We need one hell of a speech

[SEC=UGA]

Reuters) - Employment growth ground to a halt in August as sagging consumer confidence discouraged already skittish U.S. businesses from hiring, keeping pressure on the Federal Reserve to provide more monetary stimulus to aid the economy.

 

Nonfarm payrolls were unchanged, the Labor Department said on Friday, the weakest reading since September. Nonfarm employment for June and July was revised to show 58,000 fewer jobs.

 

Despite the lack of employment growth, the jobless rate held steady at 9.1 percent. The unemployment rate is derived from a separate survey of households, which showed an increase in employment and a tick up in the labor force participation rate.

 

While the report underscored the frail state of the economy, the hiring slowdown probably will not be seen as a recession signal as layoffs are not rising that much.

 

A strike by about 45,000 Verizon Communications workers helped push employment in the information services down by 48,000.

 

"August was a pretty rough month for the economy," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. "We saw financial markets tighten. I think businesses sort of responded by putting hiring on the back burner," he said before the release of the report.

 

An acrimonious political fight over U.S. debt, which culminated in the downgrade of the country's AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's, and a worsening debt crisis in Europe ignited a massive stock market sell-off last month and sent business and consumer confidence tumbling.

 

With the unemployment rate stuck above 9 percent and confidence collapsing, President Barack Obama is under pressure to come up with ways to spur job creation. The health of the labor market could determine whether he wins a second term in next year's elections.

 

Obama will lay out a new jobs plan in a speech to the nation on Thursday.

 

The weak employment data could strengthen the hand of officials at the U.S. central bank who were ready at their August meeting to do more to help the sputtering economy.

 

The Fed cut overnight interest rates to near zero in December 2008 and it has bought $2.3 trillion in securities. Many analysts say its arsenal is now largely depleted, although they expect it to do more to try to prop up growth.

 

DODGING RECESSION

 

Although hiring cooled, there is little sign companies responded to the darkening outlook by laying off workers. First-time applications for state unemployment benefits have hovered around 400,000 for weeks.

 

The steady jobless claims, relatively strong consumer spending, continued demand for manufactured goods and increases in industrial production suggest the economy will steer clear of recession.

 

"We do not expect the economy to slump, but rather to slouch and stagger," said Patrick O'Keefe, head of economic research at accounting firm J.H. Cohn in Roseland, New Jersey.

 

Still, analysts warn the economy is so weak, any fresh shock could send it tumbling. In the first half of the year, the economy expanded at less than a 1 percent annual rate, bad news for the estimated 14 million unemployed Americans.

 

If job growth does not accelerate, it could take more than four years to return to the pre-recession employment level.

 

Private payrolls increased only 17,000 after rising 156,000 in July. Government employment fell 17,000, contracting for a 10th straight month. The decline in government payrolls was tempered by the return of 23,000 state workers in Minnesota after a partial government shutdown in July.

 

Details of the employment report were weak, with manufacturing payrolls falling 3,000, reflecting the slump in business confidence. Factories added 36,000 new workers in July as disruptions to motor vehicle production caused by a shortage of parts from Japan eased.

 

The average work week dropped to 34.2 hours, the fewest since January, from 34.3 hours. Average hourly earnings fell three cents.

[SayItAintSoJoe]

The speech won't matter. Whatever the president proposes won't pass the house. The president's plan will call for more stimulas the GOP plan will call for less regulation and taxes.

 

Washington is in no shape right now to tackle this problem. The focus from both sides will be to shift blame since they know that there is nothing they can do to create jobs quickly and start to turn this mess around.

 

We're screwed.

Edited September 2, 2011 by SayItAintSoJoe

[Ditkaless Wonders]

The time for speechifying is long past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I fear any government jobs program unless it replaces current payouts. If government wants welfare and unemployment recipients to do somewthing productive for their checks, and if the production is not offset by administrative costs, that would be fine. What I do not want to see is an increase in government employees, and that thought of as a jobs program. That creates nothing but a greater tax burden.

 

The jobs needed in this country are jobs that actually produce something. We need the private sector to manufacture, refine, mine, harvest, forge, assemble, and machine stuff. We need innovation. We need service jobs, but those above minimum skill and minimum wage. We need products for export. We need an invigorated private sector. We need capitalists.

