From Today’s Sacramento Bee…

Up to one-fourth of the 110,000 jobs reported as saved by federal stimulus money in California probably never were in danger, a Bee review has found.

California State University officials reported late last week that they saved more jobs with stimulus money than the number of jobs saved in Texas – and in 44 other states.

That total, 26,000 plus represents more than half of CSU’s statewide work force. However, university officials confirmed Thursday that half their workers were not going to be laid off without the stimulus dollars.

“This is not really a real number of people,” CSU spokeswoman Clara Potes-Fellow said. “It’s like a budget number.”

How can we blame this on Obama instead of the 1% who control all the wealth?

Where is this 9% productivity measure coming from? Is it GDP or some other similar term? If so, it’s an increase in productivity in the same way that the stock market and housing market were increasing this nation’s productivity before they crashed hard.

Productivity is not even remotely defined accurately by GDP. In fact gdp goes up during wars, natural disasters and other absurd economic events like the war on drugs.

Also, there are some fundamental flaws in the arguments of Mr. Kalecki. Namely that the supply of labor increases when less people are working. The supply is constant based on population. However, I do not disagree with his conclusion that current workers must work harder. This is always true when labor resources are not optimally directed, because the cost in squandering production has to be made up somehow and in a fascistic economic model that is achieved by people working harder under the current market incentives rather than working easier under the correct investment of labor and capital.

The less people that work the harder the people that work have to work.

and the less employers have to pay for that work. In turn, the more the CEO’s make in bonuses. It’s a perfect formula for the rich to get richer and the middle class and poor to be worked to death.
democracy is an illusion.
capitalism a farce.

I am confused I thought Presidents were supposed to be talking about job CREATION, not jobs saved? HMMM

I thought you guys didn’t like presidents being involved in creating jobs in the first place.
Keep government away from business and competition I believe is the way you guys prefer.
Perhaps it would be better to talk about body counts and countries ‘liberated’, spreading ‘freedom’ at the point of a gun, an ‘ownership society’. The last president created lots of jobs in the military, MIC and restaurants.

I’m not sure one ought to lean heavily on the validity of M.arxist economic thought…its not like its been widely discredited everywhere its been tried…oh wait, yeah, it has.

For those claiming capitalism is a farce, just what do you propose to replace it with? It real easy to spout off cliches out of Das Kapital and the Co.mmunist Manifesto…do you have an actual system to replace it?

The boost came from the so called stimulus package which has not created the jobs and is just a one time deal. Take away the stimulus money and there would be a flat or decline in production and a slight (under 30,000) drop in jobs.

There is real recovery though. Personel debt in the U.S. was cut by $21.6 billion in July. It’s debt that creates those boom and bust times.

We need to do something to force the oligarchs to put their money to work. Apparently the carrots offered by our representation is not working, perhaps a threat to move the top tax rate to 70% again and closing all the tax loopholes will end this elite’s rebellion based on Ain Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Anon MIC? Nice 60’s reference, have news for you, the summer of love is over. Put the hash pipe down and try living in the 21st century.

My point was is where is the job’s GROWTH not jobs saved? Oh right the President is handling American’s top issue; healthcare. But not in VA where it is; THE ECONOMY. Maybe in NJ? Nope, the top issue is; THE ECONOMY.

Maybe that was a regional thing? Nope, top issue with Americans in general? THE ECONOMY.

Sooth: Keep believing university presidents. They never lie.

Also, keep trying to delegitimize EVERYTHING that Obama and the Democrats do. It’s not delegitimizing you at all………

Coach you REALLY think those reports are created by university presidents? The president of CSU Long Beach counts the number of jobs saved? It is some HR wonk who send it to their boss who sends it to PR and the president probably.

Sounds like the first year of Obama has left you angry Coach, maybe you and Rahm Emmanuel can “hug it out” ?

“It’s debt that creates those boom and bust times.”

No, it’s Wall Street, you maroon!

