait, if you believe that's all he got, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn you can have, cheap.

Hillary Clinton has made a career out of influence peddling. She grabs the "quid" from quid pro quo, if you get my drift. She'll turn the White House into a money laudering operation that'll make Columbian drug lords blush.

I guess that's her idea of "economic stimulus." Stimulate Hillary's economy! But without the trickle-down part of course.

The fact that so many people are willing to let her get away with it just blows my mind.

Oh, right, Donald Trump said "pussy." What's a little corruption compared to that?

Posted at 11:21 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: Obama economy Hillary-Clinton Donna-Brazile | Tweet

Friday, 29 July 2016

Obamanomics strikes again, US GDP grew by an anemic 1.2% in the second quarter

For 7½ years Barack Obama has promised us that recovery is just around the corner. Except around every corner there's always more bad news.

Growth in the U.S. economy was sluggish again in the spring, dashing expectations for a robust rebound after a tough winter. Stronger consumer spending was offset by weakness in housing construction and a big slowdown in the pace that businesses restocked store shelves.

The Commerce Department said Friday that the gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the economy — grew at a 1.2 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter. That was far below the 2.6 percent GDP growth rate that economists had been forecasting.

The government also revised down its estimate of first-quarter growth to 0.8 percent from 1.1 percent. The economy has now grown at lackluster rates for three straight quarters.

It's interesting that their forecasts always unexpectedly fail to match reality. It's also interesting how their initial reports inevitably get revised downward.

So don't put a lot of stock in that 1.2% figure. It's almost certainly too rosy an estimate.

And don't forget that Hillary Clinton promises to keep on keepin' on, as in she'll follow Obama's economic playbook, chapter and verse. Are you ready for 4, or God-forbid 8 more years of economic malaise?

Ask yourself, are you really better off today that you were in 2007?

I know I'm not.

If you're being honest, you'll admit you aren't either.

Keep that in mind on November 8^th.

Posted at 10:41 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy Obama GDP Hillary-Clinton | Tweet

Monday, 18 July 2016

Jersey Comeback? 9500 small businesses have disappeared in the past decade

Obamanomics, Christie-nomics, and small business are not a winning combination in New Jersey.

The state lost more than 9,500 of its roughly 180,000 small businesses from 2004 to 2014 as it struggled to recover from the downturn. Every county besides Ocean lost small businesses over the decade.

The economy has discouraged businesses owners across the state, said Deborah Smarth, chief operating officer of the NJ Small Business Development Centers.

"People have put off that decision because they don't want the risk," she said.

Meanwhile, New Jersey policies have discouraged growth, according to the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, which ranked the state 49th in the country for its small business climate, mainly due to taxes.

Working in a high cost state, many business owners have put financing and taxes at the top of their list of concerns, Smarth said.

"In recoveries, small businesses are the ones that have been job savors and creators," Smarth said. "Yet the New Jersey government has not been friendly to small businesses."

The Democrats in our state legislature have a "solution," of course. Raise taxes. They're trying to hike the gas tax by 23 cents a gallon, and there's the perennial Millionaire's Tax they trot out whenever one of their pet projects looks like it's running out of money. Property taxes are among the highest in the nation, the sales tax bites everybody every day, and New Jersey even charges an Exit Tax when you wise up and leave our progressive utopia.

Add in the burden of skyrocketing Obamacare premiums, onerous and duplicative environmental regulations, surcharges for "affordable housing," a $15 per hour minimum wage, mandatory paid sick time, and a toll booth on every street corner, and well, it's no wonder people aren't flocking here to hang out their shingle.

"New Jersey government has not been friendly to small businesses" has gotta be the Understatement Of The Year. But wait, whichever of the dueling Steves (Sweeney or Fulop) becomes our next governor, you can be certain of one thing — small businesses in New Jersey will look back on this past decade as The Good Old Days as he turns the citizenry into an ATM for the gold-plated public employee pension and benefits fund.

Posted at 15:26 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: New-Jersey business economy small-business | Tweet

Tuesday, 05 April 2016

Obama decrees landlords must rent to criminals and banks must lend to home buyers with bad credit

Dear Leader issued two new decrees yesterday. Because, Racism!

First up, not renting to criminals is racist, because black people are probably criminals.

The Obama administration released a warning Monday telling the nation's landlords that it may be discriminatory for them to refuse to rent to those with criminal records.

The Fair Housing Act doesn't include criminals as a protected class, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says refusing to rent based on a criminal record is a form of racial discrimination, due to racial imbalances in the U.S. justice system.

Affirmative Action for felons! Except I guess you'll be OK if you refuse to rent to a white guy with a criminal record. They're still not a "protected class" in Obamaville.