[SayItAintSoJoe]

The time for speechifying is long past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I fear any government jobs program unless it replaces current payouts. If government wants welfare and unemployment recipients to do somewthing productive for their checks, and if the production is not offset by administrative costs, that would be fine. What I do not want to see is an increase in government employees, and that thought of as a jobs program. That creates nothing but a greater tax burden.

 

The jobs needed in this country are jobs that actually produce something. We need the private sector to manufacture, refine, mine, harvest, forge, assemble, and machine stuff. We need innovation. We need service jobs, but those above minimum skill and minimum wage. We need products for export. We need an invigorated private sector. We need capitalists.

 

This is why I feel that job training and tuition assistance programs are so important. We can't keep cutting them out of budgets.

[SEC=UGA]

This is why I feel that job training and tuition assistance programs are so important. We can't keep cutting them out of budgets.

 

Except for the fact that the Jobs Training programs were rife with fraud.

 

I can see setting up funds to send people to community colleges, trade schools and universities for job training, but the way the current system is set up is a joke.

 

(CBS) WASHINGTON - House Republicans Wednesday rolled out $35 billion dollars worth of proposed cuts in the budget for this year, including $2 billion slashed from job-training programs.

 

(Scroll down to watch a video of this report)

 

Taxpayers spend $18 billion a year on them, but government investigations are questioning whether all that money is doing much good, CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

 

Ramona Cunningham headed a job training program in Iowa, but it turns out she was moonlighting on the dark side as a ringleader in a fraud and corruption scheme. She used taxpayer money on $1.5 million in illegal bonuses for herself and others. They took a hundred trips to casinos, usually during work hours.

 

Abuses like that are why two government reports out Wednesday hone in on all the tax money devoted to training people for jobs.

 

Read the GAO Report (PDF)

 

The General Accounting Office found $18 billion in taxpayer money a year are going to not one but 47 different federal job training programs, almost all of them overlapping to serve the same people.

 

Nobody can say how well they work. Only five have ever been studied to see if trainees got more jobs than anyone else.

 

"Shouldn't Congress know if they're going to spend $18 billion whether it's working?" Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., asked.

 

The Labor Department, in charge of 21 different employment training programs, said it serves diverse groups and that fewer programs wouldn't necessarily be better or more efficient.

 

But Coburn said the bureaucracy leaves too much room for abuse. He issued his own report, calling it "Help Wanted," exposing outrageous examples.

 

Read the Report from Coburn's Office (PDF)

 

In California, three men are under indictment for allegedly luring high-school kids into removing cancer-causing asbestos without proper protection, all under the guise of job training.

 

Mary Jane Bowling, once an executive at Workforce West Virginia, got caught illegally funneling $100,000 tax dollars to her son, Martin.

 

The stimulus law added $5 billion more to job training. Finding examples of waste wasn't hard. It's not so easy to find evidence the programs work well.

[electricrelish]

Speech's Opening line: "Are you ready for some football?"

 

Speech's Closing line: "Are you ready for some football?"

[SayItAintSoJoe]

Except for the fact that the Jobs Training programs were rife with fraud.

 

I can see setting up funds to send people to community colleges, trade schools and universities for job training, but the way the current system is set up is a joke.

 

 

Then we'll have to do it better.

 

All too often governments, as well as private sector companies, think that throwing money at a problem will resolve it. This opens the door for issues like the ones pointed out in the article. How you implement the plan is just as important as the plan itself. Either way we can't give up on education and training if we want any hope of maintaining a middle class in this country.

[SEC=UGA]

Then we'll have to do it better.

 

All too often governments, as well as private sector companies, think that throwing money at a problem will resolve it. This opens the door for issues like the ones pointed out in the article. How you implement the plan is just as important as the plan itself. Either way we can't give up on education and training if we want any hope of maintaining a middle class in this country.

 

I wholeheartedly concur. I think that is why you must do the jobs training through an accredited public institution like community colleges, universities or tech schools. If you do opt to go with a private sector solution for this there must be an abundance of oversight... an abundance. This is one instance where I am not convinced that the private sector will make the best use of the funds allocated to them.

 

Also, we need to ensure that the people in these programs are truly being trianed and these people in the programs must be given a finite amount of time to finish the programs and find employment.

[Ursa Majoris]

We need capitalists.

We have them. They sent the jobs to Asia.

[SEC=UGA]

We have them. They sent the jobs to Asia.

