unemployment
Illinois Had 57,800 More Unemployed Individuals Than Jobs Created Last Quarter
The latest employment data is out for the state of Illinois. From an Illinois Department of Employment Security news release yesterday:
The March unemployment rate was 9.5 percent, unchanged from February, according to preliminary data released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES). As expected, Illinois recorded -17,800 fewer jobs compared to February even as it added +36,600 over March 2012. The data is seasonally adjusted.
“Illinois employers were expected to report fewer positions in March. Economic uncertainty nationally and abroad dampened our country’s job growth. When that happens, Illinois’ share tends to be a negative number,” IDES Director Jay Rowell said. “Monthly snapshots capture a moment in time. When those moments are evaluated together, we see progress away from a global recession and through a stubborn economic growth cycle marked by volatile swings in monthly data here and across our country.”
The three-month moving average of job growth, a data point that smoothes monthly volatility and unpredictable or one time events, shows +1,100 jobs added each month so far this year.
When I crunch IDES employment numbers for all of 2013, a less rosy picture emerges. Using data from their news releases:
January 2013
Employers added 7,100 jobs
Number of unemployed individuals increased 22,900 (+4.0 percent) to 594,800
February 2013
Employers added 12,400 jobs
Number of unemployed individuals increased 34,900 (+5.9 percent) to 629,400
March 2013
Employers shed 17,800 jobs
Number of unemployed individuals increased 1,700 (+0.3 percent) to 629,200
(Editor’s note: Is it just me or do some of the above numbers not jive? Oh well, that’s IDES’s deal. I’m just crunching the numbers they provided.)
In the first quarter of 2013, Illinois employers added a total of 1,700 jobs.
At the same time, the number of unemployed individuals increased 59,500.
Which, if my math is correct, leaves the state with 57,800 more unemployed individuals than there were jobs created in the first quarter of this year.
If you’re looking for a job/looking to change jobs here in the “Land of Lincoln,” you might want to ramp up your efforts if you aren’t doing so already.
The IDES news releases I used are located here, here, and here.
By Christopher E. Hill, Editor
Survival And Prosperity (www.survivalandprosperity.com)
Illinois Unemployment Rate Climbs To 9.5 Percent In February
According to preliminary data released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES), the February unemployment rate in the state of Illinois climbed to 9.5 percent from the previous month. A news release on the IDES website stated:
In February 2013, the number of unemployed individuals increased +34,900 (+5.9 percent) to 629,400.
In January, the unemployment rate in the “Land of Lincoln” was 9.0 percent. That number stood at 8.9 percent back in February 2012.
Nationally, the “official” unemployment rate was 7.7 percent last month.
You can read the entire IDES news release on their website here.
By Christopher E. Hill, Editor
Survival And Prosperity (www.survivalandprosperity.com)
Illinois Governor’s Spokesperson: ‘We’re Facing The Worst Recession Since The Great Depression’
Reading the Chicago Tribune website last night I saw that Governor Pat Quinn will be proposing a $30 billion-plus budget this week for the State of Illinois.
The Tribune’s Ray Long provided some of the latest figures showing just how precarious the state’s financial situation really is these days:
• $96.8 billion in unfunded debt to five state pension systems
• $9.7 billion in unpaid bills
• 8.7 percent unemployment in December, almost a percentage point higher than the national unemployment rate
• $6.1 billion annual pension payment in the next budget year- $900 million more than in the current one
One word comes to mind. Fugly.
Then there’s this from Long’s piece:
“When you’re the chief executive, you face challenges from the outside that are not of your making,” said Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson. “The governor’s job is to control the things he can and manage the elements that are outside his control. But I’d say that we’ve been in a perfect storm since the moment Gov. Quinn got here. We’re facing the worst recession since the Great Depression, decades of financial mismanagement that has been culminating in the pension crisis and unpaid bills. And you have to deal with that.”
“We’re facing the worst recession since the Great Depression”
What about that economic recovery Governor Quinn said was taking place here in the “Land of Lincoln?” From a February 6 article on the Tribune website:
“Do we want, in the years to come, a prosperous Illinois where working people continue to have good jobs, where businesses thrive, and where all our children have a world-class education?” Quinn told the House and Senate. “Or do we want to stop the progress and watch our economic recovery stall?”
