Gorilla's Blog

Better than expected, but still a lousy jobs figure…

We’re barely covering population growth, and the employment/population ratio remains dismal.

We need to be adding 400,000 jobs each month to get the economy moving again.

Hopefully, Barack and Ben will get off their asses and do something.

Barack’s got limited options, but if he wants to be reelected he needs to propose a serious jobs program, one that will hire at least 10 million people over the next 12 months.

It doesn’t matter whether the Congress goes along, the important thing is to be seen to be doing something, not talking endlessly about unimportant nonsense like bipartisanship and the deficit.

Ben has many more options, starting with raising the inflation target and QEIII, going on to refinancing the nation’s underwater mortgages, and ending with sending unemployed Americans a check for $30,000 every year until demand picks up.

Gorilla says: “Enough of the bullshit, let’s see some substance, please!”

Unemployment claims: right back at 400K!

And everyone in DC’s on vacation, having decided that putting more people out of work by cutting spending is the absolutely best way to deal with an economy lacking demand.

Gorilla says: “We’re all with Mubarak in the cage!”

There’s only one thing that should be on the minds of our leaders for the next 5 years: creating more jobs!

And that can only be done by government spending. There simply isn’t sufficient demand for the private sector alone to start hiring.

So the focus should be on a massive jobs program, one that would hire at least 10 million Americans and cost less than half of the amount of money we piss away annually on the Pentagon.

The deficit fetish is absolutely the wrong way to go. Taking money out of the economy means slower growth, higher unemployment, and a continuation of the eminently avoidable sense of despair that grips the country.

Gorilla says: “Jobs, jobs, jobs! We need leaders who lead, not these stupid jackals!”

Unemployment: back to 9.2%, will only take another 40 or so years to get everyone a job!

Political Leadership: cutting back spending further, guaranteeing higher unemployment!

President Obama: heading to one and done, because phony centrism doesn’t pay the rent or put food on the table!

Gorilla says: “If only the unemployed were the debt ceiling, then Washington would at least pretend to be serious!”

Unemployment claims: still above 420,000/week!

The President yesterday sounded like a man who didn’t understand basic economics.

The deficit fetish is wholly unnecessary.

Doing absolutely nothing about the deficit will in fact reduce the deficit further: let the tax cuts expire, get out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, get health care reform up and running, and voila, the deficit disappears!

And surpluses would be the new normal if we simply got our health care costs down to the level of every other developed country!

Meanwhile, 25 million Americans are out of work.

America should be increasing its deficit in the short term to address this problem, particularly given how low interest rates are.

Bringing half of the unemployed back to work would significantly improve economic growth and help reduce the deficit.

The private sector simply doesn’t create enough demand at the moment to start hiring, so a government jobs program is needed.

Cost of hiring 10 million workers at $30K/year to fix infrastructure, bring energy efficiency to homes and businesses, and restore hope across the country: $300 billion/year, or less than half what we currently piss away annually on the Pentagon.

Other things that could be done:

Bring everyone into Medicare, which would significantly reduce health care costs.

Lower the Social Security eligibility age temporarily to 55, since most of the unemployed who are that age or older will never be hired again.

Set up a national infrastructure bank to finance the vast amount of work we’ve not been doing for the past 30 years.

Allow the dollar to decline further, addressing global imbalances that effectively allow surplus countries to keep Americans unemployed and Americans to export inflation to surplus countries.

Gorilla says: “The solutions are easy, but the leadership is absent!”

Unemployment claims remain way too high!

Action by Washington remains way too little!

Gorilla says: “What’s shameful is everyone knows what’s necessary, but no one wants to propose it!”