Working Hard and Living in the Shadows

It has been several days since the President gave his State of the Union Address.  Unlike many of my contemporaries, I like to wait a few days and re-read, and digest his remarks several times or otherwise like them, I would just pen worthless vitriolic dispositions either in praise or disdain for the Commander in chief. I mean truth be told I anticipate and expect that all politicians, regardless of party, sex and/or gender LIE.

 

I listened attentively to the #SOTU on the radio and afterwards, downloaded a copy of the text of the complete address.  There are several things that stood out which in reality are both true and false, depending on which side of the tracks you are located. First, he stated: “The lowest unemployment rate in over five years.  A rebounding housing market.”

This is basically what the President has been repeating for the last few years as if he believed just by saying it over and over again it will make it true. First and foremost, housing market is flat and uneven across the nation, let alone rebounding. Fact is that only an idiot would  believe the happy talk coming out of the White House, Federal Reserve and Treasury Dept. when it comes to the real unemployment rate and just how bad (and bad isn’t good in this case) major segments of the US population are doing from an economic purview. The true unemployment rate of those not working is almost 40 percent and not the 6.7% advertised by the Fed. By sheer tricknology alone, Obama Keynesian economists cite the rising US stock market as evidence the economy is picking up steam yet simultaneously act truly surprised by the lack of hiring across the nation. Their description of the unemployment rate only describes people who are currently working or looking for work which mean if you are unemployed and not seeking a job you may as well be employed by their math since unemployment in its truest definition refers to the portion of people who do not have any job, full or part-time. Not to mention that as a nation, we need to add at least 127,000 jobs each month just to keep up with our annual population increase. In December we saw only 74,000 jobs added, of which most were temporary and part-time for the holiday season and represented the lowest increase since Jan 2011.

The manner in which unemployment presently is calculated doesn’t even include folk who have just entered the labor force and haven't found a job. Which brings us to his last point and begs the query, why and how is the US stock market hitting theserecord highs while so many are unemployed? For one, 95 percent of the new income that has been generated since 2009 has mostly gone to the top 1 percent. This has mainly been the result of the Administrations “top down” economic policies which encourage companies to keep their profits strong by not hiring folk.  Moreover, there is Quantative Easing (QE) which promotes that every month, the Federal Reserve buy bonds so it can inject $85 billion into the money supply. So the folk with money in essence can make more money why all else feel this devaluation of the currency in our pockets since the result is inflation that only pushes all prices higher, including stocks.

Then there is Obamacare, which is really a throwback tariff that in essence enables big companies to get paid for each full-time worker they cover and provides strong incentives for small businesses to stay below 50 full-time workers. The reality is that longer unemployment benefits or subsidized government-run health care are the kind of policies that contribute to the systemic discouragement of production & employment. This maybe one factor contributing to the observation that for the first time ever in America, working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps.

In simple terms, with a smaller proportion of Americans in the overall workforce, the policy of the present administration is plutocratic at best and corporatist at worse since government benefits are handouts that are approved as acceptable for the wealthy, but bad for Americans in general – whether employed, under employed or unemployed.

The only thing that we have to sale to the world if one wants to keep it real are fraudulent and toxic financial instruments and other complex papers and GMO foods that no one around the world even wants to purchase. We have money to spend too, however as of 2012, we have spent $682 billion on defense, while as a nation we have nearly 4 million U.S. workers laboring at or belowminimum wage, with the percentage of Hispanic and African-American children living in poverty, growing an now at 36% - numbers that show how Obama’s economic policy hits and hurts the younger and more economically disadvantaged members of society more severely.

The President also stated, “Today, women make up about half our workforce.  But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.  That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. A woman deserves equal pay for equal work.” I find this comical albeit it true, but it reminds me that he goes out of his way to mention women, gays, and even the needs of foreign nation over his largest constituency – African Americans and the poor.  He never mentioned “poverty” or “the poor”” or “African Americans in his #SOTU address, and he never will. Don’t hold your breath to hear him say: “A black person deserves equal pay for equal work. “ Funny seeing that Barack Obamacaptured 93% of the black vote in 2012 and our reward remains to be what it was under prior presidents - Jobless, homeless and in poverty.