(Editor’s note: Italics added for emphasis)
Let me guess. That bit about the recession is only the opinion of Quinn’s “mouthpiece.” And she’s trying to shield her boss from some blame.
Fair enough. But the thing is, Ms. Anderson- either knowingly or unknowingly- is on to something. We may not technically be in a recession these days, but for many Illinois residents it probably doesn’t feel like much of a recovery either.
By Christopher E. Hill, Editor
Survival And Prosperity (www.survivalandprosperity.com)
Sources:
Long, Ray. “Gov. Pat Quinn to unveil $30 billion-plus Illinois budget.” Chicago Tribune. 3 Mar. 2013. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-quinn-budget-20130304,0,7431041,full.story). 3 Mar. 2013.
Garcia, Monique, Long, Ray, and Guerrero, Rafael. “Quinn wants minimum wage hike, assault weapons ban.” Chicago Tribune. 6 Feb. 2013. (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-02-06/news/chi-quinn-to-call-for-minimum-wage-increase-to-10-an-hour-20130206_1_assault-weapons-minimum-wage-pat-quinn-today). 3 Mar. 2013.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn Proposes Highest Minimum Wage In The U.S.
Fall 1986. I was hanging out with my older sister in her bedroom when I came across a binder for some basic economics/personal finance class that she was enrolled in at the local public high school. As I leafed through it, I thought, “This is some pretty cool stuff- I hope I get the chance to take a class like this when I’m in high school next year.” I didn’t. Not in my freshmen year or any other year. I ended up at an all-boys Roman Catholic college preparatory high school, where such material just wasn’t taught.
Latin, yes. Economics/personal finance, no.
Ita sit (so be it).
In fact, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn also attended the same school. Both of us might have been able to benefit greatly from such instruction early on.
Perhaps one more than the other, based on a new minimum wage hike the Chicago Democrat proposed yesterday in his “State of the State” address. From Paul Merrion on the Crain’s Chicago Business website yesterday:
Gov. Pat Quinn’s call for a $10 minimum wage has created yet another firestorm for the state’s business community.
While economists question whether higher minimum wages hurt jobs and make some states less competitive than others, Illinois business leaders view the governor’s proposal as one more blow to the state’s battered business climate.
Illinois already has the fourth-highest minimum wage at $8.25 an hour, and raising it more than 21 percent over four years would put it far above Indiana or other neighboring states eager to attract Illinois companies to relocate.
According to Merrion, a minimum wage of $10 would be the highest in the country.
Supporters of Quinn’s minimum wage hike are calling it “pro-worker.”
Whether or not “higher minimum wages hurt jobs” directly, a higher wage, in conjunction with the state’s huge fiscal mess and recent (January 2011) corporate income tax rate hike of 46 percent, might be the last straw for Illinois companies contemplating leaving the state and kill the formation of new businesses here. By itself, the effects of the hike may not be significant. But taking everything else into consideration, the growing belief that Illinois is “anti-business” will probably be magnified by its implementation, and jobs could be impacted as a result.
Pro-worker? What good’s a minimum wage hike if jobs leave the state and new ones aren’t created?
Economics 101, my man. Economics 101.
By Christopher E. Hill, Editor
Survival And Prosperity (www.survivalandprosperity.com)
Source:
Merrion, Paul. “Quinn’s call for $10 minimum wage riles business.” Crain’s Chicago Business. 6 Feb 2013. (http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130206/NEWS02/130209864/quinns-call-for-10-minimum-wage-riles-business). 7 Feb. 2013.
Peter Schiff: Stock Market Rally ‘An Illusion’
Marc Faber. Jim Rogers. Peter Schiff.
Three “crash prophets” who correctly predicted the 2008 financial crisis in the United States.
I’ve already blogged today about what Faber and Rogers think of rising U.S. stock prices- and what they suspect is behind it.
How about Schiff, the CEO/Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital and CEO of Euro Pacific Precious Metals, LLC?
From his February 1 entry on the The Schiff Report YouTube video blog:
Well the Dow Jones closed above 14,000 today. That’s something it hasn’t done since November 2007. Of course, the media is going to make a big deal about Dow 14,000, the economy is coming back, the markets are coming back.
But, of course, all of this is an illusion created by inflation.
When you debase your currency- when you have inflated dollars that you use to measure stock prices- of course stock prices are going to go up. The price of everything is going up. The government denies there’s inflation. But prices prove it. As if we even need that. The money supply going up is the sheer definition of inflation. And we’re creating a lot of money. And prices are responding by rising, and stock prices are no exception.
