United Liberty

Last week, it was announced that unemployment had risen .1%.  The economy only gained 54,000 jobs.  The Dow was moving in the wrong direction, which affects millions of Americans who don’t remotely qualify as “rich”.  What does all of this mean?  It’s simple.  That’s the idea that we’re in a recovery has as much basis if fact as unicorns and leprechauns.

While we may not be having the collapse we were just a couple of years ago, we’re clearly not in anything approaching a recovery.  In a recovery, people go to work.  The stock markets builds.  Things start moving in a much more positive direction.  However, that just ain’t happening.

Instead, we have a great deal of instability.  While unemployment may improve over several months, it can then drop over the next month or two.  Even with a generally downward trend, that instability doesn’t exactly engender confidence in the US economy.

Things are rough all over though.  Greece is looking to the EU for yet another round of bailouts (and people are already protesting the necessary austerity measures to go along with it). Portugal has had a recent change in government due to their economy as well.  No one seems to really be doing well.

Now, it’s easy for people to see a couple of indicators and say “See?  It’s getting better.”  Honestly, I wish that was the truth.  However, that just ain’t the case.  Instead, those are false indicators of recovery…or so they seem at this point.  Had indicators improved over a longer period of time, it might have been fine.  Instead, investors are unsure what they should be doing with their money.  They seem to decide that it’s best to just sit on their money for the time being.  That means money isn’t being invested, money needed to create new jobs.

As has been speculated, the unemployment numbers for May show a slowing job market and an unemployment rate that has increased to 9.1%; according to figures released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The U.S. economy may be in for a prolonged period of soft growth as employers hired the fewest number of workers in eight months in May and the unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 54,000 last month, the Labor Department said, fewer than the most pessimistic forecast in the Reuters survey and just over a third of what economists had expected.

The employment report which showed broad weakness confirmed the loss of momentum in the economy already flagged by other data from consumer spending to manufacturing, and stoked fears the economy could be facing a more troubling stretch of weakness than had been thought.

“There are plenty of reasons to expect the third quarter will be better. But the question is now becoming how much better?,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Economists had pinned the economy’s sluggishness largely on high energy prices, supply chain disruptions stemming from Japan’s earthquake and tornadoes and flooding in the U.S. Midwest and South. The department said it found “no clear impact” from weather on the jobs figures.

The private sector, which has shouldered the burden of job creation added just 83,000 jobs, the least since last June, while government payrolls dropped 29,000.

Adding to the gloomy labor market picture, about 39,000 fewer jobs were created in March and April than previously estimated.
[…]
Payrolls had been expected to rise 150,000, with private employment gaining 175,000.

By now, you may have heard about Stephen Lerner has his supposed blame to derail capitalism as a whole.  Much has been made of his plan, and much has been made of the kind of person who would actually try to essentially overthrow capitalism with what he called “direct action”.  However, it’s worth mentioning that Lerner wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

Lerner’s plan calls for people simply refusing to make their payments to the bank which he figures would eventually force them to negotiate terms more “favorable”.  He also figures that it may well crash the stock market in the process.

The flaw in Lerner’s plan is that first of all, it isn’t going to be easy to get enough people to risk their possessions to make a political point.  My wife gives me a lot of leeway when it comes to politics, but if it came down to risking our home, that just ain’t going to fly.  There are a lot of people like that in this world.  They might like the principle, but they’re not going to go for it.

Even more, there are a lot more folks who won’t even think of taking part in this crap.  They don’t agree with the idea that destroying their own 401K’s to make a point that they are, at best, only somewhat sympathetic to.  Remember that millions of Americans are invested in the stock market for their retirements, not a cushy union pension plan.

Lerner’s plan is to bankrupt not just Wall Street, who he views as the real villain here, but it will also hurt tens of millions of Americans who are just starting to enter retirement.  That’s right boys and girls, Lerner wants to screw over the Baby Boomers.  That’s not all though.

Jessie Jackson Jr wants to add more rights to the United States Constitution.  Not an explicit right to privacy, or a closure on the Kelo mess.  No, he suggests a few things that are far more left-of-center than that.  What this video, with the hat tip to Hot Air.

Oh yeah, he actually said that crap apparently. Really.

However, let’s take one of his suggestions and show just how silly his whole argument really is.  Education.

While the United States Constitution provides nothing in regard to education, many states have clauses along those lines in them.  These state constitutions require them to provide education for every child in that state, one of Jackson’s so-called “basic rights”.  However, these states don’t result in laptops and iPods for every student.  It never will, because education isn’t dependent on the private ownership of material goods.  It just doesn’t happen that way.