And even “by lifting the minimum wage to $10.10” this will not change, for if one works part-time, 29 hours a week for fifty-two weeks they will only make $15,080 annually, a figure still well below the poverty line in the U.S. for an individual. And the President saying openly that “I will direct the Treasury to create a new way for working Americans to start their own retirement savings: MyRA. It’s a new savings bond that encourages folks to build a nest egg.  MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in… “  Sounds more like a snake oil salesman that actually policy given no one can predict or guarantee a return on any investment without doing some crooked ole shyster shit. And even worse, the audacity for him to make us give our money to the fraudulent big investment banks that caused these current troubled fiscal times is anti-American. We saw what happened in Greece. If this is allowed, then one can be certain that the “my” will become the property of the government and the banking houses on Wall Street. It is not by accident that the majority of financial wealth controlled by the bottom 60 percent of all Americans is just 2.3 percent.

I don’t see any reality in the conditional’s in the forms of: if”, “can”, and could” mentioned by the President to help and serve the needs of the hardest hit and still suffering on Main street. Five years in to Obama’s presidency the number of African-Americans participating in the labor force is at its lowest point everand still dropping. Still in America, data continues to show that African Americans are still more likely to get denied a home lone than other ethnic groups.

Thus it is easy to see why the current rate for African American men in the labor force fell to 65.6 percent in December, the lowest on record. I mean in America we have more than 2.3 million incarcerated across the country, which by law obviates a convicted felons the right to vote, meaning that the 5.9 million former and current felons disenfranchised from voting are likely to remain in poverty, of which 37% of that 5.8 million are African Americans.

The #SOTU only reinforced what I understand about the present Administration, American politics and the economic policies of our nation spawned from the bowels of Wall Street. Both Bush & Obama policymakers destroyed the US economy for the sake of short-term corporate profits via jobs off-shoring & deregulation for the folk who already got it good. And no amount of fancy word play can change that for no matter who is in office, no matter their race or gender, the rest of us will have to keep on working hard and living in the shadows, that is if we have a job. And if you think Detriot is bad, in reality that is what the future of America holds, but I will specifically address that later.

If Unemployed, You Should Starve, says Michele Bachmann

Tale of 2 America’s: Separate and Unequal

America is falling apart and is reverting to what it always was: two nations inside of one. A frightening prospective but not unexpected given the lack of leadership in Washington; both party’s included as well as each branch of government. Maybe unbeknownst to the President also, given that he is asking people to fight on his behalf yet forgetting that it is hard for people to fight when they are hungry or homeless.

Once the call of this nation was separate but equal, a statement that cannot be validated even by simple algebra. Unfortunately in today’s parlance, all indicators reveal the overt reality that as a nation, we are separate and unequal – a lucid fact visible in black and white. If this divide is not mended, there will be hell on the avenues across this great nation.

Although we excel in some things, as a people, African Americans comprise 13% of Americans but only 4% of U.S. physicians, 3.2% of Lawyers, and less than 1% of architects but 69% of NFL, 80% of NBA and 98% of all rappers. The infant mortality rate of African Americans is 13.4 deaths per 1,000 live births compared to 5.5 and 5.7 for Hispanics and whites accordingly. Just 12 % of AA fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 % of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

What is real is that we are our worse enemy and that the American oligarchical powers have used this to their advantage. A new report has just been released confirming that as Africa Americans we watch more TV than any other racial/ethnic group in the U.S. according to figures released on March 30, 2011. Moreover, Based on data collected in November 2010, African Americans used their TVs an average of 7 hours, 12 minutes each day — above the U.S. average of 5 hours, 11 minutes. Yet still, the disparities across the board are due to systemic practices of racism that elected leaders, regardless of race and political affiliation ignore as well.

