Thank you for visiting the Economy News page (aka "It's the Economy, Stupid!) where you will find more truth about the smoke and mirrors economy than the Obama administration will ever admit to publicly. Here's the simple fact: In Mr. Obama's economic recovery, he will no doubt revel in the recent news that the unemployment rate is down to 6.3%. Keep in mind that this is Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) U3 that reports the number of people currently receiving unemployment benefits. Remember that unemployment benefits were not extended after December 2013 so a lot of unemployed people were cut off at the economic knees beginning 2014. It was predictable that U3 numbers would go down.
What IS MOST IMPORTANT is BLS U6 which includes not only people receiving unemployment benefits, but also people who are unemployed and looking for work, AND PEOPLE WHO TOOK JOBS AT LESS WAGES (UNDEREMPLOYED). So while unemployment may have hit a new low of 6.3%, the truth is that workers are still underemployed which means that the underlying economy is still underperforming and still quite fragile. - Rodney Spooner
Seasonally adjusted for April 2014, U6 is 12.3%, ALMOST DOUBLE U3! (Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm) As of May 2, 2014, there are 19,298,419 people unemployed. (Source: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
What IS MOST IMPORTANT is BLS U6 which includes not only people receiving unemployment benefits, but also people who are unemployed and looking for work, AND PEOPLE WHO TOOK JOBS AT LESS WAGES (UNDEREMPLOYED). So while unemployment may have hit a new low of 6.3%, the truth is that workers are still underemployed which means that the underlying economy is still underperforming and still quite fragile. - Rodney Spooner
Seasonally adjusted for April 2014, U6 is 12.3%, ALMOST DOUBLE U3! (Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm) As of May 2, 2014, there are 19,298,419 people unemployed. (Source: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
October 2015
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Wednesday,
October 28, 2015 |
New study confirms economy was destroyed by Democrat policies
Lyle Denniston, the National Constitution Center’s constitutional literacy adviser, looks at the two latest court challenges to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which involve two constitutional clauses. |
September 2014
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Sunday, September 7, 2014
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What Happens When the Fed Stops Propping Up Stocks?
If you've followed the market and the economy over the last few years, you've probably got a rough understanding that the Federal Reserve is propping up stocks. Maybe you're not sure exactly how it works, but the idea is just sort of out there.Such is the benefit of holding short-term interest rates near 0 percent since 2008 and of growing the monetary base from $850 billion then to more than $4 trillion now. Technically, the Fed isn't directly helping the stock market. It's buying long-term government bonds and mortgage securities. But by lowering the cost of credit for corporations, it's helped dump trillions into stocks as CEOs have leveraged up their balance sheet by issuing debt cheaply and using that money to repurchase their own shares. The thing is, with the Fed's latest bond buying program on track to end next month and with corporations saddled with loads of debt, the dynamic is already slowing down. In other words, stocks are already starting to feel what it's like to lose the Fed's support. And it's set to get worse. 
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May 2014
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Friday,
May 2, 2014 |
The glory days of American manufacturing are not coming back: Steven Rattner
Steven Rattner, former Obama administration car czar and chairman of Willett Advisors, caused a stir in economic circles earlier this year when he rejected the popular belief that U.S. manufacturing was back on its feet. "We need to get real about the so-called [manufacturing] renaissance," he wrote in his January New York Times oped. "For all the hoopla, the United States has gained just 568,000 manufacturing positions since January 2010 — a small fraction of the nearly six million lost between 2000 and 2009. That’s a slower rate of recovery than for nonmanufacturing employment." Rattner reaffirmed his position at this week's Milken Institute Global Conference. "Manufacturing jobs are increasing more slowly than jobs in the economy as a whole," he says in the video above. There’s actually more of a renaissance in other kinds of jobs." Mr. Obama will no doubt revel in the recent news that the unemployment rate is down to 6.3%. Keep in mind that this is U3 that reports the number of people currently on unemployment. Remember that unemployment benefits were not extended after December 2013 so a lot of unemployed people were cut off at the economic knees beginning 2014. It was predictable that U3 numbers would go down. What IS important is U6 which includes not only people on unemployment benefits, but also people who are unemployed and looking for work, AND PEOPLE WHO TOOK JOBS AT LESS WAGES (UNDEREMPLOYED). So while unemployment may have hit a new low (6.3%), the truth is that workers are still underemployed which means that the underlying economy is still underperforming and still quite fragile. - Rodney Spooner |
April 2014
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Monday, April 28, 2014
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Clinton records are smoking gun: Democrat policies destroyed the economy
The Clinton Library performed a massive behind-the-scenes document dump last week that contains every last detail of how Democrats forced banks into lowering their lending standards and wrecked the housing market...only to turn around and blame not enough government when their disastrous policies finally imploded the economy. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images From Investor's Business Daily: Exhibit A in the 7,000-page Clinton Library document dump is a 1999 memo to him from his treasury secretary, Robert Rubin. The Clinton Administration is now on the record openly bragging about manufacturing the housing bubble, and explaining exactly how they did it. They confirm in specific detail how Democrats spent years falling over each other to force banks into lowering their lending standards at gun point while federally insuring their overwhelming and inevitable losses at taxpayer expense.
