Tag Archives: joblessness

national news

So much to ponder this election cycle

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This big world is full of issues, talking points and factors that zoom right past my pointy little head.

Here’s another one I want to examine briefly. How does a president as successful as Joseph R. Biden Jr. struggle with polling data that suggest he is going to get his clocked cleaned on Election Day?

I do not get it!

Biden inherited an economy in free fall from the COVID pandemic. Joblessness was through the roof. Hundreds of Americans were dying daily from the killer virus. Our national budget deficit was skyrocketing. His presidential predecessor had sought to undermine the “peaceful transition of power.”

President Biden took office and managed to work with Congress to enact an infrastructure rebuilding bill, approve the Inflation Reduction Act, approve climate change legislation. He issued executive orders that took aim at reducing prescription drug costs.

Joe Biden is in the midst of a successful presidency. Now he’s in deep trouble of being forced out of the re-election campaign because Democratic Party honchos are worried he cannot beat Donald Trump, the GOP nominee.

How in the world does the president wrap his arms around the juxtaposition of those facts. Unemployment is down, the budget deficit is shrinking, our alliances are strong … but he’s trailing in the polls and experts are telling him his chances of winning are shrinking daily.

The MAGA cultists who comprise Trump’s base are energized. Biden’s base is demoralized. Trump has a deeply flawed moral character that he seems to wear like a badge of honor. Biden enjoys deep affection among those who are close to him.

Up is down and down is up. The man who lost the previous election now might be poised to beat the man who defeated him four years ago. What the hell is wrong with this country?

economic news, national news

Yes, I am better off

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Allow me to make this declaration … as if you can stop me from making it.

Here goes: I am better off by a long shot than I was four years ago.

The question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”, is getting some traction of late. Republicans are saying “no!” They want to tar President Biden with a phony economic crisis, suggesting that the recovery from the COVID pandemic is a figment of our imagination.

It isn’t. Our economy is robust. It is — to borrow the phrase — “rocking along” by producing a record number of new jobs, historically low unemployment, a shrinking national budget deficit, an inflation rate that is stabilizing and shrinking, too.

Yes, the nation is better off than it was when Joe Biden took office as president. I won’t listen to the lies put forth by his immediate presidential predecessor.

Are in perfect condition? Of course not! Perfection is an impossibility.

But we’re damn sure better than we were.

business news, economic news

Bidenomics: It’s working!

How is this going to play out? For the life of me I cannot fathom the current trend.

President Biden’s economy is rocking along. The nation added 199,000 jobs in November; joblessness is now at 3.5%; inflation registered a 3.1% uptick, which is far better the 9% it was registering earlier this year.

And yet …

Republicans keep yammering about the “sagging” economy. How Americans are unhappy with their lives’ economic trajectory.

President Biden and Congress approved the nation’s largest infrastructure bill in history. He got Congress to approve the Inflation Reduction Act. We’re investing in “green energy,” and the GOP calls that a bad thing.

It’s working, man! Yet the GOP keeps lying to us that it isn’t.

I am shaking my noggin. I do not get it!

business news

Jobs piling up, unemployment low … huh?

The U.S. Labor Department each month gives us a snapshot of where the nation’s economy stands. It comes in the form of its jobs report.

What did the Labor stats show us this month? Oh, that private non-farm employers added 428,000 more Americans to their payrolls and that joblessness remains at 3.6%, or at the same level it stood prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Still, and this just baffles me to the point of confusion: President Biden keeps getting pilloried because the economy — according to the critics — is “in the tank.”

Is it? Not really. Actually, the economy is humming along fairly well.

Now, I will acknowledge the obvious “elephant in the room,” which would be inflation. I don’t like paying more for eggs, bread, milk, veggies and meat any more than the next red-blooded American. Nor do I like shelling out huge piles of dough for motor fuel. Is that totally within the president’s control? No. It isn’t even close.

We have this war erupting in Ukraine, which produces a lot of the world’s grain. Russian oil has been all but cut off from the rest of the world. Demand for all of that is high; supply is low. Hmm. High demand and low supply? What does that mean? We pay more for goods and commodities.

Biden is trying to help stem the rise in fuel prices by ordering the tapping of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He wants the SPR to ship 1 million barrels of crude oil each day for six months to help boost the supply of oil.