Between 2003 and 2007, African American mothers had infant mortality rates at least twice as high as white mothers and AA children ages 17 and under were nearly 50 percent more likely to be without private or government health insurance than white children and that AA children ages 18 and under were three times more likely to live in single-parent households than white children. Nearly two-thirds of all AA children lived in a single–parent household and were twice as likely as white children to live in a household where no parent had full-time or year-round employment. Just one-third of AA children had a parent with a high school diploma, 24 % had a parent with at least some college experience, and less than 15 % had a parent who held a bachelor’s degree. These figures are not from the Ante-bellum south or during Jim Crow, but from the past few years and are just some of the reasons why one out of every three AA children lives in poverty compared with one out of every ten white children.

We are poor, jobless and in pain yet the nation’s first African American President and his political party ignore our desperate pleas as equally as the Republicans. Although Obama has proposed a job plan, it is difficult to see, unless targeted in urban areas and toward African American businesses, how this will aid in reducing the massive rate of unemployment we face.

For example, the dramatic difference with respect to access to capital. According to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau data, the median level of net worth among blacks is $6,200, eleven times lower than whites. Evidence shows that at startup, black entrepreneurs experience higher loan denial and tend to pay higher interest rates than white-owned businesses. Moreover, white-owned businesses have more than $80,000 of initial capital on average compared to black-owned businesses have less than $30,000 startup capital.

Regardless of the systemic constraints, we also must face the truth of aiding in our own demise and allowing these two nations within one to exist. From education to the correctional system this is observable. More than two-thirds of African American male dropouts are expected to serve time in state or federal prison. It would be idiotic to overlook the impact that arrests and incarceration have on African American families and communities. Since the 1990s, nearly one in three African-American men aged 20-29 were under criminal justice supervision, while more than two out of five had been incarcerated. Making African American males being incarcerated (4,618 per 100,000) 6 times more likely to be held in custody than white males: resulting in an estimated 1,559,200 children had a father in prison at midyear 2007; almost half (46%) were children of black fathers.Something is wrong with this America, the segment that has basically forgotten the sacrifices others made decades before them in order for them to be complacent, for they believe that they have theirs and that is all that matters.

But this is not reality. Today’s African American youth watch TV around 6 hours a day compared to 3 hours to whites and are exposed 6 hours more in total to all media when compared to white youth Even worse is that reading newspapers or books is basically none existence for African American youth, with whites and Asians reading way more each day, especially books, which if data is accurate, African American read on average 11 minutes a day and 33 minutes in total in terms of all print media.

If they do reach the point of completing High school and attending college, the nationwide graduation rate for African Americans is 42 %, most of which are females. As of five years ago, fewer than 8 % of young African American males graduated from college compared to 17% of white males in the same age group. What does this mean? It means that "The 4.5 million African American men ages 15 to 29 represent 14% of the U.S. male population of that age and
12% of all African Americans in the U.S. Their high rates of death, incarceration, and unemployment, and relatively low levels of college graduation rates raise concerns for African American families and the nation’s economy."

Yes America used to be a tale of two nations, black and white and separate but equal. Now this has returned however this time these two places are substantially unequal. Yes Obama wants us to get to marching, but he is missing the big social picture. People cannot march when sick and hungry. And they will not if the president is not open equally to hearing their pain. Instead they will be stealing copper from air conditioners and telephone poles, forming flash mobs and robbing stores and driving truck through beauty supply stores and stealing natural Indian hair.This is the new America and once people really get hungry, there will be hell to pay.

Congress has No Job Plan and Obama’s Job Speech: No Substance- No Peace

When I started High School in the tenth grade in Memphis in 1977, my homeroom teacher Dr. Meyer’s was also my economics instructor. Although a public high school, at least a third of my teachers had PhD’s. In his class, according to him I did so well that he suggested I take another economics class as an elective albeit he knew I was concentrating in math and science classes. Thus via a flip of a coin I took microeconomics over macroeconomics. Herein this essay begins, upon a reading of the President’s job speech.

