Unemployment up but the media claims that is good news.

[ncgatr1]

Sweet, the economy shrank, unemployment is up and gas is back to $3.50 a gallon. Wait until all those young impressionable Obama voting college kids graduate in May, good luck in that job search. We can't hire them to fill positions building spec houses on foreclosed and short sale lots because illegals work much cheaper. Good Luck.

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

You don't get to have it both ways. If you want to claim that you want to cut government spending, then you can't complain when GDP (which includes government spending) goes down while we cut government spending. You also don't get to complain about the aggregate state of a labor market that is doing pretty well coming out of a recession for the private sector because the public sector is losing jobs.

You either want smaller government or you don't. You don't get to advocate for small government and then complain about the effects of smaller government on GDP and employment while still advocating for the policy. That is hypocritical.

This is weird because you're accusing me of what you're doing in wanting it two ways. Again, the only reason we got a little pull in the economy is because the staggering amount of money we threw at it which is trillions of dollars.

[JerseyGator01]

Jobless recovery. So much for Obama being a friend to Main St. He's the best friend of those who live off of corporate welfare on Wall St.

CORRUPTION RULES!!!!!

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

This is weird because you're accusing me of what you're doing in wanting it two ways. Again, the only reason we got a little pull in the economy is because the staggering amount of money we threw at it which is trillions of dollars.

And yet, government employment is way down and federal government employment is back down to the levels it was at in the beginning and we are still gaining private sector jobs every month.

In fact, if you compare it to other recoveries, this would seem to be the most conservative-friendly recovery of any of them. Our recovery to the last recession involved an increase in government employment with a stagnation of private employment. Our recovery to the recession prior to that one involved very robust private sector growth along with very robust public sector growth.

If the conservative argument is that the growth of government will result in slower recoveries, the decline in government employment should be making the recovery more robust as we progress with it. Let's see if that happens.

[ThePlayer]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

Oh name calling. Not a replacement for a good argument. Says more about the name caller than others. But you probably already know that.

Defense spending declines were part of the decline in government spending. I would prefer to cut defense spending, as the Keynesian multipliers for defense are only high when the unemployment rate is especially high.

http://www.stanford.edu/~johntayl/CCTW_100108.pdf

My apologies for the Ad Hominem, Professor...but you continue to defend the indefensible.
Nothing gets my blood boiling more than rationizing the actions of this amateur Administration.
There is NO rationale being employed here...only hit-or-miss economics.

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by ThePlayer

My apologies for the Ad Hominem, Professor...but you continue to defend the indefensible.
Nothing gets my blood boiling more than rationizing the actions of this amateur POTUS and his policies.
There is NO rationale being employed here.

So which part aren't you happy about: the private sector job growth or the cuts to the public sector employment?

[The_Graygator]

What's amazing is that unemployment goes up, but that's good news?

Over 8 million jobs lost out of the labor force under Obama, and nowhere in the House Ways & Means Committee, CBO, or Dept. of Labor data bases can he back up the claims he made during his campaign that he "created" nearly 6 million jobs. his administration can claim helping to create about 1.7 million jobs in four years, but that's also about 6.3 million the labor force lost under him too.

Not to mention the OA claimed to create 157,000 private sector jobs in January, but they don't tell us anything about the 169,000 that were lost during that month. But the liberal lemmings just eat up anything Obama and his Pravda-esque LMSM tells them.

Don't ever question, just follow blindly. Obama zombies.

If this was George Bush, all we would hear from the LMSM was how bad everything was.

[ThePlayer]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

So which part aren't you happy about: the private sector job growth or the cuts to the public sector employment?

You're giving credit to Obama for private sector growth?
We're growing incrementally inspite of him, not because of him.

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

And yet, government employment is way down and federal government employment is back down to the levels it was at in the beginning and we are still gaining private sector jobs every month.

In fact, if you compare it to other recoveries, this would seem to be the most conservative-friendly recovery of any of them. Our recovery to the last recession involved an increase in government employment with a stagnation of private employment. Our recovery to the recession prior to that one involved very robust private sector growth along with very robust public sector growth.

If the conservative argument is that the growth of government will result in slower recoveries, the decline in government employment should be making the recovery more robust as we progress with it. Let's see if that happens.

I'm sorry but federal employment is up which you admitted earlier

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by ThePlayer

You're giving credit to Obama for private sector growth?
We're growing incrementally inspite of him, not because of him.

There are always questions about how much credit the public sector can claim on short-run private sector job growth. But there is some evidence that public sector involvement jump started the private sector growth.

Since the stimulus passed, the first-time unemployment claims in each week have declined by about 300K per week since it was passed, with a pretty steady rate of improvement.

Any theories you have about improving because or in spite of a person is heavily biased as it is impossible to test.

However, the private sector has been improving while the public sector has been decreasing in size. I would think that would make conservatives happy, but it seems that it just angers many even more. I have a few theories as to why, but it is difficult to pin down why that is exactly.

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

I'm sorry but federal employment is up which you admitted earlier

It is up 2000 employees from January 2009. It is down 5000 employees from Obama's first full month in charge, February 2009. With a sector in which 2.8 million people are employed, 2000 employees constitutes a change of 0.0714%. Over 4 years. That is very flat. And as I said, at the current rate of decrease, this talking point will be gone by next month or early April at the latest. We will then likely have fewer federal employees than we had in January 2009.

