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Nightly Ramble Thursday

Welcome, one and all, to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the web… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

ramble-unemployment [1]

  • JOBS SUMMIT PLACEBO: Look, tha’s what this Jobs summit thing that we saw today at the White House really is. Honestly, every president since Roosevelt has engaged in this kind of sham, but given the current circumstances, as Evan Newmark points out [2], it seems more pointless and a cynical waste of time than usual.  Mostly, because we know now what we didn’t know back and Roosevelt’s day; huge government spending isn’t the solution to creating jobs.  Cutting taxes, and limiting government,  is. Mitt Romney, over at USA TODAY has an admirable editorial out today on the topic, saying in part

    His failure to stem the unemployment tide should not have been a surprise. With no experience whatsoever in the world of employment and business formation, he had no compass to guide his path. Instead, he turned over much of his economic recovery agenda to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, themselves nearly as inexperienced in the private sector as he. Congress gave him and them everything they asked for, including a history-making three-quarters of a trillion dollar stimulus.

    Mitt Romney [3]

    Mitt Romney

    But it did little to stimulate the real economy – where jobs are created. Studies, initiatives and programs that liberal think tanks had long pined for were given life even as the private economy was on life support. The president’s team assured us that their massive stimulus would hold unemployment below 8%. So with unemployment now at 10.2%, it is clear that their stimulus was a miscalculated failure.

    In an attempt to disguise the truth, the administration has touted inflated figures of jobs “created.”But every month, in good times and bad, jobs are created and jobs are lost. What matters is the net difference between the two numbers. Focusing solely on jobs created while ignoring the far greater numbers of jobs lost is Harry Houdini economics.

    Growing government, as was done with the stimulus, inevitably depresses the private sector and job creation. Shrinking government and reducing government jobs is healthier for the economy, but this option was never seriously considered. That’s no wonder: As White House guest logs for the first half of the year reveal, the most frequent visitor to the executive mansion was Andy Stern, the head of the Service Employees International Union, which represents government workers.

    Honestly, now… does anybody really think that Obama is going to reverse course toward what works?  I didn’t think so.That’s the only real solution to any of this, so given that his policies aren’t working, call Mr. Ober am a and company have left to offer us is a placebo. And how do we know that’s what it is? Well, many reasons. Here’s but a few of them.

    • I notice for example that the U.S. chamber of commerce was not invited but Andy stern the president of what is arguably the most corrupt of the government employee unions, [4]was.
    • The national federation of independent business, wasn’t invited, the teachers unions were.
    • Small business owners … you know… the ones who generally provide 70% of the jobs in this country, were not invited.  Big Obama donors, were invited.

    Are you getting the drift, yet?  this entire thing was put on for show.  The question becomes if the people on the unemployment lines can see this issue and for what it is.  I suspect they probably can, and will vote as such in the next two elections at least.

  • SPEAKING OF DEMOCRAT POLICY NOT WORKING TO CREATE JOBS: You guys happen to see the Goldman Sachs forecast for 2011 ?  If not, you may want to run to where  James Pethokoukis, over at Reuters gives the details. [5] They’re predicting at this point minimal growth, in just about everything but unemployment with that figure peaking at a little over 10% in mid 2011.  I’m telling you, dear reader, the turnover in the next two cycles is going to make the Reagan revolution look minuscule by comparison.  if you happen to manage to get anything on the “jobs summit” of today, you may want hang onto it for about two to three years. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to be the road to that of a lot of the blooper reel, in a little while.
  • ANDERSON COOPER RATINGS FALL: Is there a rating less than Zero? [6] I’m willing to bet that CNN hangs on to that turkey until we find out.
  • BOXER BLAMES THE WHISTLE BLOWER: Roger Simon picks it up and runs like crazy:
    Pajamas Media's Roger Simon [7]

    Pajamas Media's Roger Simon

    Climategate is about a lot more than climate. It’s about science and its relationship to politics and profit, the academy, the state and, perhaps most importantly, information control. The manner through which we learn (or thought we did) important knowledge about key aspects of our existence, the way things are hidden, has been exposed in this one instance like the Wizard of Oz.

    It’s obvious similar methods of control apply to many other information sources in our society. That is why Barbara Boxer is in shrill blaming-the-messenger mode, insisting that any Congressional investigation of Climategate would target the nefarious “hacker.” She realizes a great unraveling could come from this. So do to the global bureaucrats at the UN and the EU as they prepare for the Copenhagen conference. It is also why the mainstream media was so slow to report the East Anglia CRU emails and documents. They know that if you begin to report these things, you have to report on a lot of other things they have so scrupulously chosen to avoid.

    Roger has this one correct, I think.  Indeed, I think the implications are deeper than even he suggests.

  • PERONAL NOTES: For those who didn’t notice we managed to secure ourselves another offer here at BitsBlog. take a look at the main page tonight if you get the chance, and check out the writings of Karen Jones, our newest member.For those who have been asking, yes, I managed to pass the written exam for the commercial driver’s license.  It was actually far easier than the tests that the school had been providing me.  I consider that a testimony to the effectiveness of their teaching.  More about that later.  For the time being that means I’m going to be driving the school’s tractor trailer rig come Monday morning.  If all holds to schedule, I will be in my new job on about the sixth of January.  More about that as I find.