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**dgdhgjjgj** · 06-11-2011, 07:41 AM

Or as Goolsbee put it, it's time for the private sector to "stand up and lead the recovery." Uhhh...they're not going to do that until they feel they're getting some kind of support---any support---out of D.C. Dear Leader extended the Bush tax laws for a couple years but promises to kill them for good in 2013. You call that support? Businesses know that they'll get smacked again in a couple of years and are planning accordingly. They aren't going to hire anyone until they feel confident they'll still be in business a few years down the road. They want certainty and all they get is uncertainty from the knuckleheads in Washington, D.C. Comprende???

This is the most anti-business administration ever.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...076568,00.html

What U.S. Economic Recovery? Five Destructive Myths

By Rana Foroohar Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Double dip is not a term that a government keen to extricate itself from the economic-crisis-management business likes to hear. A couple of weeks ago, the Obama Administration was poised to switch to growth mode. Then the ugly data started pouring in like the overflowing Mississippi. First-quarter GDP numbers showed a measly 1.8% increase, well short of the expectations of above 3%, and second-quarter estimates are not much better. Then came a report on housing-price declines that have not been seen since the Great Depression, followed by reports of consumer spending at six-month lows and weak manufacturing surveys. The worst was unemployment figures to make you cry: a mere 54,000 jobs were created in May, less than half of what was expected and less than a third of what is needed to lower a 9.1% unemployment rate.

You can hardly blame Council of Economic Advisers head Austan Goolsbee for picking this moment to retreat to his tenured university post in Chicago. The professor tried to put a good face on things, brushing away worries of a double dip and citing stiff but temporary "headwinds" from such factors as the Japanese-nuclear-disaster-related supply shocks and higher gas prices. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was somewhat more sober, admitting that the recovery was proving to be "uneven" and "frustratingly slow." Yet he gave no hint of being willing to helicopter in a third round of fiscal stimulus — at least not yet. "Monetary policy," he said, "cannot be a panacea." Or as Goolsbee put it, it's time for the private sector to "stand up and lead the recovery."

If only. There may be $2 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of American corporations globally, but firms show no signs of wanting to spend it in order to hire workers at home, however much Washington might hope they will. Meanwhile, the average American is feeling poorer by the week. "If one looks at unemployment and housing, it's clear that for all practical purposes, we have yet to fully get out of recession," says Harvard economist Ken Rogoff, summing up what everyone who doesn't live inside the Beltway Bubble is thinking. While the White House's official 2011 growth estimate, locked in before Japan and the oil shock, is still 3.1%, most economic seers are betting on 2.6%. That's not nearly enough to propel us out of an unemployment crisis that threatens to create a lost generation of workers who can't find good jobs and may never find them. Welcome to the 2% economy.

06-11-2011, 07:41 AM	#1
dgdhgjjgj Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 481 Senior Member	TIME: What Recovery? Or as Goolsbee put it, it's time for the private sector to "stand up and lead the recovery." Uhhh...they're not going to do that until they feel they're getting some kind of support---any support---out of D.C. Dear Leader extended the Bush tax laws for a couple years but promises to kill them for good in 2013. You call that support? Businesses know that they'll get smacked again in a couple of years and are planning accordingly. They aren't going to hire anyone until they feel confident they'll still be in business a few years down the road. They want certainty and all they get is uncertainty from the knuckleheads in Washington, D.C. Comprende??? This is the most anti-business administration ever. http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...076568,00.html What U.S. Economic Recovery? Five Destructive Myths By Rana Foroohar Wednesday, June 08, 2011 Double dip is not a term that a government keen to extricate itself from the economic-crisis-management business likes to hear. A couple of weeks ago, the Obama Administration was poised to switch to growth mode. Then the ugly data started pouring in like the overflowing Mississippi. First-quarter GDP numbers showed a measly 1.8% increase, well short of the expectations of above 3%, and second-quarter estimates are not much better. Then came a report on housing-price declines that have not been seen since the Great Depression, followed by reports of consumer spending at six-month lows and weak manufacturing surveys. The worst was unemployment figures to make you cry: a mere 54,000 jobs were created in May, less than half of what was expected and less than a third of what is needed to lower a 9.1% unemployment rate. You can hardly blame Council of Economic Advisers head Austan Goolsbee for picking this moment to retreat to his tenured university post in Chicago. The professor tried to put a good face on things, brushing away worries of a double dip and citing stiff but temporary "headwinds" from such factors as the Japanese-nuclear-disaster-related supply shocks and higher gas prices. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was somewhat more sober, admitting that the recovery was proving to be "uneven" and "frustratingly slow." Yet he gave no hint of being willing to helicopter in a third round of fiscal stimulus — at least not yet. "Monetary policy," he said, "cannot be a panacea." Or as Goolsbee put it, it's time for the private sector to "stand up and lead the recovery." If only. There may be $2 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of American corporations globally, but firms show no signs of wanting to spend it in order to hire workers at home, however much Washington might hope they will. Meanwhile, the average American is feeling poorer by the week. "If one looks at unemployment and housing, it's clear that for all practical purposes, we have yet to fully get out of recession," says Harvard economist Ken Rogoff, summing up what everyone who doesn't live inside the Beltway Bubble is thinking. While the White House's official 2011 growth estimate, locked in before Japan and the oil shock, is still 3.1%, most economic seers are betting on 2.6%. That's not nearly enough to propel us out of an unemployment crisis that threatens to create a lost generation of workers who can't find good jobs and may never find them. Welcome to the 2% economy.
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