But remember, the last time the Dow Jones was at 14,000 back in ’07, gold was about $700 an ounce. Today, gold’s about $1,600 an ounce. So the Dow would have to double from here, and it still wouldn’t be where it was in terms of real money five-and-a-half years ago.
So this rally is an illusion.
But the people on Wall Street don’t even want to acknowledge that.
And going forward? Schiff pointed out:
We’re already at 0 percent interest rates, we’re already at 8 percent unemployment- 14 percent if you use the U-6 number. And that’s as good as it gets during a recovery. And now we’re already trending down.
And I think if the Federal Reserve wants to slow down the rise in interest rates- which we know it does- it’s going to have to accelerate the QE. I don’t think $85 billion of money printing is enough to keep interest rates from rising. And so they’re going to have to print even more. That means the dollar is going lower. Commodity prices going higher. Looks what’s happened to oil prices- they’re almost at $98 a barrel. Look at Brent- Brent Crude is really up. It’s almost at a $20 premium now over North Sea. Gold prices have been stable, but I think gold’s about to take off. I think on Wall Street they’re rationalizing. They’re selling gold and selling gold stocks because they claim that the crisis is over, there’s nothing to worry about anymore, Europe isn’t falling apart, the U.S. economy is getting better, so there’s no reason to own gold. And so you sell gold and you sell your gold stocks. But they don’t understand. People weren’t buying gold because of the European crisis or because of even the U.S. financial crisis. They were buying gold long before those crises began. Look at how gold was doing from 2000 to 2007, 2008. It did better before the crisis than it did during the crisis because the real crisis that worries the gold buyer is a currency crisis. People aren’t buying gold because they’re worried about political uncertainty. They’re buying gold because the politicians are printing too much money. Well, the cheap money policies that were in place prior to the 2008 financial crisis are still here, only, it’s worse. It’s more excessive. The monetary policy is easier. Rates are lower. Central banks are printing money even faster. So, instead of there being no more reasons to buy gold, the reasons have never been better. There have never been more reasons to buy gold, it’s just that Wall Street doesn’t understand this yet. But they will.
“Dow 14,000, GDP, Jobs, Fed, inflation, treasuries, & gold.”
YouTube Video
By Christopher E. Hill, Editor
Survival And Prosperity (www.survivalandprosperity.com)
(Editor’s notes: Info added to “Crash Prophets” page; I am not responsible for any personal liability, loss, or risk incurred as a consequence of the use and application, either directly or indirectly, of any information presented herein.)
Labor Minister: France ‘Is A Totally Bankrupt State’
Speaking of France, how is the Socialist-led European state faring these days?
Not so great, it seems.
In fact, a pretty reliable source claims they’re bankrupt.
Graham Ruddick reported on The Telegraph (UK) website Monday:
Michel Sapin made the gaffe in a radio interview, which left French President Francois Hollande battling to undo the potential reputational damage.
“There is a state but it is a totally bankrupt state,” Mr Sapin said. “That is why we had to put a deficit reduction plan in place, and nothing should make us turn away from that objective.”
The comments came as President Hollande attempts to improve the image of the French economy after pledging to reduce the country’s deficit by cutting spending by €60bn (£51.5bn) over the next five years and increasing taxes by €20bn.
(Editor’s note: Italics added for emphasis)
As I mentioned earlier tonight, some claim President Obama desires French-style Socialism for the United States.
If France’s economy truly is in shambles, and the U.S. President really wants to emulate them, well- here’s a glimpse of what Americans could expect. From an Investor’s Business Daily editorial yesterday:
Fresh after May 2012′s election, President Francois Hollande wasted no time raising government spending, hiking tax rates to 75% on those above $1.3 million in income, hiring 60,000 bureaucrats, cutting the retirement age for public pensions to 60 and undoing fiscal reforms by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy. During his campaign, Hollande declared himself “the enemy of finance.” France today proves it…
Public debt has soared from 68% of GDP in 2008 to 90% in 2012, joblessness has hit 11%, and GDP growth of its $2.8 trillion economy is projected in 2013 at zero.
Tax hikes have driven the richest taxpayers from the country, making the $43 billion budget hole unlikely to be plugged by Hollande’s $26 billion tax hike. Meanwhile, a squeeze on business creates rising numbers of unemployed, who in turn demand state services.
