Obama's Econmy: Helll in a Hand Basket? with 5.1% Unemployment?

Trump still trying to play champion of the common man wshinimng about how we are going to hel in a hand basket, it's a lie.here are the latest figure bureau of labor stats

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• Consumer Price Index 09/16/2016
• Real Earnings 09/16/2016
• Producer Price Index 09/15/2016
• U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes 09/14/2016

MAJOR ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Consumer Price Index

September 16, 2016
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers increased 0.2 percent in August after being unchanged in July. The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.3 percent in August after increasing 0.1 percent in July. Full text: (HTML) (PDF)

Employment Cost Index

August 04, 2016
Compensation costs increased 0.6 percent for civilian workers, seasonally adjusted, from March 2016 to June 2016. Over the year, compensation rose 2.3 percent, wages and salaries are up 2.5 percent, and benefits rose 2.0 percent. Full text: (HTML) (PDF)

Employment Situation

September 02, 2016
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 151,000 in August, and the unemployment rate remained at 4.9 percent. Employment continued to trend up in several service-providing industries. Full text: (HTML) (PDF)

Producer Price Index

September 15, 2016
The Producer Price Index for final demand was unchanged in August. Final demand prices declined 0.4 percent in July and rose 0.5 percent in June. In August, a 0.1-percent advance in the index for final demand services offset a 0.4-percent decrease in prices for final demand goods. Full text: (HTML) (PDF)

Productivity and Costs

September 01, 2016
Productivity decreased 0.6 percent in the nonfarm business sector in the second quarter of 2016; unit labor costs increased 4.3 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates). In manufacturing, productivity decreased 0.4 percent and unit labor costs increased 6.7 percent. Full text: (HTML) (PDF)

Real Earnings

September 16, 2016
Real average hourly earnings decreased 0.1 percent in August, seasonally adjusted. Average hourly earnings increased 0.1 percent and the CPI-U increased 0.2 percent. Real average weekly earnings decreased 0.4 percent over the month. Full text: (HTML) (PDF)

U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes

September 14, 2016
U.S. import prices declined 0.2 percent in August, after ticking up 0.1 percent in July. The August downturn was driven by lower fuel prices. Prices for U.S. exports decreased 0.8 percent in August following a 0.2-percent increase in July. Full text: (HTML) (PDF)

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EMPLOYMENT & UNEMPLOYMENT

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Below is an old post fro, Feb but it was not bad even then.

from Daily Kos Site [1]


Trump has made the statement "The country is going to hell in a hand basket." Let's look at the figures? See those little red stumps on the upper graph? That's Bush's Job growth. One is negative. Obama's much better. It's not as good as Clinton's or even Reagan's (see the graph, Clinton blue) but Obama had a much worse economic crisis that he inherited.



From Fact Check.org 

Summary

Since President Barack Obama first took office:

• The economy has added nearly 8.4 million jobs — more than six times the number gained under George W. Bush.
• The number of job openings doubled, to a record 5.7 million.
• Nearly 15 million fewer people lack health insurance coverage.
• Corporate profits are at record levels; stock prices have more than doubled.
• However, median household income was down 3 percent as of 2014, and the official poverty rate was 1.6 percentage points higher.
• The rate of home ownership has dropped to the lowest point in nearly half a century.
• The federal debt owed to the public has more than doubled — up 107 percent.[2]

The site lists unemployment ratevatv5.1%,  Job openings up 180%,  Business start ups +19%, business failimgs downm 27%

Even a conservative publication such as the Economist says that "the president's record is a lot better than the woes of America's economy suggests." The article points out that Obama faced the most grim economic conditions since 1933, After detailing failure in comic growth and housing market for most of Obama's two terms only picking up late in second term the articles finds all economic recoveries are slow. This a far cry from hell in a hand basket. Since the article is not lauding him as stupendous or berating him for causing every sill since the great depression, it's probably a fairly objective appraisal. [3]

Sources

all sources accessed 2/26/16
[1] Jon Perr, "Obama Has Created Six Times As Many Jobs As Bush," Daily Kos Blog, July 6, 2015,
URL: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/6/7/1391360/-Obama-has-created-six-times-as-many-jobs-as-Bush

[2] Brooks Jackson, "Obama's Numbers (October, 2015)," Fact check .org, Posted on October 6, 2015 , blog URL http://www.factcheck.org/2015/10/obamas-numbers-october-2015-update/
Trump's statement was that same month.

[3]  Editor, "End of Term Report,"  The Economist, Sep 2012, online URL:
http://www.economist.com/node/21561909

Is The Reichstag Burning?

Richstag burning in Berlin on 27 February 1933





One of my all-time favorite films, even qualifies as an art film, is "Is Paris Burning?" It was about the end of Nazi occupation of Paris. As wonderful a time as that was,  the Liberation of Paris, my title mimics that one only to reflect upon the opposite sort of event. It is not the liberation of a city but the enslavement of a people that my question both harkens back to and foretells. Of course the Reichstag was the German equivalent of the capital building. It was burned and Hitler used the opportunity to claim emergency powers and that set him up to rule with absolute power. [1] Today was super Tuesday and I think I suddenly realized what it must have felt like for Germans who understood what the Nazis were about to wake up and read about the fire to realize we are on the edge of the abyss of some form of Armageddon.

