Hiring Up (or not) and Unemployment Down (sort of)

This one page article says it all:

'U.S. nonfarm payrolls expanded by a seasonally adjusted 431,000 in May, but virtually all the new jobs were temporary jobs at the U.S. Census, leaving private-sector hiring very weak in May, the Labor Department reported Friday. ... The unemployment rate fell to a seasonally adjusted 9.7% in May from 9.9% in April, according to a separate survey of 60,000 households. The decline wasn't particularly good news, however, because the drop was due to 322,000 people dropping out of the labor force.'

With fears of a double-dip recession continuing, and remaining volatility in the housing and stock markets, claims of steady economic recovery seem premature at best.

Perhaps the Vice-President Needs a Personal Fact-Checker

(or at least someone to stop him from rambling on and on).

Vice-President Biden's robust defense of the stimulus package yesterday, raised some eyebrows when the glowing report mentioned nothing of the myriad of complaints coming from those who are supposed recipients of the funding:

'Biden, Obama's chief stimulus cheerleader, proudly pointed to more than 2,200 highway projects Thursday funded by the program, but didn't mention the growing frustration among contractors that infrastructure money is only trickling out and thus far hasn't delivered the needed boost in jobs. ...

Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel said last month he will examine the Federal Aviation Administration's process for selecting programs for the $1.1 billion in grant money. His announcement came after his office discovered that the Obama administration used stimulus money to pay for 50 airport projects that didn't meet the grant criteria and approved projects at four airports with a history of mismanaging federal grants.

And Biden praised the more than 2,400 military construction projects paid for with stimulus money, but ignored the millions of dollars in savings the Defense Department lost because it hasn't competitively bid many of the jobs.

The Defense Department frequently awards no-bid work to small contractors for repairs at military bases under the stimulus, costing taxpayers millions of dollars more than when businesses compete for the work, an Associated Press analysis of 570 such contracts found.'

The problem is, the stimulus was supposed to be a quick shot in the arm to protect against rising jobless rates, and boost spending. While the rate of unemployment growth has fallen, total jobless numbers continue to rise, hitting 9.7% nationally by the end of August. And, as Biden himself acknowledged, the final implementation of the stimulus will be rather slow (stretching out over two years by most estimates). There doesn't seem to much point to a stimulus that doesn't stimulate in the short run. After that point, the economy would be expected to slowly recover on its own.

Oops - We Guessed Wrong But Don't Worry, We Know What We're Doing

According to the AP: 'Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that "everyone guessed wrong" on the impact of the economic stimulus, but he defended the administration's spending designed to combat rising joblessness. Biden said inaccuracies in unemployment predictions shouldn't undercut the White House's support of the $787 billion economic revival plan that has not met the expectations of President Obama's team. Instead, the vice president urged skeptics to look at teachers who kept their classroom assignments and police officers who kept their beats because of financial assistance from Washington. "The bottom line is that jobs are being created that would not have been there before," Biden said.'

Oh really? I notice two immediate problems with Biden's statements.  First, he conflates jobs created with jobs saved ("... teachers who kept their ... assignments and police officers who kept their beats" with "... jobs are being created that would not have been there before.").  Second, he fails to even claim (much less back up) that the stimulus plan is the best way to save or create jobs, and doesn't bother to look at the possibility that the jobs claimed as a victory by the White House may be unrelated to the stimulus dollars.  In other words, it's a lot of hot air (no offense intended to Ed Morrisey).

We've gone from millions of promised jobs to 600,000, and no one really knows how many jobs have been gained or retained.  The Wall Street Journal stated: 'Of course, the inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction. Never mind that no one -- not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- actually measures "jobs saved." As the New York Times delicately reports, Mr. Obama's jobs claims are "based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs." Nice work if you can get away with it.'

Are 600,00 jobs worth $787 billion in stimulus (not to mention the budget expenditures)?  Is it worth it to the country to spend billions per job?  One would thinks that if we're willing to spend billions on 600,000 jobs, we'd be willing to spread that wealth around in tax cuts.

In one of the states hit hardest by the recession, Michigan, residents report that they see no effect from the $3.8 billion allocated to date.  Ditto for here in Florida.  Our dysfunctional sister, California, is unable to move or decide, and we're spending billions on fictional numbers.  Mr. Biden, there's just no getting around the fact that your team (and your boss) doesn't know the first thing about creating, saving or counting jobs.

This is Rich - Iran tells the US to Offer Honest Dialogue and Change

While using the word dialogue, Iran managed to still verbally spank the US and the President. Ahmadinejad offered dialogue only if the US will become honest, and give up its evil ways. In case you thought he meant just President Bush, Ahmadinejad clarified that he meant the US policies that 'go back for tens of years.' Funny, I always thought disguising a weapons program under the guise of an energy program was pretty dishonest. And calling for the destruction of Israel, while denying the Holocaust is just despicable. Meanwhile, the gaftastic VP Biden changed his mind last year, and switched (from allowing that Israel has the right to first strike) to instructing Israel to take to possibility of first strike off the table. If someone had called for my destruction, and then developed a weapon to end all others, I'd go for the first strike. Just saying ....

I wonder if talking to Iran is going to prove any more successfuly than talking to N. Korea. Any takers?

He never told us THAT

Apparently Senate Dems were caught a little off-guard by the fact that drawn-down doesn't mean a total exit from Iraq. They seem a little surprised by the President's plan to leave up to 50,000 troops there after 2010. It seems that being caught off-guard is making the rounds. Gov. Jindal was surprised by the Vice President's repetition of claims by the Center for American Progress that Louisiana is losing more than 400 jobs per day. That claim was certainly news to the Governor, and the state and national labor boards which report that Louisiana was one of the few states to gain jobs in the last quarter - oops.