Time will tell how this will all work out for the Socialists in France. But if history rhymes once again, keep in mind something former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in a 1976 interview:
Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.
Any of this sound familiar?
By Christopher E. Hill, Editor
Survival And Prosperity (www.survivalandprosperity.com)
Sources:
Ruddick, Graham. “France ‘totally bankrupt’, says labour minister Michel Sapin.” The Telegraph. 28 Jan. 2013. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9832845/France-totally-bankrupt-says-labour-minister-Michel-Sapin.html). 30 Jan. 2013.
“Like The Bourbons, France’s Socialists Have Learned Nothing, Forgotten Nothing.” Investor’s Business Daily. 29 Jan. 2013. (http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/012913-642388-france-socialist-model-is-same-old-recipe-for-bankruptcy.htm). 30 Jan. 2013.
Seen On The Streets, Part 6
Panhandlers.
Being from Chicago, I should be used to them. In fact, a couple of years ago, I was getting off the Stevenson Expressway on the exit ramp to Cicero Avenue on the South Side when my car was swarmed by a number of them.
Although these weren’t your typical panhandlers. It was the Squeegee Army.
The incident went down a lot like this (ends at 55:04).
And yes, I did drive away singing “I can dig it, he can dig it, she can dig it, we can dig it, they can dig it, you can dig it, oh let’s dig it, can you dig it baby” like Isaac Hayes.
Anyway, the panhandlers I’m seeing these days aren’t the ones I’ve typically encountered over the years.
They’re young (late teens/twenties). They don’t appear at first glance to have any physical handicap that would prevent them from working. And they’re panhandling at intersections where they didn’t used to before.
First, it was the young girl at Cumberland and Higgins on the Northwest Side by Park Ridge. Then, it was the dude at the corner of Northwest Highway and Devon in the Edison Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side. I only saw him once, and I kind of suspect a Chicago police officer (who probably resides in the area with his family) gave him a mouthful, kindly encouraging him to move his ass along.
And just this Tuesday, at the intersection of North and Harlem on the West Side by Elmwood Park, Oak Park, and River Forest, some young man was walking through traffic begging for money. He was also wearing desert camo pants. Maybe he was trying to get the message across to motorists that he was a vet?
Anyway, the numbers of panhandlers seem to be growing these days around the Chicagoland area. Not exactly the picture of a strengthening, sustainable economic recovery the American public is being sold on.
By Christopher E. Hill, Editor
Survival And Prosperity (www.survivalandprosperity.com)
Fed Launches QE4
Yesterday, I took some time off from blogging to watch CNBC’s coverage of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Okay, truth is I really felt sick after eating like a third-grader at lunchtime and needed to lie down on my couch. But the FOMC meeting happened to be on TV, and I was curious to hear what Fed Chair Ben Bernanke would say about the highly-anticipated meeting.
Basically, QE4 has just set sail.
Funny thing was, based on the back-and-forth movements in the stock indexes, the CNBC talking heads covering the meeting suggested traders were looking to their pocket protector-armed colleagues to decipher just exactly what it was the Fed Chair said. Yes- Bernanke was laying on the Fedspeak thick and heavy Wednesday. So much so a number of mainstream media outlets today don’t seem to have figured out just what is was the Federal Reserve announced they were going to do. However, I did come across a very good explanation of what went down at the Fed meeting on the website of Chicago-based investment research company Zacks. Neena Mishra, Director of ETF Research there, reported on their Real Time Insight blog yesterday:
QE 4 is Here: Fed Announces Fresh Stimulus
As widely expected by the market, the Federal Reserve announced at the conclusion of their FOMC meeting that they will purchase longer-term treasury securities to replace “Operation Twist”. Initially the purchases will be about $45 billion per month.
Operation Twist—which involves buying longer-term bonds and selling a like amount of shorter-term treasuries—is expiring at the end of this month.
Additionally, Fed buys 40 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities each month, under QE3. In all, Fed will continue to buy about $85 billion of longer-term bonds each month under the two programs.
Per their statement “these actions should maintain downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, support mortgage markets, and help to make broader financial conditions more accommodative”.
“These actions should maintain downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, support mortgage markets, and help to make broader financial conditions more accommodative”.