I have come to accept as abstruse as it may seem for some to grasp, that the plausible allure for present day politicians regardless of race, gender and political affiliation, must either be the ability to lie or the scarious inability to see a truth in order to tell it like it is. All because it is clear they do not want to tell us the truth about the nation’s current economic conundrum – that it has taken decades to create this problem, that there is no easy solution out of this mess, or worse that they intentionally vitiate solutions because they have no answers because they have no answers and lack the scrotum to say honestly it will require decades to get out of this mess, that it will be hard and that Americans will have to tolerate difficult times and live within our means to do so.

Telling the truth, no matter how saddening or worrisome lost on politicians even Obama. Not to mention it is difficult for a class of millionaires like Washington, DC politicians the pains economically us regular folks feel. Factually since 1960, there has never been a time in which four straight months of stagnate job growth as we have just seen has never manifested without a recessionary period to follow. Yet politicians on both sides of the aisles quip they have answers and solutions to solve this problem in the immediate future – a bold face lie. They say the recession is over, that we will not experience a double dip recession and that the nation is not in a depression – a bold face lie.

Now as for the President’s speech, it was passionate, but passion and great subject verb agreement does not amount to substance. I disagree with GOP stalwarts who assert a joint session was not the place for such a speech under the auspices it was not an urgent situation. But as I stated prior, for people who are not wealth like most inside the beltway politicians are hurting and the state of the economy is a serious national security issue.

Still with this said, Obama’s speech was more of the same rah rah type. Not that it was bad, but still the same old same old. Only thing missing was a “cash for clunkers” program. Why because it was not specific and talks around what I see and experience as a person under employed who has grown through $300,000 of savings just to keep from losing his home. I guess he knows that in this weak economy his numbers are bad but that the approval for congress is worse. On the ground, those of us without sufficient employment know that things will most likely get worse before they get better and that none of what he proposed even attempts to thwart the impact of the troubles of Europe through its banking and market crisis on the average American citizen, for consumers remain deep in debt and the depression in the housing market has yet to hit bottom.

We in touch and on the ground see the economy is too weak to add enough jobs monthly to even keep up with US population growth. My understanding of microeconomics and math indicates anything less 140,000 jobs a month will only keep adding to the ranks of the unemployed.

The plan had nothing I would consider big or different. He should have [1] offered to implement some sort of profit tax on large corporations that earn more than 20 million annually in profits of around 4 to 6 percent. He should have [2] offered some type of net job creation tax for large and small businesses for about a five year period to serve as an incentive for job creation that would said companies a tax credit that would cover at least a third of their salaries for that time period. He should [3] look at international growth sectors and instituted a re-employment service as opposed to unemployment that focus on industry specific training programs that would prepare the young and poor for skilled jobs.

Nothing in his proposal is punitive. He should have [5] mentioned that the top 100 companies in the US have uprooted around 3 million jobs here in the states over the past decade yet created around 2.5 million jobs overseas. He should have [6] specifically addressed Sarbanes-Oxley regulations and only implement them for corporations making under $200 million annually (I could only imagine the strain and expense on businesses with respect to their legal cost alone to comply).

Lastly, he should [7] reinstate Glass-Stegall, [8] eliminate Dodd-Frank, [9] increase tax rates on short term capital gains for hedge funds for example who create most of the market volatility and lower long term capital gains taxes and lastly – [10] relegalize the sale of marijuana.

This is just what I think, based on what I learned from Dr. Meyer in high school and my subsequent readings since then. It aided me in being able to amass more than $300,000 in investments without the aid of a broker or financial planner; although I have been using it up to stay afloat after my business closed and lost full time employment before then.

Politicians are scared to tell us the truth, do not understand the problem and too busy with the interest of large corporations to really solve or care about us little folk. They are afraid to tell us and won’t tell us the truth, and Obama’s plan is nothing more than the same thing he did the first two years while in office – hum bug.

