The front wheels have lifted off the runway. Now, Americans are waiting to see if the economy can truly get aloft.
With the government reporting that the unemployment rate and the number of jobless fell in January to their lowest levels since early 2009, the recovery seems to finally be reaching American workers.
The Labor Department’s latest snapshot of the job market, released on Friday, makes clear that employers have been hiring more in recent months, with 243,000 net new jobs in January. The unemployment rate now stands at 8.3 percent, down from 8.5 percent a month earlier and 9.1 percent as recently as last August.
While there was indeed a job fair in Modesto this week, this doesn’t mean that more jobs are on the way for the San Joaquin Valley. When the new jobs do finally show up, the chances of any of them coming to this valley are just about zero, because those jobs will more than likely be found only in the major metropolitan areas outside the Valley. We have a 20% unemployment rate in Los Banos, and we’ve let employers know that our people are ready, willing, able, and qualified to fill those jobs, but every time we do that, we’re told “Sorry, we’d like to hire your folks, but they live too far from us, and we can’t locate in your area because the cost of doing business there is too high.” The tax rate structure here is what’s keeping them from locating here, and unless we elect people who will act to permanently chop those tax rates, things won’t improve, and hundreds of people will stay on welfare and food stamps.
How about the 1.2 million people who were dropped out of the unemployment computation in the month of December 2011?
When people mess around with the divisor when computing percentages, who do you believe?
The is an old adage,
“Liars figure and figures lie.”
But of course this is not the case in this instance, is it?
Statistics don’t lie, but statisticians do. Changing the denominator makes it look better, but people know.
This IS the New York Times. In an election year. Have a different look at the numbers:
From American Thinker
Lying Liars. With pants on fire. Cui bono?
When I get home in time, I will watch the evening news, local and national. I’m tired and unwinding, mentally still half at work. If Walter Cronkitte, excuse me, Peter Jennings, no, wait, Katie Couric – well, whoever is pushing the news this year- anyway, it they say unemployment is up, down or upside-down, how many of us tired schmucks will actually do the math? Who will actually think about it? Most of us will form a vague impression that things are good or bad, as the case may be, then we will get up and fix dinner.
Which sets the stage for my question: it’s 2012, a presidential election year. Who benefits if the economic news is good?
It’s fair to point out that the news itself comes from the government that is facing re-election, so it may not be fair to blame the media for reporting what they are told. Except, of course, that they seem to have no problem asking the ”hard questions” in some cases. Doing the math is their job ; why aren’t they doing it?
I believe what people in the work force here tell me, and the news isn’t good. Employers tell me that they are having a hard time justifying staying here, that our high tax rate structure is killing them, but they know they’ll hurt people if they leave……and they don’t want to do that. The alternatives are to sell out or go out of business, and most of them are long-time residents who grew up here, and therefore they don’t want this to happen, because their roots are here. So what are they to do? Trust the government? Why? Trust in private investment in the economy? Sure, but what incentive is there if taxes are too high? The Federal Government isn’t the answer; private enterprise IS.