Remember what I blogged about recently regarding suspicions the Fed is trying to inflate another housing bubble?
And to quote Monty Python, “And now for something completely different.” Mishra added:
Another important announcement in the release was the adoption of “economic targets” for unemployment and inflation. They decided to keep the target range for the fed funds rate between 0% and 0.25%– as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5% and medium-term inflation does not exceed 2.5%
Yep. That was pretty much what I heard Bernanke say.
QE4. Yet another dose of reality for the Pollyannas that argue a U.S. economic recovery is strong and sustainable and that rising interest rates are right around the corner because the economy is humming right along.
Source:
Mishra, Neenah. “QE 4 is Here: Fed Announces Fresh Stimulus.” Real Time Insight. 12 Dec. 2012. (http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/88466/qe-4-is-here-fed-announces-fresh-stimulus). 12 Dec. 2012.
Crain’s Chicago Business Not Worked Up Over Latest Jobs Report
I fired up my desktop PC this morning and what did I see? All this exuberance over the latest U.S. employment numbers (146,000 jobs created, 7.7 percent unemployment rate in November).
And then, I head over to the Crain’s Chicago Business website which has this snippet posted on their home page:
Updated 7:54 a.m.
U.S. unemployment rate falls to 4-year low
(AP) — The drop was mainly mostly because more people stopped looking for work and weren’t counted as unemployed. But stock futures jumped after the report.
(Editor’s note: Italics added for emphasis)
That’s all.
“The drop was mainly mostly because more people stopped looking for work and weren’t counted as unemployed.”
Way to piss on the Pollyannas’ parade this morning, Crain’s.
And go up a few notches in my book for telling it like it is.
2012 Election Thoughts
For months now I’ve been saying to those people closest to me that Barack Obama will be reelected as President of the United States of America. Granted, last week I did mention to my girlfriend that Mitt Romney might have a shot at the White House based on analysis done by FOX News and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze TV (these two media outlets need to win back any confidence I had in them as a result). Now that Election Day has come and gone, here are some thoughts about the whole spectacle.
The main reason I kept saying Obama would get reelected as President was that the votes were already “bought and paid for.” A lot of Americans receive government benefits (49.1 percent of Americans lived in a household where at least one member of the family received such benefits in 2011, according to the Wall Street Journal earlier this year). The Obama administration has demonstrated these past four years that it’s willing to provide these benefits (part ideology, part political strategy). If you are someone receiving this, why would you endanger the status quo by voting for someone else who might take it away as part of some publicized push for smaller government living within its means? Where could all this lead to? Full-fledged dependency and eventual bondage, if one buys into the Cycle of the Body Politic.
Young American voters could be more “left-leaning” than their predecessors. How left? Well, “socialist” might not be too far off the mark if one subscribes to the findings of a Pew Research Center survey from December 2011. I wrote back on September 27:
You see, not only am I aware that a good number of Americans aren’t put-off by the idea of socialism anymore, but a recent poll even showed a majority of young Americans aged 18-29 have a positive view of it.
From the Pew Research Center website back on December 28, 2011:
Socialism is a negative for most Americans, but certainly not all. Six-in-ten (60%) say they have a negative reaction to the word; 31% have a positive reaction…
Fully nine-in-ten conservative Republicans (90%) view socialism negatively, while nearly six-in-ten liberal Democrats (59%) react positively.
The poll of 1,521 adults conducted back in early December 2011 revealed that among the 18-29 age group, 49 percent had a positive view of socialism as compared to 43 percent having a negative view.
Is Obama and his White House socialist? I don’t know. Are they “left-leaning?” The available evidence suggests so. Which could be why a lot of young American voters are drawn to the Democrats.
Public sector unions obviously played a big role in this election. I understand that such groups work toward the benefit of their members. However, does such activity work contrary to the common good, destabilizing increasingly financially-challenged public agencies, as critics suggest? Plenty of insolvent government organizations could be available for study shortly.
While incumbent politicians can be more difficult to dislodge from office, President Obama retained the White House despite a dismal economic record in his first term. Measures of (un)employment, food stamps, poverty, budget deficits, national debt, for example, grew increasingly worse over the past four years. I know, what about those “5 million jobs created” the Democrats kept touting during the campaign? Problem is, a closer look at what was “created” reveals a lot of low-paying positions. Burger flippers won’t be spearheading a U.S. economic recovery anytime soon. Perhaps Americans aren’t voting based on their wallets as much anymore. Or perhaps their pocketbooks haven’t been hit hard enough. That may be just a matter of time.