As you’ve probably heard, the January’s unemployment numbers came out on Friday. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment fell last month to 9% (from 9.4% in December) and the economy only added 36,000 - less than what was expected:

The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 9 percent in January, the lowest level in nearly two years, but the economy added just 36,000 new jobs last month.

The Labor Department reported Friday that more than 500,000 Americans reported finding jobs in January, improving the jobless rate from December’s 9.4 percent to 9 percent. The last time it was that low was in April 2009.

Experts had expected that the unemployment rate would rise to 9.5 percent for January. In all, 13.86 million people looking for jobs couldn’t find work in January.

“The overall trend of economic data in recent months has been encouraging, as initiatives put in place by this administration are taking hold, but there is still considerable work to do,” said Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. While “the 0.8 percentage point decline in the unemployment rate over the past two months is a welcome development,” he said, it still “remains unacceptably high.”

Indeed, the news isn’t all good — even as the unemployment rate shrank, non-farm businesses reported the creation of 36,000 jobs, far fewer than the 136,000 new jobs that had been anticipated for January. Bad weather throughout much of the country is likely to blame, with snowstorms hurting the construction industry especially hard, marked by 32,000 jobs lost last month.

Below is a collection of several links that we didn’t get around to writing about, but still wanted to post for readers to examine. The stories typically range from news about prominent figures in the liberty movement, national politics, the nanny state, foreign policy and free markets.

Below is a collection of several links that we didn’t get around to writing about, but still wanted to post for readers to examine. The stories typically range from news about prominent figures in the liberty movement, national politics, the nanny state, foreign policy and free markets.

Back in July, I noted a report that business were sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash. A story last week from the Wall Street Journal shows that not much has changed:

Rather than pouring their money into building plants or hiring workers, nonfinancial companies in the U.S. were sitting on $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets at the end of September, up from $1.8 trillion at the end of June, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. Cash accounted for 7.4% of the companies’ total assets—the largest share since 1959.

The cash buildup shows the deep caution many companies feel about investing in expansion while the economic recovery remains painfully slow and high unemployment and battered household finances continue to limit consumers’ ability to spend.

The buildup has a big downside for companies, which get little return on their money because interest rates are low, but it reflects the relatively few opportunities they see to deploy their cash more creatively.

“The corporate sector is looking at the household sector and saying, this is not the environment where we should expand our business,” said Deutsche Bank economist Torsten Slok.

Outside of the slow pace of the recovery, uncertainty over regulation and ObamaCare are adding to the problems. Also, the current debate over taxes plays another big part of this. A two year extension doesn’t do much to ease concerns over the long-term since most businesses tend to plan in longer timeframes, stifling plans for investment or hiring.

With just six days to go, the hotly contested race between Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sharron Angle remains close. Here are the latest numbers from Rasmussen:

• Angle: 49%
• Reid: 45%
• Other: 4%
• Not sure: 2%

The poll indicates that the time to change minds is running out as 92% are certain of their vote. Three percents (3%) are not certain of their vote and 5% have no initial preference. The candidates favorables/unfavorables are still under water. Reid is at 43/56, Angle is 46/52.

Independents are still breaking going to Angle, 57% to 32%, over Reid. On unemployment, which is at 14.4% in Nevada, 65% believe that it will be the same or worse in 12 months. And 59% support repeal of ObamaCare, which Reid helped usher threw the Senate.

There are already allegations of voter fraud as some voters in Clark County complained that Reid’s name was already checked. This promoted accusations from Angle campaign that Reid intends to steal the election.

Here is a look at the most recent ad from Angle, which slams Reid for various verbal missteps:

While he continues to pretend that he helped save the world, Sen. Harry Reid did not want to wake up to this news at the end of a bad week:

The unemployment rate in the Las Vegas area in September climbed to 15 percent, setting a record.

There were an estimated 145,400 jobless in Southern Nevada — about 3,000 more than in August, when the rate was 14.7 percent.

The state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation said Nevada’s jobless rate held steady in September at 14.4 percent, marking the first time since January that the rate didn’t increase. It was only the second time the state rate hadn’t risen since the recession started, but it still exceeded the national jobless rate of 9.6 percent and California at 12.4 percent.

Sharron Angle has led in all but two of the nine polls conducted in the race, which has seen a wave of outside money, during the month of October and early returns in Nevada seem to benefit her more than Reid, who’s efforts in recent days has been described as “underwhelming.”