 

BUT, in return we got Japanamation, Asian Porn, and some other really cool stuff.

 

A life without Asian porn is not a life that I want to live.

[Azazello1313]

when the government throws a bunch of money at education and "job training", does that actually create jobs? or does it just create more people with watered down accreditations? it certainly doesn't create useful things for these workers to do. about the best thing you can say is that it increases the supply of skilled labor, which lowers the wage those workers can command, therefore lowering that input cost.

 

the key to economic recovery IMO is for the economy to begin creating new, sustainable patterns of specialization, employment and trade. a greater level of skill (and a greater fluidity of skills) can help that process along. but you have to be careful about whether you're inefficiently sloughing off resources based on the old patterns of specialization and trade that are no longer efficient and wealth-creating, or whether you are directing resources toward what some technocrat thinks will be the new patterns in specialization and trade.

 

ultimately, the economy figures this stuff out on the micro level by people with real skin in the game. policies that help foster that development are helpful, policies that retard it are not.

[moneymakers]

Hope and Change People

 

Its time to reelect!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Send me a dime and I will give you back a quarter. I promise

 

 

You wont even have to pump or pay for your own gas

 

 

Hope and Change

[Bronco Billy]

The first step is admitting there is a problem...

[Ramhock]

Something drastic needs to be attempted. What it is . . . apparently, no one knows. The doing nothing isn't working and won't. Now we're back in election mode. Hold on with two hands and, hopefully, see you on the other side.

[westvirginia]

Something drastic needs to be attempted. What it is . . . apparently, no one knows. The doing nothing isn't working and won't. Now we're back in election mode. Hold on with two hands and, hopefully, see you on the other side.

 

"Nothing" was far from what was done. A nearly trillion dollar stimulus was passed. Gov't spending has increased by 24% since obamessiah took office. This hasn't worked and won't work with more. We saw it in the 1930's and we're seeing it again now, and those in power just want to spend even more. The only way the economy grows is through the private sector. Government doesn't grow the economy, it just interferes and adds cost. To what degree is the question the left and right fight against. But the obamessiah has had a lot of his way for over 2 years now, and things are worse. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.

[SayItAintSoJoe]

"Nothing" was far from what was done. A nearly trillion dollar stimulus was passed. Gov't spending has increased by 24% since obamessiah took office. This hasn't worked and won't work with more. We saw it in the 1930's and we're seeing it again now, and those in power just want to spend even more. The only way the economy grows is through the private sector. Government doesn't grow the economy, it just interferes and adds cost. To what degree is the question the left and right fight against. But the obamessiah has had a lot of his way for over 2 years now, and things are worse. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.

 

Why do you hate the Hoover Dam?

[bushwacked]

. But the obamessiah has had a lot of his way for over 2 years now, and things are worse.

 

Yer Schtick routinely fails the truth test in almost every sentence, but I'll just pick this one. We were in a free fall two years ago and almost went in a depression. More cumulative private jobs have been gained in the last 2 years compared to the previous 8 and we have been in a sustained economic recovery for some time now.

Edited September 2, 2011 by bushwacked

[Azazello1313]

Yer Schtick routinely fails the truth test in almost every sentence, but I'll just pick this one. We were in a free fall two years ago and almost went in a depression. More cumulative private jobs have been gained in the last 2 years compared to the previous 8 and we have been in a sustained economic recovery for some time now.

 

[tosberg34]

Yer Schtick routinely fails the truth test in almost every sentence, but I'll just pick this one. We were in a free fall two years ago and almost went in a depression. More cumulative private jobs have been gained in the last 2 years compared to the previous 8 and we have been in a sustained economic recovery for some time now.

 

Edited September 2, 2011 by tosberg34

[moneymakers]

Yer Schtick routinely fails the truth test in almost every sentence, but I'll just pick this one. We were in a free fall two years ago and almost went in a depression. More cumulative private jobs have been gained in the last 2 years compared to the previous 8 and we have been in a sustained economic recovery for some time now.

 

 

 

 

 

u b the reason for the problem.

Had a good thing until media bashed the bush.

libby just has to squash the good to ruin it all

 

u just keep smokin u peace pipe and your cloud of life will always shine

hope and change baby and all will be well.

[bushwacked]

I see the three intellectual amigos have clamored to my statement and effectively refuted the facts.