This Thursday President Obama announced plans to hold a jobs summit in December, in direct response to an unemployment rate at 10.2% (this non-government estimate puts real unemployment around 22%) , which shows no signs of decreasing anytime soon. The jobs summit will bring together CEOs, small busines owners, economists, financial experts, labor union and nonprofit representatives in the interest of creating additional jobs and getting the economy growing again.
I like the idea behind this, but it seems that this would have been better implemented 8 months ago. This administration's focus should have been on direct economic bottom-up fiscal stimulus as well as job creation in the form of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (stimulus bill). That didn't really happen. Instead we got top-down "stimulus" through corporate welfare, questionable tax breaks and subsidies (cars, homes), and whatever new jobs were created as a result of the stimulus overshadowed by the hundreds of thousands lost since.
The American economy desperately needs jobs, with 502,000 new jobless claims in October. A ray of light is that professional and business services companies added 18,000 jobs and temporary employment - cited as a leading indicator - grew by 33,700 after declining for months. I suppose companies employ temps as they start gearing up with more work before permanent hires. Makes sense.
What do you think about President Obama's jobs summit?
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- Unemployment benefits extension Senate vote inches toward finish line
- Unemployment extension cloture vote to be held in Senate
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- Senate votes 85-2 to hold final unemployment extension vote
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Comments: 4
I wish we could clone him. We need somebody to cut through the arranged stuff in each of the states and in each of the cities and counties as well.
Mike Seeger has a song about kicking a farmer off his land by raising his taxes so a poodle parlor and a latte shop can go in.
Our present situation makes me think of that song over and over, not that I don't drink the occasional mocha.