Neither the congress nor the President can honestly feel what we feel on the ground. They argue about finding funds to provide for simple people who have lost everything due to floods, fires and tornadoes. They do not see that the games they play are not funn for us and look away from the possibility of what has been seen in France, Greece, Italy, Syria, Israel, England and else where in the form of civil disobedience can manifest over here. Nice speech Mr. President. Way to sit on your hands Congress. Just be reminded though – No Substance, No peace. For republiacns and democrats seem to not understand I am human capital not political capital.

US Economy to African Americas Says "Once a Slave Always a Slave

Listening to all of this discussion inside the beltway on the deficit, our national debt and raising the debt ceiling should get some folk to investigate their personal and individual connection with all of these events we too often define as having nothing to do with us. But what is missed is how all of the bickering and indecisiveness hurts African Americans more than any other racial/ethnic groups. Now this is not to assert that other folks are not hurting economically, just that the history is incessant and well verified to this observation.

It has been reported that the current national economic recession that officially began in December 2007 and said to have ended last year, continues to take a major toll of workers, in particular black males. In theory the back and forth between the Whitehouse and House Republicans is to deal with creating an environment, via budget cuts to improve the economy and grow jobs. But jobs for whom? Not African Americans.

As of April 2009, the recession had already abrogated about 6 percent of all employed men and about 10 percent of the jobs held by black men at the time. Since the onset of the recession overall black unemployment rate increased at a faster rate than whites. And after the recovery started in June of 2009, the unemployment rate for blacks increased two percentage points above 16 percent while white unemployment has returned to its rate prior to the recover (8.7%). African Americans have been the hardest hit during each of the past recessions. For example, during the 1990-91 recession Asians and Hispanics gained 55,104 jobs and 60,040 jobs, respectively, but blacks lost 59,479 jobs, especially in states with the highest immigration.

A recent study by Andrew Sum, professor of economics and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., called “The Impacts of the 2007-2009 National Recession on Male Employment in the U.S. through January 2009; noted that Black male employment fell by 6.4 percent (482,000), compared to overall Black employment at almost 3 percent (463,000); and that the unemployment gap between Black men and women increased with Blacks the only group where the gap favors women. Currently, a third of blacks live in poverty with employers tending to fire blacks while retaining and hiring people of other ethnicities during a recession.

What makes all of this worse is the seemingly endless onslaught of republican legislation outside of Washington that impacts if not intentionally, brazenly accrues more harm with those traditionally at the bottom of the economic totem pole. In Alabama, U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) whose district was one of the hardest hit by the recent plague of Tornado’s across the south, prior to this tragedy along with other Alabama Republicans, voted against funding for satellites that are critical for accurate storm forecasting.

Strange how Karma works, Bachus, Martha Roby, Mo Brooks, Robert Aderholt, Mike Rogers, and Jo Bonner--voted against a bill that would save lives in rural areas via more accurate weather information and warning systems suggesting that they were a waste of money and unnecessary. Lamentably they were more interested in protecting the $5.5 billion in subsidies and foregone royalty payments for Big Oil.

In Florida, GOP Lawmakers have just approved deep cuts in unemployment benefits. Legislators have just passed a measure that would cut maximum state benefits to 23 weeks from 26 when the state has a jobless rate near 11 percent. The rate for African Americans in the state is near 20 percent.

Across the nation, April’s unemployment figures display how African-Americans are suffering. Along with increased cost for gas and other staples, it is no wonder household participation in food stamps continues to steadily luxuriate. Data reported by the Department of Agriculture for February of this year evince that an additional 11,517 recipients were added, representing a household participation rate of about 14 percent nationally.

Now something has to give. Either folks become proactive and recognize how dire these circumstances are for the masses, and take the time to learn more about economics, saving and global economics as a function of the value of the dollar or either we continue to lag behind. Too many folk think and worse, believe that President Obama has the ability to do something about this or that he actually cares. The reality is that actions speak better than words.

Under Obama’s current budget, federal prison spending will rise from $6.2 billion to $6.8 billion. His budget also desires to reduce $5.1 billion in funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance program to $2.57 billion. Last year he cut spending for Food stamp programs.

