Let's begin with the March employment numbers recently released by the Labor Department. Those numbers were solid. People say small businesses are getting killed by taxes and regulations from Washington, but the reality is thatthe small-business household employment survey has produced 1.1 million new jobs in the first quarter of 2010, or 371,000 per month. If that continues, the unemployment rate will drop significantly.<./b>
THIS number from the BLS is completely made up. It is the BLS best GUESS. There is NO way to accurately measure this number. What Larry is arguing is "trust the Government". Sorry we know better. Given Obama's regimes past history of inflating the initial numbers then quietly adjusting them downward later in the month, it is utterly foolish to take any of their numbers at face value.
“my conservative friends who seem to be trashing the improving economic outlook — largely, it would appear, to discredit the Obama administration.”
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I heard him say this on his radio show last week. Quite frankly, it didn’t pass the sniff test or have the ring of truth then, and it doesn’t now, either.
I think he is not discerning between a “sustaining” economy and a “roaring” economy. We saw a somewhat “roaring” or at least well-engaged economy during most of the Bush tenure. Housing prices up and unemployment way down. In fact 4% unemployment is considered “full-employment”, the theory being there are always 4% of workers, moving and looking for work or quitting for personal reasons. In other words, in 2005/06, if you didn’t have a job, you probably didn’t want a job.
Not so, now. People are being laid off and the remaining workers are doing 2 and 3 people’s jobs. As a result, efficiency, and therefore productivity is up and this leads to the stock market going up. But this is a sustaining economy ... people are buying only what they need. Extras and luxuries are generally not being purchased. So Kudlow sees commodities going up. Right, i.e., basics to the economy.
But this will not lead to increased employment. Higher taxes, even by his own words will put the brakes on any small recovery.
Here is a small example from the current news. Nicolas Cage put his island mansion up for sale for 35 million and got no offers whatsoever. Would this have happened back in 2006? I don’t think so.
I believe conservative principles are always right. Any economy has variables and ups and downs. But in the long run, if you want to increase employment, lower taxes. Lower interest rates. Reduce regulations. Reduce entitlemnents and welfare. When you do this, just about everyone is looking for a job and the economy picks up. It’s not hard to know what to do, just hard for Democrats to do it.
WTF? How do you call running up trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities and debt conducive to economic recovery? The dirty little secret in all this is that by the end of this year taxation will be greatly ramped up on the investing class and all they are doing at this point is trying to maximize profits before selling off before the storm.