I am not going to criticize the president’s handling of the economy. He was dealt a bad hand when he took office in January 2021. The pandemic crippled the so-called “supply chain.” We are working our way through that crisis.

Meanwhile, we keep adding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month and the unemployment rate remains just about at rock bottom.

What in the name of realism is wrong with that?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

Still pulling for POTUS

No one who reads this blog regularly will be surprised to read that I want President Joe Biden to succeed as he trudges through his term in office. I hope it is just hisĀ firstĀ term ā€¦ but that remains an open question, to be crystal clear.

I am not going to presume that the president will evenĀ seekĀ a second term, let alone that heā€™ll win election to another four years in the White House.

He came into office promising to (a) end the pandemic, (b) restore the ā€œsoul of the nationā€ and (c) get our economy moving again. I am going to give the president credit for achieving one of those ambitious goals and part of another one.

The economy is stronger than many of us seem to believe it is. Polling suggests Americans remain concerned about the economic track weā€™re on. I am unclear as to why there remains such uncertainty and angst. I know about inflationary pressures; weā€™re feeling them in our North Texas home, too. The job numbers continue to sparkle, unemployment continues to decline and weā€™re buying more goods and services.

The national soul restoration remains a work in progress. Sadly, weā€™re still being infected with disinformation peddled by Bidenā€™s immediate predecessor. The Big Lie still has legs, although most of its limbs have been cut off by the judicial system that keeps undercutting POTUS 45ā€™s efforts to undermine the integrity of our electoral system. Biden, though, has sought to return the United States to its role as leader of alliances and protector of civil liberties around the world. Heā€™s done well in that regard, dispensing with the gratuitous criticism of our allies.

Yes, the pandemic remains a problem. But its drag on our national psyche is dwindling right along with the infection rates, the hospitalizations and the deaths from COVID infection. States are relaxing their mandates on masks and other precautions. I am not heeding Texasā€™s relaxation efforts. We are still masking up and are still keeping our distance from those we do not know.

I am continuing to pull for President Biden to keep up the fight and to score more successes as he moves along through his term. You know already he wasnā€™t my first choice to defeat the man who held the office for four previous years. Then he became the Democratic Party nominee in 2020 ā€¦ and I was all in.

IĀ remainĀ all in. Keep the faith, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Is our grumpiness terminal?

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The thought just occurred to me.

Could it be that we have entered a period of terminal grumpiness, that our dissatisfaction with government is a carryover that cannot be shaken loose no matter how well our politicians are functioning in the moment?

I see that President Bidenā€™s job approval rating stands at just a bit north of 43%. Itā€™s about 9 points less than his disapproval rating.

Votersā€™ opinion of Congress is worse than that. We are feeling testy toward the speaker of the House, the minority leader of the House, both party leaders in the Senate.

Whatā€™s going on? We well might be turning the corner on the pandemic; weā€™re still adding jobs to an economy battered by the disease, albeit at a too-slow rate; joblessness is down. Yes, we have immigration issues that need to be resolved. Our lawmakers cannot get our nationā€™s budgeting process figured out.

But damn! I just get this nagging notion that public opinion polling suggests a restiveness that might be carrying over from years past, or from months past.

I donā€™t see data that examines what is driving Americansā€™ distrust in government. I hear plenty of anecdotal stuff stemming from the previous administrationā€™s tenure, about how the ex-POTUS was constantly railing against the ā€œdeep stateā€ and those who collected all that power. Voters bought into a lot of what he was saying. I wasnā€™t one of them. My faith in government remains quite strong as does my belief that government can ā€” and eventually will ā€” right itself.

I donā€™t want there to be a state of terminal anger. There are too many good things waiting to occur. At least thatā€™s my hope.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

How does POTUS pull this one off?

“Here’s a guy who’s managed to rack up a $2 trillion deficit at a moment of full employment in the country. It is almost impossible to do that.”

Perhaps you have heard of the fellow who made that observation. He is U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, who — by the way — is one of the seemingly hundreds of Democrats running for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

He calls Donald Trump the “most fiscally irresponsible” president in decades. Bennet does raise a fascinating point.

