Extracted from IBD, “What About Jobs?”, May 11, 2009
One of President Obama’s campaign pledges was to “create or save” more than three million jobs in his first two years in office — not all that ambitious considering the economy has created 1.5 million jobs annually since 1980.
K-Note: That claim morphed to “save or create 3.5 million jobs” via the $750 billion stimulus.
As of May 1, just $29 billion in stimulus spending, or about 3.7% of the total, had gone out. In a $14 trillion economy, that’s nothing.
The new White House economic forecast contains more than one stunning revelation. Tops on our list is that no net new jobs are expected this year, even as the economy recovers.
Now, Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, says don’t expect any new jobs this year — and that unemployment could reach 9.5%, up from the current 8.9%, even though she expects the economy to grow 3.5% in the fourth quarter.
Full article:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=326933960257860
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May 12, 2009 at 2:22 pm |
Romer’s analysis and GDP forecats undermine confidence in every projection coming out of this administration. She’s forecasting a nearly 10 point swing in GDP growth this year (from -6.1% in Q1 to +3.5% in Q4). That doesn’t seem likely.
Her GDP growth estimates are foundational assumptions when analyzing the fiscal and economic impacts of proposed policy. When we’re talking about massive government involvement in the financial sector, health care and energy, you’d like the underlying assumptions to be more defensible.
May 13, 2009 at 7:59 pm |
Professor,
Do you see any economic hope for America in all of this without an extremely painful depression? Just about every fundamentalist economist/financial analyst is predicting one as well as hyperinflation and a dollar collapse in the future. Is there any way out?