Two Points to Consider When Watching Obama's Jobs Speech

As you watch President Obama's "jobs speech" Thursday, or perhaps if you torture yourself by tuning in as pundits tell you what you just heard, here are a few things to keep in mind, at least in my opinion...

Companies need to step up and get back in the game
While government action can and is sometimes necessary to stimulate the economy, the bottom line is that companies create jobs, not government. No, I haven't gone all "supply side" on you, but it is true that companies are the ones who make decisions on the vast majority of hiring - where, how much, for what and when. There's no getting around that. Obama can talk a good game about tax credits or incentives, but if companies don't want to hire...and rather want to sit on their cash...they won't do it.

This is all related to my assertion that, guess what? The jobs ain't coming back. Companies - especially big ones who tend to employ (or used to) a lot of people - have weathered the economic storm and are now getting by without having to hire back costly items such as employees. So they won't.

Nope. Old jobs are not coming back. Forget about it and move on. The hope would be that "something new" comes along to spur growth, offer clear investment and hiring opportunities for companies and help alleviate the unemployment rate...and thus many of our other economic ills.  This is actually the American spirit that has gotten us by in other times. Be it the automobile, the airplane, medical breakthroughs, the space race, computer chips, the Internet...something big has always come along to really boost our economy and usher in new good times. But this isn't happening now. The bubble burst and the ones left holding the money bags are not ready to invest in innovation and new sectors of the economy.

If government can help via stimulus, great. I am for it. But again, it is companies who hire. So, if you are ticked off that companies are not hiring...get mad at them.

We are in a "conservative economy" and have been for quite some time
Without a doubt, you will hear the Rs rebut Obama's recommendations as ineffective, too reliant on "big government," and wrong for the country. And no doubt, those same conservatives will say that what we really need is a big old helping of tax cuts, deregulation and "getting government off our backs" to free up the economy and get it moving again.

But here's the thing...we are already in that type of economy. Huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations were enacted 10 years ago and are still in effect. Aggressive deregulation of energy, financial, transportation, housing and other markets has been going on for 20+ years...and got a big boost over the last 10.

And Obama? He has repealed almost exactly none of that.

You think his "big government healthcare plan" is the problem. Nope. Virtually none of it goes into effect until 2014.

Think Obama is the guy responsible for the debt. Wrong again. Our historic and spectacular federal debt was hand delivered to America by Republicans in the short six years between 2001 and 2007 when they ran the White House and both houses of Congress - all on their watch, all in service of the same economic theories they're still talking about today and all while happily raising the debt ceiling without a peep of controversy.

So you see, we ARE IN a carefully and steadily constructed conservative economy. How you liking that?

Put another way, if tax cuts and deregulation are so good for the economy, where are the jobs?

Anyway, a couple things to ponder as you watch or hear about jobs over the next couple/few days.

Facts Mean Nothing

Unemployment hit 6.1 percent this week. 

It was just announced that the Federal budget deficit doubled over the past year.

Our country has lost 605,000 jobs since January.

These are predictable outcomes of eight years of Republican Presidency and 12 years of Republican control of Congress over the past 14 years.

These things have real impact on everyday, regular, middle class Americans.

But hey, never mind all that! The media and Republicans say, "Look over here. Did we mention that Sara Palin is the VP candidate for McCain...and isn't she interesting."

And about half of America laps it up and is ready to vote for more of the same.

Can you tell I'm not happy with the way this thing is going?

 

No Country for Old Men (Or Old Ideas)

The Republican convention has just wrapped up. John McCain delivered his speech pretty well and the conservative party have had their say.


While there are many, many issues that could be debated about what has been said by the GOP this week (many instances of utter and shameless hypocrisy come to mind), the thing that the convention and especially John McCain's speech drove home to me quite clearly is...


The last thing our country needs right now in a leader is a rich old man espousing old, disproven ideas that have directly led the huge problems our nation now faces.


Whether it's the economy, the Iraq war, relations with China and Russia, healthcare, jobs, energy policy, environmental policy...all of these things are spectacularly worse than they were eight years ago specifically because of the leadership, action (or inaction in many cases) and the so called "judgement" of Bush, the Republicans and definitely John McCain.


All I could think about each time that McCain made a point in his speech about what he was going to do to solve our problems was that he is the head of the party that created these very ills and he was offering nothing new - same old Republican punch lines. And lets face it, the Republicans have really been running things for much longer than the last eight years. They controlled Congress from 1995-2006 and the Presidency for 20 of the last 28 years.

We need new ideas, new people and change. Twenty six year DC insider John McCain literally goes around the country promising more of the same.


I can't vote for that and won't.

Further, because the Republicans have so totally failed with their policies I genuinely think those deciding to vote for McCain are in fact putting some very narrow interest - anti-abortion, lower corporate taxes, oil interests, some vaugue notion of family values - ahead of the overall good of the nation. The opposite of the "Country First" mantra of the Republicans. How else can you explain signing up for the exact some thing that got us into this mess. Or, McCain voters are making their judgements on some very, very subjective criteria like...he was a POW or he seems like a nice guy. Using that type of criteria got us George W. Bush.


Lets not repeat that again.