A Self-Inflicted Wound

We’ve highlighted in past blogs just why this recovery lacks steam, contrasting it unfavorably to others during this country’s recent economic history. Indeed, there are certainly sectors which have shown renewed vigor, past few months; still, that sector most important to income and spending power - employment, the real engine - lags the rest. Let’s take a look.

We received the key Nov employment report on Dec/4. Results were rosier than expected. Jobs fell by the smallest amount of this recession. Also, the prior two months were revised to show much smaller job losses, indicating that there has indeed been improvement, meaning - slower deterioration. Although 7.156MM jobs have been destroyed since the beginning of the recession (Dec/07) the pace of job losses has slowed dramatically over the past 6 months.

Does this mean we have been wrong about jobs as a retardant, and wrong to pin the cause on the obvious - the left’s invasive agenda? Of course not. In other recoveries the jobs sector was much more vigorous. Not this time. Despite the relatively good news Dec/4, the level of employment remains at its lowest level since Mar/04. That is not to say that this economy is not working near-miracles in the act of resuscitation. It is indeed. It will just take a heck of a long time to recover all those lost jobs. Why? Nobody, we mean nobody, is excited to hire.

For example, Dan DiMicco, CEO of steelmaker Nucor Corp, told the WSJ that, "‘Companies large and small are saying, ‘I am not going to do anything until these things - health care, climate legislation - go away or are resolved.’" We also hear from Porta-King CEO Steve Schulte who told USA Today that his company is not investing because, "proposals in Congress to tackle climate change and overhaul health care would raise costs." Fred Lampropoulos, founder and chief of Merit Medical Systems Inc., told Obama that businesses were uncertain about investment because, "there’s such an aggressive legislative agenda that businesspeople don’t really know what they out to do." That uncertainty, he said, "is really holding back jobs."

So you can be a lefty and own a business, just don’t complain when you see your gross off 30%. This is a self-inflicted wound. Your party's footprints are all over Ground Zero, getting us into this mess; now you're making it all the more difficult to get us out. Shameful.

Robert Craven