Of course I'm just making too much of things. In reality it is logical to ignore the feeling of foreboding based upon the result of Super Tuesday because any one of three, Trump, Cruz, Rubio would be as bad as the others. Rubio wants to eliminate the EPA but he's being sold as the "rational" alternative to Trump. The petty concerns of the right wingers, I need to be free from Taxes. Taxes for Christ sake! you are being freed from breathing! At a time when every scientist around the world predicts dyer consequences of not reducing carbon emissions, the right wing convinces America it's a lie of big gubern-ment and it's fine to keep polluting. We are talking about our own extinction. It may already be too late, and the Trumpies are worried about the loss of a flag that symbolized slavery."I is mad at Gobern=ment, they is in my bidness." We are talking about giving a Neanderthal racist mad man control of the nucs, emergency war powers that would allow him to round up anyone without trail for national security. Moreover he wants to run the nation like a "bidness" meaning cut-throat, nothing stands in the way of profit; live under that regime, try criticizing him  even vegly in the way you do Obama and tell me how your bidness is doing.

Trump came out of the shoot saying Mexicans are rapists drug addicts who are causing violent crime to surge  even though violent crime went way down while illegals were increasing, and hardly any have been accused of violent crimes. [2] He says beat up the protester, he said in public in front of the mob that in the good old days (before Miranda rights) the cops could just take someone out and beat them up and that's fine with him. these idiots think he would respect them and only the evil liberals would have their rights taken away, they can['t possibly comprehend the concept that if he is willing violate the rights of anyone he's willing to violate your rights too. He plays the coy game to court the support of racist idiots. he doesn't know who David Duke is, hint hint, wink wink.I guess he's never heard of the KKK. Maybe he doesn't know violence hurts. But hey Cruz sounds like Hitler ranting and raving He said if you're afraid of being shot got hide at Sanders Rally. Implying that violence at his rally is acceptable. Of course if you are afraid of being shot you're some kind of fag.

normally I would be delighted to see the Republican party break up. I am not, because it's more than just the republicans disintegrating. It's the triumph of lynch mob mentality over reasoning statesmen. The Republicans have been short on statesmanship for some time. John McCain (wimp who was captured according to Herr Trump) excepted. They got used to accepting extremes when Reagan paid off so well. Even Reagan had the packaging of statesmanship. The new lynch mob is willing to abandon all decorum. That's really the point. The real villain here is not Trump it's not Cruz, not Rubio it's the rebel who fuel their hatred. In interviews of Trump supporters at Rallies on facebook I have seen them saying things like "there's a war on White culture." When ask for an example they point to taking down the confederate flag. This is idiotic to equate the confederacy with "all of white culture" to think that an attack on confederate memorabilia is racial and anti-white, but totally ignorant to think the confederacy had anything to do with their 'white supremacy Bullshit. If we ask him I'm sure Jeff Davis would say of course white people are superior. But I guarantee you that thought did not enter the heads of any leaders of the cessation and preserving white people was not one of their motives. Trump has signaled to them his support for their delusions because he played the coy game refusing to sincerely denounce David Duke.

So we have this lynch mob mentality that['s been brooding hate for years. This is exactly what my late brother Ray Hinman, [3] and I predicted. We talked about it for years especially in the Reagan era. It is simply what Malcom X said of the Kennedy assassination, "The Chickens have dome home to roost." They denuded education, segmented learning and reduced all our concepts of God and morality to consumer products, consuming and producing, nurtured hatred and resentment of government because it brought votes, and lured the rabe. with dreams of wealth. If you are a servant of the rich they will let you be rich too.

I spent a large part of the 90's publishing an academic journal, Negations: An interdisciplinary Journl of Social Criticism. unfortunately it no longer exists on the Web. The editor was Tim Wood, and my brother was part of it. The journal dealt with the ideas around Herbert Marcuse's book One Dimensional Man. [4] We showed how American society had become a closed realm of discourse thinking and reasoning were reduced to brain function and all civilizing thought was sacrificed to the social project of perpetuating the flow of false needs to one-dimensional populace. Now they worked up the troops and made them good and angry that they aren't getting enough false needs; had to boil over some time. Now prepare for a Trump band wagon.. We already see establishment figures like Christy trying to suck up to him. As in the Reagan era we learned never under estimate the stupidity of people. We really used to say "this is what we learned from Reagan,"

I don't feel gleeful that the Republicans are broken. I know it's really the triumph of lynch mob mentality over civilizing tendencies. It's what the Bible says, the Republicans sowed te wind now they reap he whirlwind.Hosea8:7 "They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour. Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up."





[1] Wikiv article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire

The Reichstag fire (German: Reichstagsbrand,  listen (help·info)) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch council communist, was caught at the scene of the fire and arrested for the crime. Van der Lubbe was an unemployed bricklayer who had recently arrived in Germany. He declared that he had started the fire and was tried and sentenced to death. The fire was used as evidence by the Nazi Party that communists were plotting against the German government. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany."

[2] Joe Hinman, What percentage of dangerous illegals were let god last year? Need More Shovels Blog UAL: http://needmoreshovels.blogspot.com/2016/02/what-percentage-of-dangerous-illegals.html   accessed today

[3]  Ray Hinman was my late twin brother. He was an excellent writer, could have been a great writer He was fine social critic and political activist. He was brilliant, he only got to publish one book, a collection of poetry, .I would put it alongside poetry of his heroes such Wallace Stevens. see Our Cities Vanish, by Ray Hinman available on Amazon.

about Ray

 [4] Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man. Beacon Press; 2nd edition (October 1, 1991) originally 1964.

On Amazon

 

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