The economy continues to rock along. Joblessness is down to 3.6 percent, the lowest rate in 50 years. The private sector keeps adding jobs at a robust rate, adding 263,000 more of them in April. That’s a solid performance, which the president is fond of touting. He should. The numbers are great!

How does the president manage, though, to preside over a federal budget deficit that is skyrocketing into the trillion-dollar stratosphere? I am not an economist, but I always thought that full employment — which is close to where we stand at the moment — is supposed to generate enough tax revenue to keep the government flush with money. That ain’t happenin’, man!

Dang! So the president will campaign on The Economy. What about that budget deficit, Mr. President? Doesn’t that matter any longer to any of those who comprise the president’s “base”?

Hah! Who am I kidding? Of course it doesn’t!

business news

Good news, then a trade war … nice!

Donald J. Trump has just managed to piddle on his own good-news report. This is weird, man.

The U.S. Labor Department this morning released some seriously positive news: 233,000 non-farm jobs were added to the payrolls in May, which is greater than what economists expected; the nation’s jobless rate fell to 3.8 percent, the lowest rate since 2000.

We’re cheering the news! Yes, the economy is showing signs of rocking along. The president deserves his share of credit for the serious uptick in employment activity.

But … wait!

The previous day, the president announced a huge tariff on imported steel and other goods. Who’s going to get slapped with this protectionist measure? Our major trading partners and allies: Canada, Mexico, the European Union.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a statement this week about how this policy might make sense to someone in Washington but at this moment he cannot figure out what Trump is trying to do.

I’m not an economist, but I know enough about global economics to understand that trade wars rarely produce winners. Everyone loses. The cost of manufacturing items goes up because companies — that are in the business for make maximum profit — must increase the price of what they produce to cover the cost of sending it to trading partners.

Who pays the cost? You do. So do I.

This is classic protectionist policy, favored by union leaders who understandably want to protect their members’ jobs against foreign competitors.

Free trade? It’s out the window, flushed down the crapper, tossed onto the trash heap.

I’m still unclear about what Trump is trying to do.

I’m delighted with the jobs report. The trade war might tamp down a lot of our enthusiasm.

Goofy.

business news

Labor market loses jobs; no big deal … maybe

Donald J. Trump was all too quick while running for president to denigrate the nation’s stellar job growth during the final months of Barack H. Obama’s administration.

A couple hundred thousand jobs added to non-farm private payrolls during a given month? The number are phony, Trump would proclaim. The Labor Department is cooking the books, he would allege with no proof. The “real jobless rate” is something like 40 percent, he’d bellow.

OK. Today, the Labor Department came out with some dismal jobs numbers: employers shed 33,000 jobs in September. Yes, the jobless rate fell to 4.2 percent, which is pretty darn low!

But, but …

Still, the job losses aren’t the president’s fault. Really. They aren’t. Economists blame the job loss on business shuttering in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The hospitality industry was particularly hard hit along the Texas coast and throughout Florida, they said.

The good news is that the jobs are likely to rebound in the weeks ahead as Texas and Florida continue to recover, albeit slowly, from the savage beatings delivered by Harvey and Irma.

There’s no particular moral to this item, other than the jobs report issued today is no more “cooked” or “made up” than they were when they were reporting much happier economic news.

Let’s also remember that not even this president — the self-proclaimed “very smart person” who surrounds himself with “the best people” — can prevent nature’s wrath from damaging the nation’s business structure.

business news, national news

‘Economy is doing so well’

Donald John Trump is rightfully happy with the state of the national economy.

The stock market is setting records. Joblessness is low. More jobs are being added to non-farm payrolls. Consumer and business confidence is high.

That’s all great, Mr. President.

The president talked about all of that today as White House chief of staff John Kelly reported for work on his first day in the West Wing.

Here’s the deal, though. The trend the president cited is a continuation of the “mess” he supposedly inherited when he took over this past January from Barack H. Obama.

Didn’t the one-time Republican candidate for president trash the daylights out of President Obama’s stewardship of the nation’s economy? Didn’t he cite sluggish GDP growth as part of that so-called “mess”?

I’ll give the president credit, though, for a recent Commerce Department report that ticked up GDP growth a bit past its original estimate. For that, the president can take some measure of credit.

I just find it curiously ironic that one president’s economic “mess” becomes another president’s economic “miracle.”