The Article continues: Other documents reveal how the community-activist group ACORN and other organizations met with Rubin and other top Clinton aides on 'improving credit availability for minorities.' Again, let's review:
-No one was making bad loans to unqualified people until Democrats came along and threatened to drag banks into court and have them fined and branded as racists if they didn't go along with the left's Affirmative Action lending policies. Even the New York Times warned in the late 1990s that Democrats continuing to force banks into lowering their standards would lead to this exact meltdown. -As I have demonstrated, studies directly connect the collapse of the housing market to these Democrat policies. -President Bush went to Congress repeatedly for years warning them that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were going to destroy the economy (17 times in 2008 alone). Democrats continuously ignored him, shut down his proposals along party lines and continued raiding the institutions for campaign contributions on their way down. -John McCain also co-sponsored urgently critical reforms that would have prevented the housing market collapse, but Democrats shut that down as well, along party lines, and even openly ridiculed anyone who suggested reforms were necessary...to protect their taxpayer-funded campaign contributions as the economy raced uncontrollably toward the cliff. -Obama himself is even on the record personally helping sue one lender (Citibank) into lowering its lending standards to include people from extremely poor and unstable areas, which even one of the left's favorite blatantly partisan "fact-checkers," Snopes, admits (while pretending to 'set the record straight'). -Even The New York Times admitted that there is "little evidence" of any connection between the "Republican" deregulation measures Obama blames, like the Gramm-Bleach-Liley Act (signed into law by a Democrat), and the collapse of the housing market. Democrats endlessly exploiting, manipulating and bribing the black community down the toilet of paranoid bigotry, nanny state dependence, and professional victimhood for personal gain is what destroyed the economy. It is an undeniable fact at this point. But the news media will continue to repeat the blatantly false Democrat narrative that Bill Clinton's racist wealth redistribution policies weren't the problem, that Republicans simply allowed the free market (not enough government) to ruin the economy, and that Obama just inherited their economic mess--the exact opposite of the truth. Every generation will continue to be inoculated against the facts and wildly misinformed by Orwellian, tyrant-worshipping media propaganda, so Bill Clinton will go on being revered for being in office when the Tech Boom happened, despite his catastrophic policy failures. And Obama will go on using one Democrat-manufactured crisis after another to shred the Constitution, bankrupt the country and impoverish the American people...all while brazenly reinstating the very nanny state insanity that got us here in the first place. |
February 2104
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Friday, February 28, 2014
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Fourth-quarter growth cut to 2.4 percent
Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.4 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Friday. That was down sharply from the 3.2 percent pace reported last month and the 4.1 percent logged in the third quarter. |
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Sunday, February 9, 2014
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US economy may be stuck in slow lane for long run
Two straight weak job reports have raised doubts about economists' predictions of breakout growth in 2014. The global economy is showing signs of slowing — again. Manufacturing has slumped. Fewer people are signing contracts to buy homes. Global stock markets have sunk as anxiety has gripped developing nations. |
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Sunday, February 2, 2014
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The Long-Term Unemployment Crisis Is Out of Control
The unemployment rate may be dropping, but the number of people out of work for longer than 27 weeks is off the charts. "...this issue can't be fixed quite so easily and is quickly reaching crisis proportions. As time goes on, the stigma of being without a job for more than 27 weeks is affecting more people, creating a vast pool of former workers that seem to have become "unemployable."" |
January 2014
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Thursday, January 23, 2014
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20 Early Warning Signs That We Are Approaching A Global Economic Meltdown
Have you been paying attention to what has been happening in Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Ukraine, Turkey and China? |
December 2012
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Friday,
December 21, 2012 |
New study confirms economy was destroyed by Democrat policies
A new study from the widely respected National Bureau of Economic Research released this week has confirmed beyond question that the left's race-baiting attacks on the housing market (the Community Reinvestment Act--enacted under Carter, made shockingly more aggressive under Clinton) is directly responsible for imploding the housing market and destroying the economy. |