Then there's this — Bad credit, no problem! Obama says banks still gotta lend you the money to buy a house. Because that worked out so well last time, right?

The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.

President Obama's economic advisers and outside experts say the nation's much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind, including young people looking to buy their first homes and individuals with credit records weakened by the recession.

Nevermind that "young people looking to buy their first homes" are already saddled with mountainous student loan debt. Let's pile on more!

In response, administration officials say they are working to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of taxpayer-backed programs — including those offered by the Federal Housing Administration — that insure home loans against default.

Housing officials are urging the Justice Department to provide assurances to banks, which have become increasingly cautious, that they will not face legal or financial recriminations if they make loans to riskier borrowers who meet government standards but later default.

Go ahead, buy more house than you can afford, the taxpayers have got your back!

It's all part and parcel of Obama's wealth transfer plan. Why settle for a free phone when you can get a free house?

The administration's efforts come in the midst of a housing market that has been surging for the past year but that has been delivering most of the benefits to established homeowners with high credit scores or to investors who have been behind a significant number of new purchases.

"If you were going to tell people in low-income and moderate-income communities and communities of color there was a housing recovery, they would look at you as if you had two heads," said John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a nonprofit housing organization.

And there it is. "Communities of color." Which of course is Obamaville code for the belief that expecting people to actually repay their mortgages is racist.

Obama is fond of saying, "elections have consequences."

Well guess what? People's actions have consequences too.

If you've lived a life of crime, you might not be the best prospective tenant.

If you've neglected to pay your bills, you might not be the best prospective borrower of a large sum of money.

That's life. Not racism.

But people who're told they're victims make better Democrats. So there's that.

Posted at 13:59 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: Obama racism rent home-ownership banks credit | Tweet

Friday, 29 January 2016

Q4 GDP cratered, recession looms, and no Obamabots, that's not "fiction"

2½ weeks ago President Quisling McGolfpants assured us our economy was doing better than ever.

Obama defended his economic policies, clearly in response to criticism from Republicans that the recovery has been too slow and that large threats remain.

"The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world," he said. Anyone who claims otherwise, he said, is "peddling fiction."

Who knew that his Department of Commerce was in the fiction business?

The U.S. economy's growth slowed sharply in the final three months of 2015 to a 0.7 percent annual rate. Consumers reduced spending, businesses cut back on investment and global problems trimmed exports.

The slowdown could renew doubts about the durability of the 6½-year-old economic expansion, though most economists expect growth to rebound in the current January-March quarter.

The government's estimate Friday of the economy's expansion in the October-December period was less than half the 2 percent annual growth rate in gross domestic product in the third quarter of 2015. It was the weakest showing since a severe winter reduced growth to a 0.6 percent annual rate in last year's first quarter.

Oops.

But don't worry, the Obamabots say prosperity is right around the corner. Honest! And you should believe them too, because they've been saying it for 6½ years now, and by golly sonner or later they just have to be right!

Or not. Because, you know, they don't feel the pinch like you and I do.

Out here in the Real World we don't need the government to tell us the economy sucks. We're living it.

The number of people not in the labor force is at an all-time high. And there are more than 45 million people on food stamps.

Speaking of food, it's more expensive than ever.

And escalating health care premiums continue to eat into our dwindling incomes.

The one bright spot is energy, especially gasoline prices. Of course Obama is doing everything he can to sabotage them, insisting on ever escalating mandates for "green" energy boondoggles and throwing roadblocks in front of domestic oil and gas production at every turn.

How do you spell "recession?" Because I spell it Obamanomics.

Hillary Clinton promises 4 more years of the same disastrous policies.

Bernie Sanders promises 4 years of socialism that'll make Obama's policies look like The Good Old Days.

Donald Trump promises, I'm not sure what exactly, but it'll be yuuuuge, or something.

And one of those 3 stooges is, barring a miracle, guaranteed to be our next president.

Buy ammo and canned good folks. We're in for a bumpy ride.

Posted at 11:46 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy recession GDP Obama | Tweet

Monday, 05 October 2015

Economically illiterate Essex County Freeholders vote to dramatically increase unemployment

Minority and youth unemployment is Essex County is higher than both the New Jersey and national averages. So naturally the brain trust on our Freeholder Board has decided the cure for that problem is to mandate a $15 per hour minimum wage.

Local government officials are getting in on the statewide debate over pay rates. The Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders last week became the first freeholder board in the state to pass a resolution urging state officials to bump New Jersey's minimum wage up to $15 an hour, county officials have confirmed.

The board voted unanimously on Sept. 30 to pass the resolution, which calls on state legislators and the governor to support legislation that would up the minimum wage from its current $8.38 an hour.

