…And, apparently, neither do his staff. They’re just hoping the masses are even more clueless than they are. Andy McCarthy at NRO:
Watching Fox News Sunday, I caught a panel on which Obama economic advisor Austin Goolsbee conceded that the administration had previously predicted unemployment would top out at around 8%, that it was now up to 9.4%, and that double-digit unemployment was a distinct possibility in the near future. Goolsbee didn’t resort to the administrations’s blather about “saving or creating jobs,” but he did repeat its fustian about how last month’s loss of 345,000 jobs (resulting in a half percentage point jump in the jobless rate) is somehow good news because it beat predictions (I don’t recall him saying whose) of even more dire loss numbers. It made me wonder why, if those predictions either existed or were serious, the Obama administration would have previously predicted that unemployment would top out at 8%?
Goolsbee then laughably intimated that the steep jump in the jobless rate could be attributable to hopeful signs that the economy is improving. Huh? See if you can follow this: he says flashes of hope that we are on the verge of a revival have purportedly caused previously uncounted jobless people to seek (but not find) work – that is, they waited out prosperous times, deciding to leap into the job hunt only when hundreds of thousands of heretofore gainfully employed people got pink-slipped and began competing for a declining pool of jobs. Of course, why shouldn’t Goolsbee think he can get away with these fables when the Obamedia has taken to repeating them verbatim? Witness the headline on page one of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: “Slower Job Losses Lift Hopes” – I’m sure that’s exactly the headline Bush would have gotten after a half-point jump in an already sky-rocketing jobless rate.
If the enjoyment of fiction requires the willing suspension of disbelief, belief in the Obama administration’s powers of economic analysis requires the willing suspension of rationality.
Again, unemployment is worse – by a rather significant amount – than the absolute worst-case scenario the Obama administration used in it’s “Stress Tests” of major banks.
The banks are refusing to sell their “toxic assets” even with absolute sweetheart deals for the government, killing super-genius Timmy Geithner’s big plan. Tie that bit of information to this one, arguing that the crisis banks are not wounded – they are the undead - and things begin to look rather grim. Tie that to the fact that banks have begun pretty much robbing good customers with usurious rate hikes for a single missed payment and things look even worse.
The media dutifully parrots back the insanely convoluted reassurances of the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, Best and the Brightest, Obama Administration. But other news makes their smoke and mirrors look very puny.
I had a commenter on one of the above links (the Geithner one) that asked how the under-performing loan-based assets could be worthless. Let’s try a thought experiment here. Let’s suppose banks and traders cheerfully kited mortgage-backed securities back and forth to one another. Let’s suppose that each transaction was performed at a “profit” – at least on paper. Let’s suppose that all of the extracted profits by each middleman/bank/trader exceed the entire value of the collateral.
What would the result look like?
Look around.
I was laid off my j-o-b in November and live in SC. I am one of the few residents of this state who think Gov. Sanders has a valid point in attempting to NOT take Federal Bail-out money that will only deepen our debt. As for the entire bail-out plan and Obamanomics; while Barack has done an excellent job of providing pitchers of “Obama-Aid” and quenching the thirst of thousands, himself included, the man has failed to put his “punch” into what really pains the majority of Americans. Drum roll please…Credit Card Interest rates and Gi-normous Fees to gouge every possible orifice of the average consumer is what needs to stop. If de Prez continues to drink his own kool-aid then we all know how that will go…short-lived is an understatement for this administration. We had Bush on Cheney’s Crack teat and now we’ve got Barack sipping a concoction straight from Jeannie’s bottle, all we need now are belly-dancers, oh wait didn’t I see that on Fox news?
I meant Gov. Sanford, my “skyebabble” overan my typing…
” But other news makes their smoke and mirrors look very puny.”
While the disconnect between the O’s popularity and confidence in his steering of the economy are troubling, time will correct this disparity.
I am now hearing, central MN, from independents and sometime Republican voting for the O, that they like some of the stuff he’s doing but the economic cluelessness worries them.
These people were bashing Bush (echoing the NPR) just weeks ago. Carter was a genius by comparison.
The total lack of any recognition by the general public of what is going on in this administration is frightening. They simply don’t want to know. They just want to go on blindly worshiping the Chosen One and don’t tell them anything might be wrong. If you do, you must be a far right wing nut.
Martian,
I dunno where you live, but in Salt Lake there is not much Obama worship going on. Many people know what is going on and do not like it, some of whom voted for him. Of course, there are always the obliviots out there driving around with “Got Hope” stickers on their cars, but not in large numbers in this area.
sam, I may be out of the loop. I live in Tallahassee, FL. Tallahassee is affectionately known as “Berkley South” to those few of us conservatives who live here.