It’s worth noting that Reagan had uemployment figures above 10% for about two years, 1982 and 1983, during his first term. It really wasn’t of his making, but then it really wasn’t Carter’s fault either. Part of the Republicans’ argument against Obama right now is to make government seem so powerful that he appears to be the one to blame for the economic mess. Outside of deregulation and other long-term negative impacts, the government can only affect an economy of this size for short periods. That’s what the folks in the administration know and that’s why they went with the stimulus package to stir the pot. The rest will have to be rebuilt piece by piece, by us. Sorry to get all “reality-driven” on you’s. BOKO

“Wall Street” is code for Jewish bankers. Antisemitism is alive and well in the Democratic party.

Yea, THE PEOPLE having to cover Wall Streets debts and unnecessarily risky ventures.

Sooth, I’m angry? Really? Am I the one who keeps trying to delegitimize Obama and ‘Pelonsi’?

I have plenty of problems with the Democratic agenda in Congress. They’re not forceful enough with single-payer health. They’re not forceful with the carbon emitters. They’re not forceful enough in resisting the MIC. They’re not forceful enough in refuting republican BS.

And, allow me to rephrase my earlier statement to read this: Hey Sooth, keep on believing those university officials. They never lie…….

1983 unemployment numbers were this high……was that because of Reagan? Gee, kind of puts the repubers in a quandry there huh? If they blame Obama for this, they have to blame Reagan for that……

Coach– I would ask in return, when does Obama own the mess? When does it stop being anyone/thing elses fault besides his own policies? Not to delegitimize him, but at some point he has to start sharing some of the blame, as employment has continued to tank despite his promises and assurances that it wouldnt (after all, wasnt that the promise of 2, and soon to be 3rd, Stimulus bills?). Given that his party controls both houses of Congress, anything the Repubs would like to do is irrelevant…so any and all blame lies with the Dems. They’re the cause and solution to their problems. And Obama knew this coming in…if he didnt want to inherit Bush’s mess, why did he run in the first place?

As for the Reagan quip, I dont think anyone has ever contested that Reagan, by 83, owned high unemployment numbers. He, along with Paul Volker, created them by jacking up interest rates in order to stop discretionary spending, so as to curb stagflation. And while it was quite bad for awhile, by the 4th quarter of 83 and into 84, everything turned around. We then went on to have the biggest economic boom of the modern era, which elevated Prez’s Reagan and Clinton into lore. So, hopefully it turns around for Obama like it did for Reagan…unfortunately, Obama’s policies more resemble the stagflation policies of Carter than anything Reagan was doing…it makes you wonder if he’s actually listening to Paul Volker as opposed to just dragging him out for photo ops.

But, when its finally ok to criticize Obama for something, please let us know.

“Wall Street” is code for Jewish bankers. Antisemitism is alive and well in the Democratic party.

No Jacobs, “Wall Street” is code for greedy, selfish heathens, regardless of ethnicity. Keep spinnin’ brotha.

Coach, How am I “delegitimizing” Pelosi and Obama? Am I question the vote for her to be Speaker? Did I question her residency in the district? Obama is the President, don’t like his policies but I am haven’t questioning his legitimacy to be President. Please provide proof, becuase posting news article showing administration mistakes is hardly “delegitimatize” someone.

Coach, sounds like you are waking up a year later to find “The Chosen One” has let you down. Nott he GOP’s fault!

On To economics, do I “blame” Obama for the rise in employment? Not really, I do blame him for lack of focus; he is more interested in his liberal agenda rather than focusing of the issues of the economy. What is disappointing is this pork barrel stimulus bill “that has to be passed to keep unemployment under 8%” You aren’t going to employ millions overnight via the federal government filling in potholes or fixing bridge abutments. The jobs need to be created in the PRIVATE SECTOR, you know, not where University Officials work, so that a small business can grow of 5 to 10 to100 employees and contribute tax dollars to the local and state economy and people can get hiring paying jobs and buy houses, which can get construction workers back to work, etc. Considering all of the money wasted on the stimulus bill, more people could have been hired in the private sector if the fed had declared an employment tax credit for all new employees hired. The government would pay for the employment taxes for 1 year, provided they stayed on the payroll. Good incentive for private industry to hire people more so than paying people thousands to buy Toyotas! This mess is going to take a while to get out of. One part that does appear worrisome is the real lack of interest in hiring people. As I stated above there needs to be concrete incentives for business to hire people.