"Many people (work) hard every day and still cannot afford the basic necessities in life such as food, housing, transportation, child care," Freeholder President Britnee N. Timberlake said in a statement about the vote.

"How is it that the cost of everything seems to be increasing...but when the topic of raising the minimum wage to a living wage is discussed, there are people who do not agree?"

The stupid, it burns.

Hey Britnee, did anyone in Community Organizer School ever tell you that wages are a huge contributor to "the cost of everything?" Seeing as how you keep approving higher wages for the unionistas in county government, and then jacking up my taxes to pay for those raises, you might have, at least once, put 2 and 2 together. I mean, that is if you ever bothered to try thinking instead of pandering.

Now pay attention, and meet the future:

Because all the platitudes in the world aren't going to make it worth any company's while to pay $15 per hour to an unskilled entry-level worker. And without the benefit of that first job, usually fresh out of high school, there's zero chance your constituents will gain the skills needed to move up and get themselves a job that pays a "living wage."

Technology marches on Britnee. And it's uninformed do-gooders like you who accelerate the process.

But don't take my word for it. Listen to economist Dr. Thomas Sowell. Pay attention to what he has to say.

"It would be comforting to believe that the government can simply decree higher pay for low-wage workers, without having to worry about unfortunate repercussions, but the preponderance of evidence indicates that labor is not exempt from the basic economic principle that artificially high prices cause surpluses. In the case of the surplus of human beings, that can be a special tragedy when they are already from low-income, unskilled or minority backgrounds and urgently need to get on the job ladder, if they are ever to move up the ladder by acquiring experience and skills."

Then stop tilting at windmills and do something that will actually help produce more good jobs. Encourage new business creation by removing roadblocks to success. Cut taxes. Eliminate regulations. Give employers a reason to come into Essex County instead of incentives to beat feet for less oppressive climes.

Of course that'll require hard work on your part, and guts, which is something you and your Freeholder friends seem to have in short supply. So I won't hold my breath.

Posted at 15:44 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: minimum-wage Essex-County-NJ economics jobs | Tweet

Friday, 02 October 2015

Obamanomics in action: Hiring slows again, Labor Force Participation Rate worst since 1977

Guess what? We just had another "recovery summer" that wasn't. I think that makes 7 in a row now…

The U.S. added 142,000 new jobs in September, a disappointing figure the Federal Reserve will be closely scrutinizing as it mulls the first rate hike in nearly a decade.

The headline unemployment rate held steady 5.1%. Economists had forecast 203,000 new jobs and that the unemployment rate would remain at 5.1%.

So their forecasts were off by 30%, but somehow, magically the unemployment rate remains unchanged?

How's that work?

Welcome back Carter!

A record 94,610,000 Americans were not in the American labor force last month — an increase of 579,000 from August — and the labor force participation rate reached its lowest point in 38 years, with 62.4 percent of the U.S. population either holding a job or actively seeking one.

…In September, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation's civilian noninstitutional population, consisting of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, reached 251,325,000. Of those, 156,715,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one.

The 156,715,000 who participated in the labor force equaled only 62.4 percent of the 251,325,000 civilian noninstitutional population. The last time the labor force participation was as low as 62.4 percent was in October 1977.

Notice the sharp downtrend over the last 7 years:

And, in case you were hoping that things might turn around any day now, sorry, but Obama just enacted The Most Expensive Environmental Regulation In The History Of The Universe.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday tightened the federal ozone standard, dismissing the concerns of powerful business groups and setting off a regulatory and legal fight that will last for the remainder of President Obama's time in office.

The agency's updated ozone regulations lower the standard from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 70 parts per billion.

Business groups, which had pushing the administration to keep the standard at its current 75 ppb level, say the regulations will be the most expensive in U.S. history, siphoning as much as $3.4 trillion out of the economy over the next two decades.

"Today, the Obama administration finalized a rule that is overly burdensome, costly and misguided," National Association of Manufacturers CEO Jay Timmons said in a statement. "For months, the administration threatened to impose on manufacturers an even harsher rule, with even more devastating consequences. After an unprecedented level of outreach by manufacturers and other stakeholders, the worst-case scenario was avoided. However, make no mistake: The new ozone standard will inflict pain on companies that build things in America — and destroy job opportunities for American workers. Now it's time for Congress to step up and take a stand for working families."

The worst part? Obama knows it's a job-killer, and he doesn't care.

Lawmakers of both parties object to the change, and even President Obama has conceded that the ozone rules could bring economic consequences.

He's sacrificing your job, and your family's future, on the altar of Globull Warming.

I forget, is that the "hope," or the "change?"

