JOBS!!!

There is a new four-letter word, "Jobs". This little word is garnering a lot of attention over the past year or so. With unemployment in double-digits, we probably all know someone who cannot find a job. Jobs are scarce right now. If you have one, keep it; if you don't, this subject probably occupies a great deal of your time.

BO has coined a new phrase, "jobs created or saved". No president has ever taken credit for the number of jobs they claim to have "saved". Since there is no way to accurately track that number or to determine the sole reason for someone not losing their job, he can make all the wild claims that he wants because no one can prove him wrong. This phrase was the result of an evolution of a campaign promise to create a certain number of jobs, if he were elected president. As the campaign progressed and it began to appear that he would win, he began to modify some of his promises. This was one of them. Another one was the promise of a tax cut to every family who made less than $250,000 per year. How did that turn out? Well, he had the withholding tables adjusted so slightly less was taken out of the paycheck for wage earners. Notice, the withholding tables were changed, not the tax tables. At the end of the year, you will still owe the same amount of tax, you will just have to come up with some out of your pocket, since not as much was withheld.

As to the jobs promise, the "jobs created" evolved into "jobs created or saved". It is not hard to come up with a number of employed workers. It is clear if that number is growing or shrinking. Since he did not expect to be able to keep his earlier promise, he adjusted the wording to a goal that cannot be measured or proven.

We are all painfully aware that the number of unemployed has steadily grown during 2009. For the past two months, the official report on unemployment has shown at least 10% of the work force is looking for work and on unemployment benefits. Many economists believe the true number is somewhere around 1.5 times that amount, or at least 15-16%. This is due to many who do not have a job also not receiving unemployment benefits. The ranks of the employed is also somewhat misleading as many people who lost jobs are now employed for much less than they were making - "under-employed".

A month ago, the unemployment rate was announced to be 10.2%. It was the umteenth month in a row that the "experts" were "surprised" that the number kept rising. This month, the number is 10%. To BO this is great news, even though the report explains that the drop is due to people being hired for the holidays on "temporary jobs". BO is claiming this as a sign of a healthy economy emerging. Yes, some folks getting temporary, minimum-wage jobs is BO's claim-to-fame as evidence his great plan is working.

Yesterday, BO held a "jobs summit" in Washington. He brought together some elite-leftists and union thugs to brain-storm ideas on how to create even more jobs. I wonder if anyone suggested that we have another Christmas shopping season in February? This would help keep some of those "temps" on duty a little longer. The summit was another example of King BO acting like the professor over his group of adoring students. He gave a little pep talk and then divided the class into small groups for them to problem-solve the situation. He told them that he would be back later to gather their ideas. I wonder if anyone was assigned to "take names" while the teacher was out of the room.

BO is fixated on the concept of "creating jobs", at least in his public speeches. This makes him look "concerned". He announced that he "will not rest until things are better." Based on past promises and performance, it will be interesting to see how he measures "better" and how soon he will claim to have reached that goal, and begin to rest.

This promise goes along with another of his promises, this week. BO gave his speech about sending 30,000 more troops to war, but then gave the date for the start of withdrawal. Then he said that he is committed to "get the job done" in Afghanistan. This makes me wonder, again, as to what the definition of "job" is? He makes statements like that knowing that we will assume that he means "winning" as being the "job". He doesn't! He has no interest in winning the war.

(You probably think that the preceding paragraph is off-topic. Well, not really, notice the word "job" intermingled in that interesting side-trip.)

You probably heard about the great unveiling of BO's new web site - recovery.gov. Its the one that cost us $18,000,000 just for the web site. Creating the web site probably created more jobs than the actual ones it was claiming to have been added. Within days of boasting of the number of jobs created or saved and documented on the web site, it became apparent that much of the claims were bogus. A little investigation into specific claims proved many were make believe.

(See Part Two)