We need to look at this troubled period with objective eyes, for the way I see it, Republicans in the house and Congress, as well as the Democrats under the leadership of the current administration, do not have the interest, or best interest of our community at hand and both seem content to let us suffer most of the burden of this faltering economy. For they understand, live practice and through their actions know that when it comes to Money, credit, and debt: Once a slave always a slave.

Who is the real madoff: African Americnas Still Display Scant Signs of Economic Improvement

By definition, to improve is to enhance in value or quality — to make better. Yet more than 40 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, there is still no noticeable improvement in the quality of life in the African American community.

A new report suggests that a large corpus of the African American community has made very little progress when compared to whites over the past few decades. According to a survey given to African American adults, seven out of 10 adults view today as very tough times for their children and perceive poor black youth as falling further behind. Yet, unlike adults, two out of three African American youth perceive current times as being “very good or OK.”

In addition to survey data, the report also provides economic data on opportunity trends. Four out of ten black children are born into poverty compared to less than one in ten for whites. Less than 40 percent live with two parents versus 75 percent for whites. African American children are statistically more likely to die before their first birthday or become obese in school.

More startling is the finding that 85 percent of African American children in the fourth grade cannot read or do math at their grade level, and almost half eventually drop out of school. A young African American male born over the past decade has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime.

It is essential that we remember that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was more than a dreamer; he was a catalyst. We cannot think we have it made, since the numbers show us otherwise.

In 2010 the unemployment, underemployment and hidden unemployment rate for black 16 to 29-year-olds was 40 percent and 43 percent for black males. The large number of young black adults not working full-time jobs will severely limit their future employability, earnings and ability to support their families.

It was Dr. King who said, "It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps."

The Face of Unemployment in America

Job Loss, USA

Most Americans are keenly aware of the horrible economic state of affairs the country is facing. However, there is a small group of people — those with jobs and benefits — who don't think the economic outlook is as bad as some say. In addition, they don't understand that our problems are part of a larger and more systemic global economic problem that is just as impactful as what we experience directly at home. This essay is for such people to inform them of the dramatic changes that may suggest that the economy is not going to improve anytime soon.

On Thursday, Oct. 28, the pharmacy chain operator CVS Caremark announced it will eliminate 300 employees who work in customer support and other operations to reduce corporate costs. These job cuts will affect staffers across the country, but more than half are at the company's customer support center at its headquarters in Woonsocket, R.I.

Astoria, New York-based Home Services Systems Inc., a home care agency that provides 1,900 seniors across the city with personal care services such as feeding, cleaning and bathing, reported it may be forced to and lay off more than 2,000 home attendants by year's end after losing its long-standing contract with the city. The agency filed a notice with the state Labor Department on Oct. 14 that indicated 2,065 employees will be laid off as a result of the contract loss.

On Friday, Oct. 29, a report was leaked regarding plans for a large reduction in the workforce of the Savannah River Nuclear Solutions at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., by 2012, due to the completion of work under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. An internal memo details a phased workforce restructuring plan that would reduce the workforce by 1,400 employees, through a two-phased involuntary separation plan.

West Penn Allegheny Health System of Pittsburgh, Pa., announced that it also will be laying off employees. Four hundred workers will lose their jobs as part of an ongoing restructuring plan.

And states have had their own share of woes as well. New York Gov. David Paterson said he plans to lay off an additional 898 public employees by the end of the year.

I am just presenting this information to show people that it is bad and may even be getting worse. The sad truth is that this is not reported on television and it is beyond me why it isn’t. We all need to prepare ourselves for the future, because the economy will not be improving anytime soon.

Why Double Digit Unemployment Is the Future for America

Politics can be reduced to a game of he said she said with the gender specific pronouns being replaced by the nouns Democrats and Republicans. This is certainly clear with the debate on unemployment. Both parties have been successful at taking the focus away from the real issue, which is unemployment, choosing instead to focus on the fake issue — extension of benefits for the unemployed.

