Democrats, Progressive Republicans Take Sledge Hammer to Economy

Bloomberg reports that the economy is in a tailspin.  The unemployment rate is now 9.7%, 0.2% lower than last month, but that statistic deceives.  Last month, there were 431,000 new jobs with 411,000 census workers hired. Only 41,000 private sector workers were hired.  Manufacturing jobs increased by 29,000  while service jobs, mostly temporary, increased by 27,000. The retail job number fell.

The labor force fell by over 200,000.  A statistical characteristic of the unemployment rate is that people not in the labor force are not counted in the unemployment rate. So if you give up looking for a job you are not counted.  200,000 left in response to the policies of Obama and the Democrats. They are so great at helping the average American. 

Now if you subtract the 200,000 who left the labor force and the 411,000 temporary census jobs from the 431,000 new jobs, do you really find an improvement in unemployment?

The truth is that the unemployment rate is too low.  The reason is that the government has subsidized badly run businesses that should be terminated and much of government is pure waste.  Rather than subsidize and stimulate waste as the Democrats have, the incompetently run businesses need to close.

Money should have been spent on welfare subsidies to the unemployed, whose lives have been upended by the incompetence of the Progressive/Keynesian economic system. Instead, the economy has been put on life support and the misallocation of investment will cause continued decline until the Democrats and Progressive Republicans are booted out of office.

I feel sorry for my students, who look forward to suffering economically because of the moron whom they voted into office, Barack Obama.

Fraud in Mayor Bloomberg's Test Results?

The current issue of City Journal features a Sol Stern article in the "Soundings" section entitled "Gotham's Telltale Reading Tests". In it, Stern describes a press conference in 2005 in which Mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed that PS 33 in the south Bronx, among the poorest districts in the state, had increased its pass rate from 35.8 percent in 2004 to 85.3 percent in 2005. Mayor Bloomberg claimed that this was evidence of his (laughable) claim that education achievement has improved during his tenure. The principal, Elba Lopez, retired that year with a $15,000 productivity bonus which increased her pension by $12,000 for life (a present value of roughly $120,000). However, in 2006, according to Stern's article, the school's fourth grade pass rate plummeted back to 41 percent, probably not statistically different from the 2004 pass rate. Mayor Bloomberg did not hold a press conference to reveal this information, according to Mr. Stern.

My mother was an elementary school teacher in P.S. 7 in Manhattan during the 1970s and 1980s. She retired early because of frustration with the corrupt system in those days. Needless to say, gaming and fraud were commonplace in reporting official test results. Mayor Bloomberg claims expertise in management because he has built one of the most successful companies in New York City. However, his management expertise does not seem to have spared him from being duped. Much as Ken Lay was held accountable for breaches of fiduciary duty, Mayor Bloomberg ought to be held accountable if there was fraud in PS 33's test results.

There neeeds to be an investigation of corruption in the reporting of test results. If Mayor Bloomberg is running for president on his record as an "education mayor" (as a college professor in New York, this sounds to me a ridiculous claim), he needs to account for potential fraud in the test results that he has touted, and needs to explain why he was so easily duped.*

*Perhaps it's his Harvard MBA. He should have gone to NYU!