I don’t really give Presidents too much credit or blame for economics unless there is a major and long term blunder which isn’t being addressed. I don’t blame Bush for the current problem either; it was a serious over extension of credit, of which there are many fingers to be pointed, which lead to the bubble and bust. Business cycles are out of most of their control, the Fed has more control over it than the President does. I would blame Carter for the Stagflation mess, which flowed into Reagan, because it went on for so long without an effective plan of action.

I do expect Obama to be focused on the economic problem and not spend all his time passing a health care bill that doesn’t add any jobs and might be scaring small business away from hiring anyone until they know how much more they are going to be taxed because of this bill

Jed Clampett

Yes, by all means, let’s put everything on the shoulders of the guy we elected to try to fix the problem. You know, he that took responsibility on the day of his inauguration with a very clear and concise speech.
First, let’s tie his hands by not allowing him to use the power of government to defeat our domestic enemies, or resolve some very real problems.
Then, let’s blind him by putting enemy combatants all around him as ‘expert advisers’.
Then let’s use the media to elevate him to the level of demigod so we can knock him down like a piñata, put a crown of thorns on his head, and torture him with insults as he carries his load up the hill.
Let’s put a bunch of cowards and traitors in control of legislating who lives and who dies for lack of healing, those who would sell out their brother for a few silver coins.
Let’s forget and absolve the actual cause of the problem, the one’s that control more wealth than the government and can therefore create and destroy jobs at will.
Let’s ignore what the followers, and possibly lovers, of Ain Rand are doing.
Let’s forget what Allan Greenspan, Rubin, Murdock, Buffett and all the rest of the Oligarchs are doing to the country by enacting their ‘Rand Inspired Plutocracy’ (RIP) revolution.
Let’s constantly redefine victory to perpetuate conflict and massive profits for a corrupt few. “I can do it with 40000 and $200 billion”, it didn’t work? “I think I can do it now with 500 thousand and $1 trillion”, that didn’t work either?, well, let’s send all our young men to the pits of hell to try and defeat our imaginary enemy while we ignore the very real enemies in our own midst.

Philosophy of the blind and mentally and morally corrupt will lead us all over a very steep precipice.

Sooth, it was very difficult to read that last post, so I’ll opine at a later date.

Merk, I realize that any decision a president makes takes a while to effect us. With that said, this economic mess is Bush’s. But, if we get 3 years into the presidency and we’re still in a recession, well, then, it’s Obama’s.

My point was this: People are already willing to blame Obama for the current economic situation. Those same people revere Reagan for his policies. However, his policies had unemployment levels at 10.1% THREE YEARS INTO HIS PRESIDENCY. I bet the repubers were blaming Carter…….

Coach– I’d cut Obama more slack if his policies weren’t continuations of Bush’s failed policies, weren’t staffed by the people who helped cause the mess (i.e., Geitner), and were not totally inneffectual, at least so far. We’ve already been through this with the Carter years…and I dont really want to repeat it with the stakes much higher given all the money on the line.

My point is, if Obama didnt want to take all of this on, if he didnt want to inherit Bush’s problems, why did he even bother to run for office? Obama, whether he likes it or not, espescially considering the frankenstein’s monsters of the stimulus failures, I mean, bills, now owns part of the blame for our economic problems. Its been his watch for almost a year…hopefully things turn around, but he’s doing the exact opposite of what Volker did the last time we were in such a situation…which is what worries me.

I don’t think Reagan or Obama can be blamed solely for the loss of jobs during their respective tenure. However, as Merk pointed out, where Reagan’s policies stimulated economic growth, Obama is pushing for policies and legislation which will cause our already fragile economy to further atrophy until there is nothing left. Between Cap and Trade and Obamacare, our economy is headed in the wrong direction.

Jed Clampett

Yes, by all means, let’s put everything on the shoulders of the guy we elected to try to fix the problem. You know, he that took responsibility on the day of his inauguration with a very clear and concise speech.
First, let’s tie his hands by not allowing him to use the power of government to defeat our domestic enemies, or resolve some very real problems.
Then, let’s blind him by putting ‘enemy combatants’ all around him as ‘expert advisers’.
Then let’s use the media to elevate him to the level of demigod so we can knock him down like a piñata, put a crown of thorns on his head via the media, and torture him with insults as he carries his load up the hill.

