Parallel universe
We're Sinking Under Obama's Policies
And surely this huge loss in the value of stocks means delayed retirement for many older workers, whose annuity payouts would now be much reduced. The decline in home equity due to the collapse of the real estate market, and the difficulty of selling the house you own, adds to the problem.
When there isn't enough economic growth to increase the total supply of jobs, employment becomes a zero-sum game: When those who want to retire are forced to keep working, the jobs they hold do not become available for younger people, either via promotion or new hiring.
And when it becomes difficult for people to sell their homes, the labor market must become less flexible and adaptive generally. Even when there are more and better jobs available somewhere else, if you can't sell your house, you may be stuck where you are.
None of this adds up to a dynamic labor force. But I doubt Obama and his ilk care about that at all, as long as enough wealth is being redistributed to maintain people where they sit, and to earn their gratitude for doing that.
The sad thing is that the real estate collapse and the generally crumbling economy are both products of government intrusion and distortion of markets. The lesson that Obama draws from this experience, deep thinker that he is, is that government intervention into the economy was simply of insufficient scale and scope to work like it should have.
The head-scratching continues as stocks take another leg down. Why, they ask, must the market be so negative? With an economy buckling under leftist incompetence, what, we ask, is there to be positive about? Funny, because it’s been going on for almost three years now, but hardly a day goes by without some bit of bad news the media calls ‘unexpected.’
But investors have noticed. . . . Since this president took office, U.S. businesses have shed 3.3 million jobs. We are still 6.9 million below our peak employment reached in January 2008. Ordinarily, more than two years after a recession has ended, well over a million jobs have been added to payrolls. By any meaningful measure, then, our president has followed the least-successful economic policies of any U.S. leader since World War II. As recession seems ever more possible, the IMF warns of a U.S. ‘lost decade.’
And surely this huge loss in the value of stocks means delayed retirement for many older workers, whose annuity payouts would now be much reduced. The decline in home equity due to the collapse of the real estate market, and the difficulty of selling the house you own, adds to the problem.
When there isn't enough economic growth to increase the total supply of jobs, employment becomes a zero-sum game: When those who want to retire are forced to keep working, the jobs they hold do not become available for younger people, either via promotion or new hiring.
And when it becomes difficult for people to sell their homes, the labor market must become less flexible and adaptive generally. Even when there are more and better jobs available somewhere else, if you can't sell your house, you may be stuck where you are.
None of this adds up to a dynamic labor force. But I doubt Obama and his ilk care about that at all, as long as enough wealth is being redistributed to maintain people where they sit, and to earn their gratitude for doing that.
The sad thing is that the real estate collapse and the generally crumbling economy are both products of government intrusion and distortion of markets. The lesson that Obama draws from this experience, deep thinker that he is, is that government intervention into the economy was simply of insufficient scale and scope to work like it should have.
posted by Byron | Friday, September 23, 2011
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