Neither side of the aisle has addressed unemployment outside of name calling and bickering. The real question, which neither the Republicans nor the Obama administration is asking, is where do 8.4 million jobs that were lost come from and what is required to be done for the younger generation entering the job market to also have jobs?

The fact is that no program can make up for the loss of that many jobs, so America will have to get accustomed to double digit unemployment. Although many accept the government's projected figure of around 10 percent for unemployment, I have calculated it to be more like 25 for the general population. Which means if it is that high for the general population, the 16 percent propounded to represent the unemployment rate for African Americans is really closer to 35 percent.

The way unemployment figures are calculated currently, military, college students, part-time workers and seniors are not included in the statistics. As it stands, the economic downturn has hit the African American community harder than any other group. This was also true during the Great Depression when we also were impacted disproportionately.

New data shows that the median duration of unemployment is higher today than any time in U.S. history and is really is more than twice as high today than any time in the last 50 years. The reason is a function of two main components: the loss of jobs to cheap labor abroad and the impact of technology on society.

Many jobs over the last 50 years have been eliminated due to technology. No longer are men required to dig ditches, package or can food items or man gas stations. No longer do we focus on creating and manufacturing as in past decades but rather bartering our services. Obama's solution as a function of the observed 1.5 dip recession, is to institute a large-scale national jobs program that would have the government pay these wages directly. The Republicans on the other hand have no specific policy directive. Both of these approaches are equally ineffective and miss the problem completely.

The new American job market will be one filled with temporary hiring and part-time employment. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can institute any policy to change the future landscape of the American job market because of the impact that technological advancement plays in increasing the ranks of the unemployed.I said it before and I will say it again, there is no such thing as a jobless recovery.

How Bad the Economy really is

handle your business folk

While many of us walk around oblivious too the serious economic conundrum our country is in, and remain inattentive to the world around us and feel secure in our little niche with our weekly pay checks, it is really a troubling time in our beloved country. The trouble from the way I see is multifaceted yet all inter-related. First the wild west financial entrepreneurship of recent years that lead to the creation of the derivatives, credit default swaps, collateralized debt instruments, and the new boy on the block cap n trade futures. The reason they became so popular is because they allowed Wall Street banks to get around financial regulations because they were kept of banks balance sheets. Then they were packaged and sold for many times the values of the actual loans and when the housing market crashed they became basically worthless.

My question I guess is why do we keep on doing the same dumb stuff? In the 1980s, we observed the Texas real estate bust; what we saw then is what we see happening now - folks taking government money and basically gambling with it to make a profit that the US citizen would have to take the loss for. My concern is that the Treasury and the FRB under the Obama administration are trying to pull the wool over our eyes. First by not trying to examine this economic crisis holistically(letting the Feds and Treasury examine this in the open) and rock us to sleep with the story line that all is well and will be happily ever after.

Then there is the fact that our stagnant economic growth is also a function of lower tax revenues which means we as a nation will have to borrow more and more money. As of now, the proposed Obama activities including Cap N Trade and Health care reform will only stagnant growth more given their considerable cost. Even the Chinese government has stated publically their concerns with the US government debt since China holds a major portion of such debt. China owns US government bonds and Treasury notes at or approaching the $700bn of the bonds at the end of 2008.

Now the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, based on 2009 data stated that 702 banks with a combined $402 billion in assets are at risk of failure this year. With all of this overt information, they to me are getting it all twisted again. They say they want to stimulate lending but this can’t be done by throwing money at banks. The reason banks are not lending to each other is not because of a lack of loot to go around but because banks have no faith in the ability of borrowers to repay their debts for none of us know what institutions are solvent or on solid ground. In the great depression, banks failed because folk took their money out during the runs on banks. Today it’s due to the strange financial investment tools that financial institutions keep off of their books and we don’t know what their value is or if they are worth anything at all.

Obama as his predecessor George W. Bush lean toward a jobless recovery but have taken no steps to stop the increasing levels of unemployment. After reading his 2,585-page, $3.8 trillion document 2011 federal budget it is obvious that we will continue to go father into debt and that the brunt of this will be felt by us the average citizen. In his State of the Union Address he said that he would have a 3 year freeze on non discretionary spending but one cannot tell from reading his budget nor see how this will help our economy.

