I would kill plenty of people to get to 2008. I had a great year. But not 2009. Wait....what's that you say? Barack Obama was president in 2009? He specifically said unemployment would not go above 8%. You know this. This makes no sense. Either I win the dog turd or you win the buck. Why would we both pay off a losing bet???????? two things. First, the graph was not wrong. You misread and misunderstood it. It labeled the jobs as usgovt meaning united states government workers. This meant people who worked for some branch of government in the US. Don't blame me because you can't r-r-read. Secondly, you used this as a point to illustrate that Obama has shrunk the government. That point was clearly wrong. So are you in favor of shrinking the government or just in favor of whatever you perceive Obama to do. It's actually been 12 consecutive quarters starting in q3 2009 with q3 2012 having not reported yet but with nothing to make us believe it won't be 13. And i do think we are in the middle of an employment crisis. I doubt too many people will debate that. On the other hand, of course I'll concede 30 months of positive job growth and no recession. It's hard to not concede facts. You see, I don't come here to win debates with sleight of hand and word tricks and blame the error on the article maneuvers. I come here to discuss issues and educate myself as to other people's points of view. That's why i typically don't engage you. You don't seem to be able to have a discussion without honing in on some unimportant minutiae in a post and make the argument about that. So to get back to my initial point. I don't feel you can take 650k government job loss as a sign Obama is shrinking government when all of the losses and more were at the state and local level while the federal government increased in size during that period.
So you had your money out of the market in October 2008? How clever of you and why didn't you notify me? So he missed an estimate. Is that is all you can come up with as "failure" in the face of 30 straight months of positive job growth since the massive loses of the republican administration. The graph indicated that there were 22 million federal employees, which is an error, as you pointed out. Just being a smart-ass. I did answer the question, so you owe me a buck. I am in favor of shrinking it by cutting spending, not by cutting income. You only have to look to the last Republican administration to see where that led us. They said it would force themselves to cut spending, but all they did was to borrow money. I am in favor of shrinking the government where there is waste and duplication, unneccessary commissions and programs, almost all pork-barrel projects, unneeded military bases from WWII, programs that have outlived their usefulness, programs that have grown too large, etc. I especially hate nanny-state programs like the TOPS scholarships in Louisiana. I do not favor shrinking national parks, military power, critical infrastructure, environmental protection, regulation of critical activities, technological research, etc. I am willing to pay more taxes to keep those things working and working well. But this shrinking must come with income sufficient to fund what is left. Tax loopholes that favor the richest need to go. Many other tax loopholes, credits, deductions, etc. must go. We need to pay as we go for what we spend. Engage me or not, why should I give a shit? We all choose who and what to respond to. Which is exactly what you have done with the decrease in federal jobs comment, which was just an offhand response to a martin comment based on a graph I saw and quite off the topic of the debate. Yes, lets keep doing that . . . I get that, you keep repeating it. My response, already stated, is that I don't think you can logically hold Obama responsible for all private sector jobs but not hold him responsible for all government sector jobs as well. You just want some numbers unfavorable to your politics to be ignored. Sorry.
Mobius, you are correct that the job losses you described were at the state and local level but the funding for those jobs comes from the federal government. I read a great article a week or so ago and I should have copied and pasted it here for everyone to read for themselves but the basic premise of the article was that if we had not lost those 650,000 government employees which were by and large teachers, etc. and if the American Jobs Act would have passed, creating an estimated 1.3 million construction, and construction related, jobs the unemployment rate would currently stand at 6.8%. Now, I understand that the 1.3 million jobs is an estimated number so it's credibility is subjective. That said, those estimates were made by the CBO so I tend to believe them to an extent. To this extent, the Republicans have definitely obstructed progress. Obama also cannot, at once, take credit for reducing government spending and at the same time point a finger at the Republicans and say, "they were obstructionists." It doesn't work that way. I would dare say that the reduced government jobs is a result of Republican obstruction more than anything Obama did. The same cannot be said for the American Jobs Act, an infrastructure bill, which should have been passed without discussion. On this one, there is no excusing the Republican obstruction.