Posted at 14:09 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy jobs unemployment labor-force Obama Jimmy-Carter | Tweet

Wednesday, 05 August 2015

Oops, again: Private sector adds fewer jobs than expected in July

With Obamunism, it's Expect The Unexpected!

U.S. private employers hired 185,000 workers in July, which was the smallest increase since April and reduced expectations of a strong jobs reading in the government's payrolls report due Friday, according to a payrolls processor on Wednesday.

Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 215,000 private jobs in July.

June private payroll gains in June were revised down to 229,000 from an originally reported 237,000 increase, which was the biggest rise since December.

So they lied to us again? The June jobs report was too good to be true, and in fact it wasn't true at all.

Cue my shocked face.

Then we see that their July estimates were also too rosy by far. And going by these, ahem, experts' track record, come September that 185,000 figure will almost certainly be "unexpectedly" revised downward as well.

The Obama "recovery" is one big Potemkin Village.

But then, you already knew that.

Posted at 11:42 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy jobs unemployment | Tweet

Friday, 31 July 2015

More Obamanomics #fail: US wage growth falls to a 33 year low

Gee, I wonder why wages are stagnant 7 years after The Great and Powerful Obama took charge of our economy?

U.S. wages and benefits grew in the spring at the slowest pace in 33 years, stark evidence that stronger hiring isn't lifting paychecks much for most Americans. The slowdown also likely reflects a sharp drop-off in bonus and incentive pay for some workers.

The employment cost index rose just 0.2 percent in the April-June quarter after a 0.7 increase in the first quarter, the Labor Department said Friday. The index tracks wages, salaries and benefits. Wages and salaries alone also rose just 0.2 percent.

Both measures recorded the smallest quarterly gains since the second quarter of 1982.

Salaries and benefits for private sector workers were unchanged, the weakest showing since the government began tracking the data in 1980.

Pay no attention to the community organizer behind the curtain.

Because really, after businesses are done paying all his extra taxes, and shelling out for Obamacare, and complying with thousands of onerous new regulations, who's got any money left for frivolous stuff like salaries?

And if you're one of those Bernie Sanders bozos who bought into the idiotic allure of a $15 per hour "minimum" wage, well, McDonalds has some bad news for you too.

But hey, you can always line up for more government cheese.

Posted at 11:11 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy Obama wages salary taxes | Tweet

Thursday, 30 July 2015

Now they tell us: Obama's economy is the worst in over 80 years

Remember right before 2012 election when the government swore the economy was recovering nicely?

They lied.

And now that it doesn't matter, they can deign to tell us the truth.

So Obama's Commerce Department just quietly "revised" their GDP estimates for the last 3 years, downward.

The U.S. economy grew more slowly over the past three years than the government had previously estimated, held back by more frugal consumers and steeper spending cuts by state and local governments.

The economy expanded at just a 2 percent annual rate from 2012 through 2014, down from a previous estimate of 2.3 percent, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Nearly all the weaker-than-expected growth occurred in 2013, when the government now says the economy expanded just 1.5 percent, much less than its previous 2.2 percent estimate.

Well sure. 2013 was when the reality of facing 8 years of Obamunism really set in.

And with this latest "oops," Obama now ranks dead last among all US presidents since 1932. That's a new level of #fail over 80 years in the making.

Over the first five years of Obama's presidency, the U.S. economy grew more slowly than during any five-year period since just after the end of World War II, averaging less than 1.3 percent per year. If we leave out the sharp recession of 1945-46 following World War II, Obama looks even worse, ranking dead last among all presidents since 1932. No other president since the Great Depression has presided over such a steadily poor rate of economic growth during his first five years in office. This slow growth should not be a surprise in light of the policies this administration has pursued.

Ayup. Obamanomics sucks.

The numbers don't lie.

But Obama's administration does, or else they would have told us when it actually mattered.

Trickle-up poverty, it's the only thing Obama's good at, uh, creating. He'll turn us all into beggars 'cause they're easier to please.

Posted at 15:38 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy recovery recession Obama GDP | Tweet

Wednesday, 22 July 2015

Hope and Change in action: 1.7 million more kids live in poverty since Obama was elected

Like everything else he's ever said, "hope and change" was a lie too.

Welcome to Obama's era of despair and misery.

About 1.7 million more children live in low-income working families today than during the Great Recession, according to the newly released 2015 KIDS COUNT Data Book from the Annie. E. Casey Foundation. In 2013, one in four children, 18.7 million, lived in a low-income working family in the United States. Nearly a third of children are living in families where no parent has full-time employment. And even when parents are working full time, wages and benefits are often not sufficient to adequately support a family.

