Friday, July 8, 2011

NO REAL RECOVERY WITHOUT JOBS

I've said it before, there can be no real economic recovery without jobs.  Until our government does what is necessary to help businesses create more jobs, our economy will not make any meaningful recovery.  They can throw all the funny money they want towards quantitative easing, they can bailout whomever they please, but if they don't help get the people working again we're going no where fast.  All you have to do is look at the latest response in the stock market to June's poor employment report to see the truth of the matter. 

Yes, most people still have a job.  The rate of unemployment in Missouri currently stands around 8.9%, which means 91.1% of the states workers are employed.  However, when nearly 1/10th of the workforce is out of work it becomes a matter of perception.  How do the other 9/10ths percieve the state of the economy, with so many unemployed and so much talk of record government deficits?  When the majority of consumers believe we are living in hard times, like now, then it becomes a self fulfilling situation.  If the consumer is faced with hard times, they stop spending.  In a consumer driven economy this brings everything grinding to a halt.  When consumers don't spend, businesses lose money and begin to down size.  Down sizing leads to further unemployment creating an even more dismal view of the economy, leading to even further belt tightening by consumers until eventually things grind to a halt.  Or at least slow to a dreadful pace.  Instead of costly quantitative easing, huge bailouts and very unpopular health care reforms, perhaps the current administration should have considered boosting the economy by returning cash to taxpayers in the form of additional refunds.  Maybe some of the people who've lost their homes could have avoided foreclosure, maybe some of the uninsured could have afforded health insurance, at the very least it would have given the economy a much needed influx of cash.  Unlike bank bailouts, where the money was paid out in the form of record bonuses to bank executives while the banks themselves showed their gratitude to the U.S. taxpayers by clamping down on credit, jacking up credit card interest rates and foreclosing on homes.  

It's a sad state of affairs in the U.S. right now.  I'm hoping for a landslide victory for Republicans in 2012.  We're not getting anywhere with the current administration so let's vote them out in the next election.  "YES WE CAN!!!"

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