The past four years confirmed for many Americans the transformation of the news media from watchdog journalists to unofficial mouthpieces of the Democratic Party (the press being merely a mouthpiece for any party is bad). I have some journalism experience in my background, and my training included an emphasis on unbiased reporting. Being exposed to the amount of news material I am on a daily basis, it’s all too obvious to me that either that training is no longer given, a refresher course is desperately needed, or today’s journalists just don’t give a damn about it anymore. Sad. The way I look at it, if reporters not assigned to pen an op-ed/column feel the need to express the political creature in them, then get a personal blog! And let’s exchange links. Otherwise, do your country a huge favor and once again occupy the role of the “Fourth Estate”- an independent press. Continue on as the “American Pravda” and suffer the inevitable consequences.
Since Chicago/Cook County/Illinois Democrats play a significant role in running the country, one need only look at where they originate from to get an idea of where they might be taking the country these next four years. Anyone who spends enough time on this blog reading those posts written for my local audience knows exactly where that is:
Into the ground.
While Chicago and Cook County have significant financial woes, the State of Illinois is essentially bankrupt. Too many benefits, too much spending, too little cutbacks, too much borrowing, and now the fee and tax hikes on residents and businesses. It’s going to get ugly in the “Land of Lincoln” real fast. California and Illinois are the two U.S. states competing with each other to go under first as the financial crisis worsens, according to some very smart people. Yet, don’t expect any regime change in “Madiganistan” any time soon. As I wrote back on March 21:
As a result of this redistricting, Democrats could very likely control the state legislature in Illinois for a number of years. Monique Garcia, Alissa Groeninger, and Ray Long wrote on the Chicago Tribune website last night:
Even before unofficial results rolled in, some sitting Republican lawmakers were bound to lose in DuPage County, casualties of the Democratic-drawn state legislative districts. The map is tilted so heavily toward Democrats that the party led by House Speaker Michael Madigan, the Illinois Democratic chairman, is all but ensured November general election victories that could set it on a course to control the General Assembly for the next decade.
And from a Chicago Tribune editorial piece this morning:
Democrats had virtually locked in their Springfield majorities before the first voters cast the first early ballots on Oct. 22. More than half of these legislative races weren’t even contested by both major parties. And while some of the new district boundaries gave Republicans tremendous advantage, the aggregate effect was to keep Illinois and its 12.8 million citizens under one-party rule.
Voters evidently like it that way.
Yes they do. Especially as votes were also “bought and paid for” here in the ‘Stan.
Before this post is misconstrued as being merely some Obama/Democrat-bashing piece, regular readers of the blog know that I foresee a U.S. financial crash at the end of all this “kicking the can down the road.” That being said, at this point in the game, I don’t think it really matters anymore whether the Democrats or Republicans are in charge as it concerns where our economy and larger financial system is eventually heading. Enough damage has already been done (think of the Titanic and her compartments being punctured just enough to guarantee her inevitable demise) that America is fast-approaching a tipping point as both major national political parties make matters worse by refusing to scale back the obscene amounts of government spending when given the chance. If you think about it, when it comes to fiscal policy, both parties have shown to be no better than a two-headed monster. Barack Obama’s economic polices from 2008-2012, in general, were really just an extension of George W. Bush’s economic policies. Spending, stimulus, government intervention, you get the picture. Rather than sit down, have a mature conversation with the nation about the unsustainable track we’re on concerning our finances, and stop the spending, both the Democrats and Republicans continue to pander to Main Street’s desire for more stuff, more benefits, more borrowing, more debt. This time around, Barack Obama and the Democrats won. In the longer run, everyone looks to lose.
In the meantime, congratulations Mr. President and the Democratic Party on your Election Day victory.
Sources:
Izzo, Phil. “Number of the Week: Half of U.S. Lives in Household Getting Benefits.” Real Time Economics. 26 May 2012. (http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/05/26/number-of-the-week-half-of-u-s-lives-in-household-getting-benefits/?KEYWORDS=number+of+the+week). 7 Nov. 2012.
“Illinois Democrats and their realm.” Chicago Tribune. 7 Nov. 2012. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-legis-1107-20121107,0,2900759.story). 7 Nov. 2012.
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