"Although we are several years past the end of the recession, millions of families still have not benefited from the economic recovery," said Patrick McCarthy, president and CEO of the Casey Foundation. "While we've seen an increase in employment in recent years, many of these jobs are low-wage and cannot support even basic family expenses. Far too many families are still struggling to provide for the day-to-day needs of their children, notably for the 16 million kids who are living in poverty. We can and must do better: we can make policy choices to lift more families into economic stability."

Barack Obama's economic policies have pushed more kids into poverty.

Barack Obama's economic policies have actually reduced wages.

Barack Obama's economic policies have destroyed millions of good jobs.

Barack Obama's economic policies have turned us into a nation of part-time workers, scrounging just to make ends meet.

Barack Obama's economic policies are an unmitigated failure, especially for his core constituency.

Race is one of the strongest factors influencing a child's economic stability. Data show the economic recovery of the past several years has bypassed many children of color. Rates of unemployment at the close of 2014 were in single digits for all races except African Americans. African Americans were also the only group for whom unemployment remains higher than before the recession.

If only they had voted for a president who actually cared about their plight.

Or as Instapundit Glenn Reynolds likes to jibe, they told me that if I voted for Mitt Romney black people in this country would end up worse off, and they were right!

There's an opportunity for the GOP here. Ronald Reagan famously said "the best social program is a job." And I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about minimum wage, part-time jobs. America needs good jobs, and the only way to get them is to grow the economy. Progressive policies don't do that. Electing Hillary Clinton as president won't do that.

To grow our economy we need to get government out of the way. It's a simple message for the GOP to adopt. For far too long people have put their faith in government, and government has always let them down. So the solution is definitely not the Democrats' perpetual mantra of more government.

Unless we reverse course, America is headed for the same fate as Greece. It really is as simple, and as scary, as that. The choice is ours. All we have to do is choose wisely.

UPDATE 22 Jul 2015 14:27:
Adding insult to injury: Only fifty percent of black men born 25 years ago have jobs.

Posted at 11:53 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: poverty economy recession Obama | Tweet

Thursday, 02 July 2015

Obamanomics is working: Labor force participation drops as Democrat party affiliation grows

Oh, right, you thought Obama was trying to help the economy. Sorry to burst your bubble. Obama is doing everything possible to ensure Hillary gets elected president.

Just read between the lines.

The unemployment rate is down! Again! Yippee!

Except there are now fewer people in the workforce than there were in 1977.

And no, the population hasn't fallen to 1977 levels. Far from it.

So were did all those job-seekers go?

Into the arms of Big Government. They went on the dole and joined the Democratic Party. Because, as the saying goes, it's easier than getting a job.

All is proceeding according to George Soros' diabolical plan.

And no one is heeding the lesson of Greece. Least of all, Puerto Rico. Or, for that matter Chicago. Democrats nationwide continue on their tax-and-spend course, not caring that our spiraling national debt is unsustainable. Throw in the coming public pension tsunami, and oh, did you just lose your lunch?

Sorry about that. But the news, it is not rosy. Not today. And not tomorrow.

Climate alarmists say the world is running out of water. I'd be worried, except we're going to run out of Other People's Money first. And then the fun really starts.

Posted at 12:00 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: Obama economy unemployment jobs Democrats | Tweet

Thursday, 18 June 2015

Obamanomics: Rutgers study shows millions of part-time workers can't find full-time work

Underemployment, it's the dirty little secret behind those shrinking unemployment statistics touted by the Obamabots. Sure people are finding work, but they're not finding full-time work.

And what they really want is full-time work.

Roughly a quarter of the more than 26 million people working part-time in the United States want a full-time job but can't find one, a reality that has left those workers struggling to pay their bills, according to a new study.

The Rutgers University survey called a "A Tale of Two Workforces: The Benefits and Burdens of Working Part Time" found that nearly a third of workers stuck with part-time jobs described their financial condition as poor. Less than 10 percent of people who choose to work part-time put themselves in that category, according to the survey.

Carl Van Horn, a co-author of the study and the director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, said the large pool of workers who are stuck working part-time because they cannot find a full-time job is a signal of weakness in the economy.

"There's two million more people in the United States than before the recession that are in that category even though the unemployment rate is down," he said.

Those workers, which the report calls "involuntary workers," fare worse financially than their "voluntary" counterparts who prefer to work part-time.

The survey found 63 percent of people working part-time for economic reasons faced a financial hardship related to their job situation in the past two years that required many to borrow from family or friends, rack up credit card debt or sell off possessions to make ends meet. Only 29 percent of voluntary workers said they faced a financial hardship due to their part-time work.

Welcome to Obamaville, population: you.