Let’s put a bunch of cowards and traitors in control of legislating who lives and who dies for lack of healing, those who would sell out their brother for a few silver coins.
Let’s forget and absolve the actual cause of the problem, the one’s that control more wealth than the government and can therefore create and destroy jobs at will.
Let’s ignore what the followers, and possibly lovers, of Ain Rand are doing.
Let’s forget what Allan Greenspan, Rubin, Murdock, Buffett and all the rest of the Oligarchs are doing to the country by enacting their ‘Rand Inspired Plutocracy’ (RIP) revolution.
Let’s constantly redefine victory to perpetuate conflict and ma.ssive profits for a corrupt few. “I can do it with 40000 and $200 billion”, it didn’t work? “I think I can do it now with 500 thousand and $1 trillion”, that didn’t work either?, well, let’s send all our young men to the pits of hell to try and defeat our imaginary enemy while we ignore the very real enemies in our own midst. Let’s ignore the lessons of Vietnam.

Philosophy of the blind and mentally and morally corrupt will lead us all over a very steep and deep precipice.

If productivity can be increased with less workers why would anyone in business add to their costs especially with all of the government mandates? It appears that Congress is the enemy of the working men and women in the U.S.

Another reason for Congressional Term Limits Now as incumbents who get campaign funds from log rolling and pork barrel politics financially bar competition and get re-elected 98% regardless as to whether or not they read any bills they vote for or against.

Time to return the government to the citizens and not allow the political elites continue this corruption.

Please don’t use an excerpt of a blog post as a foundation to critize the theories of the original author.

Obviously, the supply of labor can be treated as a constant for many analytical efforts. So the full thought is more related to those out of work who are seeking work, which is commonly called the unemployment rate.

Now, our system assumes that after you have been unemployed for so long, that you are no longer “seeking work” and so you are removed from the pool of available workers by the friendly federal economists who do these calculations. This means that in reference to the pool of available workers seeking employment, a recession grows that pool, which leads to more competition for the fewer jobs available in a recession. Neo-classical capitalistic economic theory says that this competition drives down the price labor can demand for its labor. This is straight, supply/demand curve analysis.

Regan crashed the economy on purpose. The argument was a recession or high inflation. A recession can wipe out high inflation and so that was the choice. The crash has caused low inflation ever since. The economy did recover under Reagan and created massive wealth for even the middle class.

The economy got weak under George Bush Sr., recovered under Clinton and died again and then recovered under Bush Jr. and died again. So Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jr. policies were able to revive the economy in one to two years.

Obama’s policy has pumped over $12 trillion (mostly in fed loans to the banking sector) or more into the economy in the last 9 months and this is making the economy worse. Then the Democrats want to cut government services (Obama’s 5% accross the board) and increase taxes while wanting to increase more stimulus money. So the Democrats plan to destroy the economy while trying to save it?

Meanwhile Obama is preaching the banks have loaned out too much while one of his financial advisors is claiming the banks aren’t loaning enough.

The Democrats’ economic plan is very incoherent. They complain about runaway spending while complaining they are spending enough. They want to get people to spend more yet they want to tax them which takes money away for them to spend. They bemoan Bush Jr. running up debt, while spending in less than one year what it took 8 years under Bush. One of Obama’s financial advisors even complained to CNN that American workers make too much money, yet it’s the Democrats that are pushing for more unions and increased minimum wages.

And there you have it folks… ‘Reagan crashed the economy o purpose’, just like the Wall Street insiders recently did. The problem for them ws that the housing bubble was growing too fast and it was becoming too costly to amass chunks of property for development.
By betting against their own positions in the the Derivatives markets and Collateral Obligations insurances, they were guaranteed a profit, all they had to do was shake the tree. Once they got the general public to cover their bets and they slowed the economy down to a crawl, they could use their winnings to purchase cheap properties to start the cycle all over again.
It could not have been done had Republicans and other corrupt politicians not played along since they took control of congress half way into Clinton’s tenure.

The best way to stimulate the economy would have been to put money in the hands of people who would spend it, instead they put it in the hands of those who didn’t need it and were sure to hoard it or use it to grow their monopolies. That was accomplished by Bushney on what started to be a 3 page document unconstitutionally ceden all authority and regulation of the public funds worth around a TRILLION dollars to an independent entity, the Fed.