Pirate's Cove

As more and more media outlets publish stories about just how bad the economy is, particularly the unemployment situation, I wonder if they will finally place the blame where it belongs, namely, on President Obama and the elected Democrats? You know that they will certainly blame Republicans in the House, which they are sure to win back, sometime around March. For many unemployed workers, jobs aren’t coming back

The U.S. economy will eventually rebound from the Great Recession. Millions of American workers will not.

What some economists now project — and policymakers are loath to admit — is that the U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 9.6% in August, could remain elevated for years to come.

The nation’s job deficit is so deep that even a powerful recovery would leave large numbers of Americans out of work for years, experts say. And with growth now weakening, analysts are doubtful that companies will boost payrolls significantly any time soon. Unemployment, long considered a temporary, transitional condition in the United States, appears to be settling in for a lengthy run.

“This is the new reality,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “In the past decade we’ve gone from the best labor market in our economic history to arguably one of the worst. It’s going to take years, if not decades, to completely recover from the fallout.”

The LA Times works hard to assign no blame to anyone for what is going on, yet, based on the last paragraph of the excerpt, who else is there to look to other than those in charge? Coincidentally or not, the economy started tanking when Democrats regained Congress. And since they won back the White House, the jobs market has stagnated further. Throwing money at short term fixes doesn’t work, as born out by this paragraph

Many small businesses, squeezed by tight credit and slow sales, similarly aren’t in a hurry to add employees. Some big corporations are enjoying record profits precisely because they’ve kept a tight lid on hiring. And state and local governments are looking to ax more teachers, police officers and social workers to balance their budgets. Meanwhile, U.S. legislators have shown little appetite for a new round of stimulus spending.

Why should they show an appetite for more stimulus? Privately, we can be sure that most Democrats understand that the public is correct in that the stimulus efforts, if you can call it that, have been failures. So much of the money simply went to propping up the employees of the government, particularly at the state, county, and local levels. Yet, because so many people are not working as well as no spending, the revenues coming into state, county, and local levels is reduced. Reduced revenue from less sales tax, reduced revenue because you can’t charge a property tax on property no longer owned, and reduced revenue from tax returns, since you can’t get income tax when people do not have a job. Among others. Now they are out of cash. Repairing roadways, bridges, and runways, as Obama wants, will do nothing but create short term jobs for projects which people can’t use because they have no jobs and can’t afford to travel.

Oh, BTW, you do know that Obama and his administration will take credit when Republicans regain the House and come up with legislation that actually provides incentives for long term hiring, right?

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU. Re-Change 2010!