It's not really a recovery if people aren't able to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. And it's not like wages are growing either, because they're not. How's that for a one-two punch when you're already down on your luck?

Yeah, I know, it's still Bush's fault and I'm a racist.

Just don't blame me when things get even worse under Hillary.

Posted at 15:36 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy Obama jobs part-time full-time | Tweet

Friday, 29 May 2015

Obamanomics strikes again! The economy shrank 0.7% in the first quarter of 2015

It's been seven years, and counting. And we're still waiting for that "recovery" the Obamabots assured us was already here. Because outside of their media sycophant propaganda bubble, the economy still stucks.

The U.S. economy went into reverse in the first three months of this year as a severe winter and a widening trade deficit took a harsher toll than initially estimated.

The overall economy as measured by the gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the January-March period, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The revised figure, even weaker than the government's initial estimate of a 0.2 percent growth rate, reflects a bigger trade gap and slower consumer spending. It marked the first decline since a 2.1 percent contraction in the first three months of 2014, a slump that was also blamed on winter weather.

Always with the excuses; these guys never take responsibility for anything they screw up. Nope, it couldn't possibly be their policies which keep failing. After all, they're smart, they went to Harvard! And it's all Global Warming's fault. Or something.

Economists expect a rebound in the current quarter to growth of around 2 percent and expect the economy to strengthen later this year.

How many times can their expectations be proven wrong before people stop believing what they say? Oh, right, these are Democrats. Ideology trumps reality every time in their puny little minds. So, they'll happily tell us the country needs to elect Hillary, so she can really undo all the bad stuff that Bush cowboy did. Obama? He tried man, but those evil Rethuglicans thwarted his enlightened executive orders at every turn. MSNBC said so, and they're never wrong about anything.

Wow, I gotta spend less time reading liberal blogs. I'm getting too good at emulating their bullshit. But the fact that people believe that nonsense really scares the daylights out of me.

Posted at 10:37 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: Obama economy GDP recession | Tweet

Tuesday, 26 May 2015

An obscure SCOTUS ruling last week sets the stage for Obama to seize your 401(k)

Tapping the estimated $19.4 trillion dollars in private pension plans is every progressive socialist's wet dream. I warned you Obama had his eye on your 401(k), and now a little noticed Supreme Court ruling just gave him the green light to seize your money.

The US Supreme Court ruled last week in the unanimous, 8-page decision in Tibble v. Edison holding that employers have a duty to protect workers in their 401(k) plans from mutual funds that are too expensive or perform poorly. That is simply astonishing since there is no constitutional requirement for even government to provide social benefits.

Remember when the Constitution provided a limit to government power?

Yeah, me neither.

Now the Constitution says the government has to protect you from your own bad investment decisions. Er, SCOTUS says the government has to protect you from your own bad investment decisions. The Constitution is silent on the matter. But, emanations of penumbras, or some such rubbish dontcha know.

Monday's unanimous ruling sends a warning to employers that they now must improve their plans and it is now an obligation to project employees. This comes just in time for then the next step is government to seize private funds and prosecute employers who choose badly a fund manager. This fits perfectly just in time for the Obama administration's next assault as they prepare a landmark change of its own by issuing rules requiring that financial advisers put the interest of customers ahead of their own. This creates a very gray area wide enough to justify public seizure of pension funds under management.

Read that again, in case you didn't catch the part where the government is going to decide if your 401(k) is "good enough."

Yet this decision is even deeper. It sets the stage to JUSTIFY government seizure of private pension funds to protect pensioners. When the economy turns down and things get messy, they are placing measures in place to eliminate money in and physical physical dimension, closing all tax loopholes, shutting down the world economy with FATCA, and preparing for the final straw of Economic Totalitarianism with the Supreme Court reversing its entire construction of the Constitution to impose a duty upon employers to ensure the 401K plans perform in a world where interest rates are going negative. You really cannot make up this level of insanity.

Oh, this level of insanity is just what a guy like Bernie Sanders ordered. It's the nanny state, writ large.

Bureaucrats answerable to Sanders' cohort Elizabeth Warren will now get to decide if your 401(k) plan cuts the mustard. They'll arbitrarily set a cap on management fees, and punish any fund that exceeds their idea of a "reasonable" profit.

The punishment? Seizing the fund's assets, and forcing your money into an investment in Treasury bonds.

Then you're just another creditor to Obama, standing in line behind all the geezers on Social Security. Good luck getting paid, after all you're also collecting Social Security, and sooner or later you've made enough money.

Between the court ruling and the Obama administration's push for stronger fiduciary rules send a strong message that government can much easier seize the pension fund management industry of course to "protect the consumer."

Who's gonna protect us from the government?

You knuckleheads shoulda thought that through before you elected a committed Marxist to the presidency.