First, by December 31, 2010, most of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), that comprised the Obama stimulus package, will expire. This will leave states in even worse position than they were before. Last year even with the stimulus money, 48 states already had significant budget gaps. In Hawaii, folk may not get their tax refunds until August and in California, they have been giving out IOU’s. Across the country we see lay off is in Police departments and schools not to mention the closings of entire police departments and many schools. In San Francisco they plan to lay off more than 900 school teachers, administrators and staff. Des Moines Public school officials plan to cut almost 500 jobs and here in Georgia, Fulton County plans to cut 1000 jobs and DeKalb County anticipates closing a dozen schools over the next two years. In Massachusetts, they are considering eliminating funding for a program providing housing vouchers to homeless families. California has proposed $1.5 billion in reductions to kindergarten through 12th grade education and community college funding. In Arizona, the state trust fund that pays for jobless benefits is expected to run dry this week meaning that if they will continue to pay unemployment they will have to borrow $250 million from the U.S. Treasury in 2010. About 30 states have had to borrow federal money to do the same thing

Yet still with all of this, there are no proposed political reforms to deal with bankers who will likely see any attempt for a new independent agency to protect consumers as a threat to their business; and there is still norealistic effort to deal with job loss and creation. Truth is needs to generate an estimated 1.5 million new jobs each year simply to keep up with new workers entering the job market annually. Not to mention we will need to create 600K jobs a month to reduce unemployment to 8.5% to make his budget practical.

All I am saying is that before things get better, they will get worse. Our solution is not to flood the market with money for this is not a liquidity issue but rather one of jobs, accruing debt and banks not know the value of other banks. All the Obama policy is doing is transferring risk from private banks to government which aint good. And instead of trying to restore trust in our financial system, Summers, Geithner, Bernanke and the boys have tried to sweep the problems under the rug while at the same time telling us there is no need for reform.

Just be honest you inside the beltway folk. The government has committed to give trillions to the financial industry but the way I see it will only lead to inflation and never reach the small businesses like mine who are going out of business every day. Truth is most of the loot has gone to states to help tryt and keep unemployment rolls open, medicare payments and teachers employed – but this has not worked. All I suggest is that you work on the economy and leave this healthcare alone for now – handle your business folk before we become the next Greece.

1967 Again, maybe?

As a kid, I recall a little of the Detroit Riot of 1967. I was in Memphis and the flames on the front porch were a lot more visible at the time. It began after a police raid in a predominantly black neighborhood. And although race was significant as well as police brutality, economic, and social factors such as lack of affordable housing, added to the Riot, another one may be brewing in the D-town, if it don’t become a ghost town first. Today may be even worse with the collapse of the big car manufacturers, Ford, Chrysler and GM. Monday, and this Dec 23, 2008 report noting that the average price of a home is now $18,513 (less than a new car) and unemployment has reached 21 percent. Just in June the average home price was $19,448.

In October, 98 metropolitan areas reported jobless rates of at which was up 7.0 percent, up from 16 areas a year earlier, In October, Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich., Add to the mix a 21.7% graduation rate for the 11th largest district in the country, Detroit Schools – this may be where the economic crisis first blows up and gets an human face.

Nationally some project that the December's job loss total will exceed November's and predicts the economy will have lost 3 million to 4 million jobs for the two years ending at December 2009. True, I look at it as the glass is half full and with the understanding that there aint no consistent definition of a Depression. The only consistent thing is the presence of long scale and extended unemployment. Im just cautious and with the way things work now: online banking and ATMS. Long lines in hospital emergency rooms because of no insurance and food prices across the country increasing about 7 percent alone in 2008, one doesn’t have to be absorbed with economics to know things do not look too good or that the depression looming will look a lot different than the great depressin. For if it ever gets to where 6 out of 10 households are economically distressed, then something is liable to hit the fan – question is where? So tell me what it looks like in your city.