Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

08 February 2014

Still No Jobs Recovery in the Great Socialist Recession

The January 2014 jobs report is out from the BLS.  Ignoring the unemployment rate, which is meaningless given the many people who have given up on finding a job in this never-ending Great Socialist Recession, the number to focus on is the employment to population ratio.  Let us examine the history of the employment to population ratio for Januaries going back to January 2007, before the sharp increase in energy prices and the subsequent financial failures.




Note that the lowest employment to population percentage was 57.6% in January 2011, prior to which our government was telling us that the employment situation was well into recovery from the recession which they had declared over much earlier than that in June 2009.  Now, in January 2014, the employment percentage is a miserly 58.1% according to the BLS.  In fact, it is really 58.0% on the same basis that the earlier employment numbers are given.  In March 2013, the BLS recategorized some workers who work in the home from the farm sector to the non-farm sector.  That re-categorization caused an artificial increase in the employment to population ratio, giving the government a desperately needed apparent increase in jobs.

So let us examine how far the jobs recovery has occurred in this never-ending recession.  The present 58.0% is an employment to population ratio which is only 0.4% higher than that of the worst January of the entire recession.  Since the drop in the employment ratio from January 2007 prior to the recession to January 2011 at the depth of the jobs recession was 5.0%, the extent of a jobs recovery is

0.4% / 5.0% = 0.08.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.  In the 4.5 years since the government says the recession ended, the jobs recovery has managed only to recover 0.08 of the lost employment to population ratio.  This is pathetic.  It is a terrible misrepresentation to say we are in a jobs recovery.  We are in a deep jobs depression and for all intents and purposes the jobs situation has been stuck in a deep pit.  Perhaps a pit with a slightly sloping bottom, but so what!  Those who claim an 8% jobs recovery over four and a half years is a recovery should be scorned.  They should be laughed out of town.

The Progressive Elitists surrounding Obama and backing his anti-business policies look down upon most Americans as people who are unable to choose their own values and manage their own lives without strong controls placed on them by these same Progressive Elitists.  They are sure they know better than most of us Americans how to manage the economy and all aspects of our need to earn a living.  They hold us in scorn and look down on us in the worst possible way.  Some of them even think the recession and such problems as high energy prices are a good thing, because of their exaggerated belief that mankind's standard of living comes at the expense of the environment.

Most of us are prepared to have the results of our work judged by those we work with, work for, sell to, and compete with.  Let us hold them to a standard that measures them by the results they achieve.  If they tout their success with a 8% jobs recovery and expect us to ignore the 92% of the recovery denied to us and the private sector due to their interference, we should turn the scorn table on them.  We must evaluate them as catastrophic failures in governance.  We must see that big government cannot produce jobs as they claimed it could.  We must see the government must get out of the way or it will keep us from creating the jobs we have proven over and over that we can create for ourselves.

The Progressive Elitists and Obama keep saying "We did not build that."  Well, we used to and we will again, if only we will get them out of our way.  Throw the Bums Out!


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