Posted at 18:41 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy pension Obama 401(k) government socialism | Tweet

Thursday, 21 May 2015

Good news! NJ added 4300 new jobs last month! Bad news, 4000 of them are in government

The unemployment picture in New Jersey is supposedly starting to look better.

New Jersey's employment picture brightened Wednesday with the release of figures for April showing the state added 4,300 jobs, the 10th consecutive monthly increase.

The state added 300 private-sector jobs and 4,000 government jobs, according to the monthly employment report by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Congratulations on finally landing that job! Unfortunately, as one of only 300 new private sector hires, you're now responsible for carrying 13 freshly minted bureaucrats too.

Hey, government's gotta govern, and governing ain't easy. Those regulations don't write themselves you know! Bureaucracy begets bureaucracy, and Steve Sweeney can't ride into Drumthwacket without thousands more public employee unionistas dutifully contributing to his campaign fund.

So, that's where you come in! Before taking care of mundane things like feeding your family, please sign over your paycheck to "State of New Jersey - TGI" and mail it in the enclosed envelope. The taxes in this state are never gonna go down, so you might as well get used to forking over all your money for the government to ~~waste~~ "invest" as they see fit. Thank you for your cooperation.

Posted at 14:43 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: unemployment economy jobs government taxes | Tweet

Thursday, 16 April 2015

Do you want fries with that? Most of Obama's touted job gains are low pay, low skill

The Obamabots will tell you the economy is "improving," because their Dear Leader has created millions of new jobs.

What they won't tell you is what kind of jobs he's managed to create.

Lots and lots of low-pay, low-skill, dead-end jobs.

As in, "do you want fries with that?"

In a post-recession world where many once-familiar occupations continue to automate, move offshore or disappear outright, one of the most basic questions remains:

Who's hiring?

It turns out the vast preponderance of job openings these days consists of low-skill, hourly wage work with high turnover.

The current slate of "help wanted" ads overwhelmingly involves cashiers, waitresses and waiters, personal care aides, janitors, those who stock store shelves, and the likes of Hardee's and Taco Bell.

Of the top 10 "Occupations with the Most Openings," nine fall into government-designated wage categories of "very low" and "low," according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor.

The proliferation of bottom-rung openings casts a light on an epidemic transformation within the national economy, one that has been accompanied by a long-term contraction of middle-skill occupations that often pay family-supporting wages.

"Workers in many types of middle-rank positions — such as skilled production-line workers and people in clerical or administrative jobs — have had to migrate into jobs as food-service workers, home health-care aides, child-care employees and security guards," according to a study by David Autor, economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For Obama so loved the poor, he made millions more of them.

"This is not an overall improvement in job quality," Autor said. "The problem with many of these jobs is they require fairly generic skill sets, which means workers have limited negotiating power and are fairly interchangeable. These are not, in general, attractive jobs."

What's remarkable is how deeply the low-wage sector — once seen as temporary and transitional — has entrenched itself in the world of work.

According to the Labor Department, the No. 1 employment opportunity in the U.S. is for retail salespeople.

Typical retail work requires "less than high school" education.

Retail jobs do not always pay well, but there are plenty of them: Nearly 200,000 open up on average each year in the U.S.

And who's competing for those retail jobs? Obama's DREAMers, illegal aliens, here to ensure you'll never work again.

No wonder then that so many Americans have simply given up on looking for real work. Why bother? There aren't any more good jobs out there.

The only other growth sector? Government. Hey, Big Brother is always hiring. And always getting in the way.

Posted at 11:41 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy jobs unemployment Obama | Tweet

Thursday, 02 April 2015

Hey New Jersey, this year you'll work until May 13th to support the government

Congratulations New Jersey workers. If you're crazy enough to have a job, you'll spend the first 4½ months of this year toiling to support the moocher class.

New Jerseyans will have to work an extra four days this year to be free of taxes, according to a report that once again says Garden State residents have the highest tax burden in the nation.

The right-leaning Tax Foundation's annual "tax freedom day" report card says residents in New Jersey and Connecticut will work the longest in the nation this year to pay off their taxes: until May 13. Last year, "tax freedom day" for both states was May 9.

We're #1!

Gee, thanks.

"The sad reality is that every extra day middle-class taxpayers in New Jersey work to pay for government is one less day they are free to provide for their families, save for their child's education or their retirement, or to invest in their businesses in order to create jobs and opportunity," Americans for Prosperity State Director Erica Klemens said in a statement.

Government cheese ain't cheap.

And the people who vote for a living are never satisfied. They vote Democrat, because it's easier than getting a job.

Tell me again why I live here?