Give it a few months and we will likely see it down across any time window you would prefer.

[JerseyGator01]

Only the government funded private sector has been improving - the part that generally makes it's home around DC. I love how loosely people use the term "private sector" to imply that it actually has any real life to it these days. Many firms in the so-called private sector wouldn't exist without government funding. It's just a piece of paper that says they're in the so-called private sector.

If the true private sector was alive and well as the media claims, then unemployment and underemployment would no be so bad in Jersey, between Philly and NYC.

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

It is up 2000 employees from January 2009. It is down 5000 employees from Obama's first full month in charge, February 2009. With a sector in which 2.8 million people are employed, 2000 employees constitutes a change of 0.0714%. Over 4 years. That is very flat. And as I said, at the current rate of decrease, this talking point will be gone by next month or early April at the latest. We will then likely have fewer federal employees than we had in January 2009.

Give it a few months and we will likely see it down across any time window you would prefer.

2000 employees is not the size of a small business. Obama grew cental government, he did not shrink it by an stretch of the imagination.

[theorangebluewinagain]

In 4 years their will be no doubt that Obama's economic policies have been a total failure. All the soccer moms and and working immigrants who voted for him will unfortunately realize too late that he has been an unmitigated disaster and that the course he has taken us will need to change. I just hope that 51% of the nation won't won't be getting some form of govt assistance. Otherwise we are Greece quicker than most could ever fathom

[gatorman_07732]

Lookie lookie md

In the 1,420 days since he took the oath of office, the federal government has daily hired on average 101 new employees. Every day. Seven days a week. All 202 weeks. That makes 143,000 more federal workers than when Obama talked forever on that cold day in January of 2009.

http://news.investors.com/politics-a...ers.htm?p=full

[ncgatr1]

Obama is now going around telling everyone he is optimistic of tHe economy in 2013 if Washington get out of the way. This coming from a guy who push the Dodd Frank Bill which is loaded with hundreds of new business regulations. If it wasn't getting so serious, it would be comical.

[theorangebluewinagain]

Originally Posted by ncgatr1

Obama is now going around telling everyone he is optimistic of tHe economy in 2013 if Washington get out of the way. This coming from a guy who push the Dodd Frank Bill which is loaded with hundreds of new business regulations. If it wasn't getting so serious, it would be comical.

Obama just knows how dumb most American are and just says whatever he wants and the media does not challenge him. This is why we have guns people, to protect us from the tyranny of our government

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

Lookie lookie md



http://news.investors.com/politics-a...ers.htm?p=full

You really should do your due diligence before rushing here to post an article.

Your IBD opinion piece relies on statistics from a Washington Times article from February 2, 2010. So it is using stats from exactly 3 years ago to the day. The stats included 80K temporary census workers, which are hired every time they run a census (which is Constitutionally mandated). Excluding those workers (who are all gone) and including postal workers (who for some reason were excluded by those stats), we did see a ramp up in federal employment between January 2009 to January 2010 (the last report before the Washington Times article) of 73K. Since then, we have seen a reduction of 71K.

I will post the official stats again.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2...9091000001.txt

Nice try.

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

2000 employees is not the size of a small business. Obama grew cental government, he did not shrink it by an stretch of the imagination.

So when we come back next month or in April and it shows he shrunk it, what will you say then?

It would have to be that Obama did not grow central government by any stretch of the imagination, if you were trying to be even moderately consistent.

To give you an idea of the trends, there are 19K fewer federal employees than there were in September and 43K fewer than there were in January 2012. Now do you have a sense for how small the 2K number is and how quickly that is going to go away?

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

So when we come back next month or in April and it shows he shrunk it, what will you say then?

It would have to be that Obama did not grow central government by any stretch of the imagination, if you were trying to be even moderately consistent.

To give you an idea of the trends, there are 19K fewer federal employees than there were in September and 43K fewer than there were in January 2012. Now do you have a sense for how small the 2K number is and how quickly that is going to go away?

Seems like you opened a can of worms

http://fcw.com/Articles/2012/09/13/S...ce.aspx?Page=1

One reason the arguments can continue with no real resolution is that even as basic a fact as how many federal employees there actually are is more complicated to determine than it seems. Currently, there are three main sources to use when counting the federal workforce, said John Palguta, vice president of policy at the Partnership for Public Service -- and they can yield different answers.

The first one is OPM's FedScope, which provides statistical information about the federal civilian workforce.

The annual budget also provides numbers on the workforce, particularly the historical perspectives section and the analytical perspectives section, both of which report federal workforce numbers as Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs).

The third source is the Historical Federal Workforce Tables for Executive Branch Civilian Employment since 1940 on the OPM website, which include end-of-fiscal-year count, excluding the Postal Service.

All of these numbers are accurate, but they are derived using different methods which present different outcomes because of the variables, Palguta cautioned. A headcount, for example, may or may not include temporary or seasonal employees. Interns and student employees could also at times be excluded from the tally, as may part-time workers. Calculations sometimes include members of Congress or the legislative branch, or even Postal Service, and sometimes not. The numbers can also be manipulated by playing around with the time frames.

“So you have to be careful whom you’re counting or not counting,” Palguta stressed.