This may or may not be true. I haven't seen the evidence. I know the Department of Labor in Louisiana (the Louisiana Workforce Commission) laid off several people after ARRA funds dried up. What isn't true is the basic premise of red's arguement. Reducing the government workforce is not a reduction of government. The CBO does a fair job of scoring what is presented to them, but they don't question the methodology behind the projections. They just qualify their projections by saying they used numbers provided by XXXX. So while I belive the CBO may have made that projection, without knowing the validity of what the were given I can't say how realistic a projection it is. Remember the CBO also made great projections based on Ryan's budget, but they relied on his magical arithmatic. I don't think anyone can realistically argue Obama has reduced government. To the contrary... thousands of government jobs were funded with ARRA funds. This was one time money which funded temporary full time government jobs at the Federal, State, and Local levels. These jobs are included in the 650,000 figure, but they were from the begining temporary jobs. I really wish I could quantify the number, but it is in the 1000s. These job losses cannot be blamed on Republican pbstruction, but squarely on poor Democrat design.
Yes, my money was out of the market and has been ever since. Not sure if that makes me smart or broke. Probably the latter. He promised that if we followed him, no unemployment of 8%. It got higher, much higher. It was a failure. Plain and simple. No it didn't, you misunderstood it. It's not a big deal. It was a very misleading graph. The dead giveaway was that there couldn't be 7% of the population as a federal employee. I don't care about the buck, but I was really looking forward to that dog turd. I agree with the spending part but you didn't touch on medicare/medicaid/social security and said you didn't want to cut defense. It seems like your argument is incomplete here. Everyone should feel privileged to interact with me. That's what I tell my wife every day. I would argue that the role and size of government has been the biggest topic of debate in politics over the past 30 years. You stated obama effectively shrunk the federal government. He did not. That seems like a pretty substantial issue to discuss. I'm not arguing the loss of government jobs is a bad thing. It's a great thing. I just pointed out that he's not responsible for cutting those jobs and the jobs he is responsible for managing increased in quantity.
You are losing money, amigo. I recovered all my losses by 2011 and am happily making money again. I have lowered my risk profile as I approach retirement and diversified into real estate and a couple of small businesses. But people who have stayed with the stock market through boom and bust have always profited. Then it got lower. What politician has not failed to meet some campaign promise? Not a single one. I think the 8% thing is a minor issue compared to 30 months of job growth. The 93% of us that are working are not much upset at 7.8%. Erroneous in fact. Of course you don't, it was my buck! How about a virtual dog turd? It's a big subject, worthy of its own thread. I think we must cut defense, not slash it, and there are many cuts that can be made without hurting capabilities. Medicare is beset with fraud and should be completely restructured, but not slashed. Social Security is in not nearly as much trouble. People want it and need it and are essentially willing to pay more payroll taxes to keep it where it is. I tell her that, too . . . Actually my comment was a response to martins statement that Obama "doesn't even bother to pretend to reduce government". I think a significant reduction in government jobs effectively countered that. Explain to me why Obama must be held accountable for all federal government jobs and all private sector jobs, but not all state and local jobs? Especially since so many state jobs and local jobs were funded with federal money that was withdrawn. That is more direct responsibility than he ever has had over private jobs. Either the buck stops with Obama or it doesn't. Either all job growth/loss are his responsibility or not. Government jobs are part of the overall employment picture and it is not logical to ignore a significant shift in government jobs.
I actually misspoke, I was in the market in 08, took all of my money other than retirement out in 2010 to start my business and have not gone back in. Real Estate is my vehicle of choice, but I did catch the run up in my IRA's. So we agree that he failed to deliver on that promise. erroneous in comprehension Aren't you potty trained yet? Some people want it and need it. I neither want nor need it. However, I do understand why it is important and that we can't kill SS. Reminds me of the seinfeld episode where Jerry or Kramer tells George that he can get the final insult in by claiming to have slept with the other man's wife. George pulls it out in a big board meeting only to find out that the guys wife has cancer or is dead or something. God, I wish there was another show like Seinfeld. Look, I'm happy that government jobs were cut. That's almost always a good thing. The point I made was that he didn't go out and try to cut costs, the economy forced state and local governments to cut jobs.