Posted at 10:34 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: taxes government New-Jersey | Tweet

Thursday, 29 January 2015

Welcome to Obamaville, where 1 in 5 children are on food stamps

This past weekend I had an Obamabot angrily inform me that his Dear Leader has finally fixed George Bush's mess, and our economy is now roaring along like never before. "Just look at the stock market!," he sneered.

The irony of him working 3 part-time jobs (with no benefits) instead of the much higher-paying full-time 9-5 job he had during the Bush Administration was lost on him.

So I guess he won't believe his lyin' eyes today when he reads the latest news out of the Census Bureau. Or he'll blame Rethuglicans for sabotaging The One's munificence again.

Sixteen million children were on food stamps as of last year, the highest number since the nation's economy tumbled in 2008.

Numbers released by the Census Bureau Wednesday as part of its annual look at children and families show that one in five children were on food stamp assistance in 2014. The survey was taken last spring.

The number of people receiving food stamps — now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — spiked through the recession and has stayed at a higher level since. In the 2007 Census survey, 9 million children received SNAP assistance.

So Obama managed to put 7 million additional children on food stamps. Yeah, that's how I measure a successful economic recovery, how about you?

Around 46.5 million people received food stamps last year, according to the Agriculture Department, which oversees the aid, up from around 26 million in 2007.

Twenty million more Americans living on the dole. Wow, I never knew Obama was such an economic genius!

The Obamabots, soon to be Hillary's horde, are deluded. They live in a fantasy universe, where progressive policies don't fail because they're wrong, they fail because they weren't progressive enough. If they could only tax a few more rich people (but not George Soros or Tom Steyer!) then everything would magically be perfect. Rachel Maddow said so! And she's smart!

Meanwhile, children in America go hungry. But well-fed liberals say they care, honest!, so there's that. The thing is, the more they care, the worse off the rest of America gets. Oops.

UPDATE 29 Jan 2015 11:49:
Oh look, the CBO predicts tepid economic growth, rising deficits for the forseeable future.

I guess it's somehow George Bush's fault.

Comrades! Pay no attention to the Reality behind the curtain. MSNBC is truth!

Posted at 10:26 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy SNAP food-stamps Obama poverty recession | Tweet

Tuesday, 23 December 2014

Irrational exuberance in action, that 5% GDP growth number is a total fraud

Look! Just in time for Christmas! That Obama guy finally got our economy back on track! Now get out there and spend, spend, spend!

At least that's what the media wants you to believe.

The U.S. economy roared into overdrive in the third quarter as consumer and business spending fueled the biggest expansion in more than a decade.

Gross domestic product grew at a 5 percent annual rate from July through September, the biggest advance since the third quarter of 2003 and up from a previously estimated 3.9 percent, revised figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 75 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected a 4.3 percent increase in GDP.

Sounds amazing, right?

It's also too good to be true. But journalists aren't known for their economic prowess. And they're fully invested in "proving" Obama's success.

So here's the dirty little secret they aren't telling you.

The Commerce Department fudged the numbers by inserting the entire year's worth of Obamacare spending into 3rd quarter GDP. Presto! Instant 5% growth!

Back in June, when we were looking at the final Q1 GDP print, we discovered something very surprising: after the BEA had first reported that absent for Obamacare, Q1 GDP would have been negative in its first Q1 GDP report, subsequent GDP prints imploded as a result of what is now believed to be the polar vortex. But the real surprise was that the Obamacare boost was, in the final print, revised massively lower to actually reduce GDP!

In layman's terms, they initially put Obamacare in to make Q1 look less bad, then took it out when nobody was looking after they decided to blame their woes on the "polar vortex."

Fast forward 6 months, and with a small uptick in actual consumer spending (probably due to those falling oil prices, for which, btw, Obama can't claim even one iota of credit), it's time to reinsert the Obamacare factor to really pump up the numbers.

Here's Tyler Durden's handy chart showing the Q3 GDP breakdown:

As you can see, without Obamacare the consumer spending numbers would still be abysmal.

In short, two-thirds of the "boost" to final Q3 personal consumption came from, drumroll, the same Obamacare which initially was supposed to boost Q1 GDP until the "polar vortex" crashed the number so badly, the BEA decided to pull it completely and leave this "growth dry powder" for another quarter. That quarter was Q3.

Our economy "grew" because the government forced 9 million people to buy health insurance.

What are they going to do for an encore? Force 9 million people to buy a car from Government Motors?

Because otherwise, the stock market rally that's going on right now is the very definition of Irrational Exuberance.

Oh well. As the saying goes, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Posted at 15:23 by Chris Wysocki [/economy] Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: economy GDP Obamacare consumer-spending | Tweet


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