It is true that we cannot be free from sin,
but at least let our sins not always be the same.
Teresa of Avila
Official Employment Rate to 8.3%, Jobs Up 243K, But...
I have not listened to today's political spin, not a word from the Administration, but it's so predictable: Obama will cite a number of encouraging signs--consecutive drops in the unemployment rate, higher than expected job growth, improvements in manufacturing and construction, etc.; he will then add that he's not satisfied, we've still got a long way to go, but we're headed in the right direction, our policies are beginning to bear fruit, blah, blah, blah. How am I doing? If he hasn't said it yet, trust me: he will.
I have no doubt that some readers will think no matter what the numbers are, I would have have a problem with it. No. Not even FDR, LBJ, Carter and Clinton and decades of Democrats dominating the House of Rpresentatives could kill the economy, despite all their counterproductive, reckless attempts to tax, spend and regulate the economy into the ditch. To a large extent, Speaker Boehner (R-OH) has been able to stop the madness; we still need a GOP-controlled Senate and White House to rollback the excesses of the 111th Congress.
No, there are some encouraging signs--a definite pickup in a more diversified hiring pattern (professionals, for instance), and there are some encouraging signs in terms of Caterpillar's hiring. And no matter what, I would rather see the official unemployment numbers going down than up. But I need to caution people about a couple of things: (1) one must not overgeneralize from one sample point where numbers are better than expected (and note that numbers are subject to revision) and (2) there are a number of risks out there, including an unresolved European crisis and worrisome international hot spots (including Iran).
But my own anecdotal experience shows little improvement from having been a professional Oracle DBA, an in-demand profession since 1993 and having ridden the waves of the economy since then. I can literally count on one hand the number of companies that have been willing to cover travel costs and/or share in relocation over the past year. I reluctantly allowed a recruiter to present me recently to a company located in a major Michigan university college town; the company rejected me as "overqualified". A bottom-feeding IBM vendor wanted to present me for an out-of-area gig where travel expenses would eat up almost half of the rate.
The real story can be seen in the two following charts, and there's no way Barack Obama can put lipstick on these numbers. The best he can argue in terms of employment participation is that it is leveling off and not deteriorating, but labor participation is continuing to drift down. What does this mean? Recall that new workers enter the job market each month. But unemployed workers may get discouraged and simply leave the labor force (an arbitrary government statistic that goes into determining the official unemployment rate). The discouraged former workers haven't disappeared--in fact, if they like today's news, they might start looking at the want ads again--and fall back into the labor force. I find it difficult to believe the official unemployment rate drop is sustainable given tens of millions unemployed or underemployed.
Romney needs to press the attack: we need to PERMANENTLY lower the government burden on business. It's not just taxes but regulations, a hidden type of taxation, and massive government spending--which is zero-sum with the FAR MORE EFFICIENT, EFFECTIVE spending of the private sector. We cannot afford for the government to crowd out investment in the free market. Barack Obama's megalomaniac delusion of "pick and choose" industry winners and losers is unsustainable.
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| Courtesy of Casey Research |
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| Courtesy of shadowstats.com |
Mixed Review
I briefly discussed this George Will column in yesterday's commentary on the Tyrrell column on Newt Gingrich. Will regards Gingrich's political ideology as subordinate to his personal ambition. He points out that Gingrich lacks the conservative's true skepticism of government and concerns about the law of unintended consequences. He thinks that Gingrich's ideology is irrelevant: Gingrich could have just as easily have been a liberal. Will doesn't make this specific argument, but it's clear: Romney needs to expose that the activists' cherished non-Romney candidate Gingrich is no true conservative.
What is Will's problem with Romney? In short, he thinks Romney is the second coming of Thomas Dewey. If ever there was a change election, it was 1948, when the Republicans had been out of the Oval Office for 16 years. There was no way Dewey, a liberal Republican New York governor, who had done remarkably well in 1944 against FDR, could lose to Truman. Truman ran an aggressive campaign against Dewey--and a more conservative "do-nothing" Republican Congress. Will classifies Dewey as a detached, efficient public servant, devoid of charisma.
So it's easy to see why many conservatives, whether or not conscious of history, have drawn parallels between the 1948 campaign and this fall. By any objective standard, Obama shouldn't have a prayer. Romney comes across as a passionless technocrat whom talks in terms of a 59-plank economic plan: no pithy "9-9-9"; they worry that Romney won't press the battle against Obama and he will be seen as detached from other Americans (which is why the "I'm not concerned with the very poor" soundbite, quoted out of context, came across as utterly clueless). They intrinsically know that Obama is going to run a populist campaign against Romney (and will try to tie him to Wall Street) and against an allegedly "do-nothing" GOP-controlled House.
I am absolutely convinced that Mitt Romney is NO Tom Dewey. But I think he does need to revamp his campaign. For example:
- Streamline Your Message. Yes, we know: the world is complex. Most Americans can't relate to the minutiae of government operations or economics or detailed discussion of footnotes in government financial statements. No more "Mr. Roboto" President Greenshades. Yes, demonstrate that you are more than capable of handling the details, but speak in broader terms of goals and objectives.
- Less Talk, More Action and Results: Sometimes Words ARE 'Just Words'. No more vacuous Dewey/Obama talk of "our future lies ahead", "we are the ones we've been waiting for". Focus on traditional American values of self-reliance, thrift, and personal responsibility: no more freeloaders. Speak in terms like "don't ask what the government can do for you", "the government must live within its means and pay off its debts", "government must become less complex, more manageable and accountable", etc.
- Be More Poignant and Show Passion. Obama routinely features anecdotal stories in his speeches. Romney needs to connect with his audience and show his humanity: maybe it's how he felt at the birth of his first son, what he wished for his son's future; maybe it's how he felt on being told the diagnostic for his wife's medical condition, how that's affected his view about public policy and healthcare.
- Model Reagan's Trademark Humor and Optimism. For instance, show that you don't take yourself that seriously.
- Draw a Line in the Sand. No more "Big Government Knows Best", no more phony spending renamed "stimulus", accounting of spending cuts, no more pushing-on-a-string rules and regulations. It's time to streamline government, sunset nice-to-have versus need-to-have mandates and other rules and regulations.
- Demand Productivity Increases in Government. Working for government is a privilege, not an entitlement. Government and contractors must learn to do more with less. No more turf battles at the expense of the American taxpayer.
- Run Against A Corrupt, Spendthrift US Senate and Czarmaker Obama
- The Buck Stops Here. We need to make long-term fixes to entitlements and out-of-control budgets and spending
- No More Crony Capitalism/Unionism.
- Run against Washington and Obama's Divisive Politics. Stress bipartisanship is more than lip service.
"A woman in Illinois is auctioning off a 2005 Chrysler that once belonged to President Obama. You can tell it was Obama's car because it gets out to a fast start, and then stalls for the next three years." - Jimmy Fallon
[The buyer is responsible for having the car towed out of that ditch, the owner's guide is 2000 pages long, Obama never had anything fixed while he owned the car and blamed the prior owners, the car never seems to get anywhere no matter how much you put in the tank, it seems to drift left no matter where you're going, you can't pass anything with Republicans on the road, and you're still stuck having to make the payments long after Obama last drove the car.]
“Mitt Romney's campaign will start getting Secret Service protection this week. That's just to protect him from Newt Gingrich.” –Jay Leno
[Mitt Romney told the Secret Service he's not concerned about the very poor people. And he's not worried about the very rich people either, after 3 years of Obama as President.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Guess Who, "Laughing"
