Stronger Economy?

This quote is just a couple of days old from President Obama. He said that the economy is "... getting stronger by the day".


The only rational reaction to this statement has to be the question, "Whose economy?"



Last week Washington announced that during this past month 431,000 Americans found employment. In small print it was disclosed that of the new workers, some 390,000 had in fact become employed by the Census Bureau. The vast bulk of those Census Bureau jobs will last no longer than 6 months. During that same week we were also told by Washington that some 420,000 new unemployment claims had been filed. Looking at these facts pessimistically forces the conclusion that the economy is still bad; is still stagnant; and that the official rate of unemployment remains near 10%. Looking at these above employment facts in a positive manner shows only that almost half-a-million more Americans will receive a paycheck for the next 6 months. Those funds will be spent and there might even be a slight increase in consumer spending but at the end of 6 months these same folks will fall back into the ranks of job seekers.



More evidence of Obama's most recent speaking error can be found in the announcement that yet more banks were closed by the Fed. So far this year there have been 81 bank failures compared to 140 for the whole year of 2009. Washington also reported that 775 banks are consider "troubled" and are being closely monitored.



To add yet another negative coloration to these items of economic news, the debt owed by the Federal Government will increase as we pay the citizens who become Census Bureau employees and it will increase again as we pay these same citizens unemployment benefits when the Census Bureau jobs terminate. Reality is that as the Federal debt increases because of the overall poor condition of the economy. Drastic Federal Government spending cut-backs have to be implemented with the term "sacrifice" becoming a patriotic term of all concerned American citizens.



Back to Obama's statement. I really believe that Obama was referring to no economy and he is just prone to intentionally misleading the nation.