Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Obama Disconnect

According to CNN:

"...at the end of his first quarterly meeting with the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which was created in February to provide the administration with independent, nonpartisan advice on how to promote economic growth and stability.

...Obama told the board members he's seen "some return to normalcy" in parts of the financial markets."


I would love to hear which part of the financial markets is being referred to by our Dear Leader. According to the Federal Reserve (in a different article from CNN):

"The Federal Reserve's latest forecasts for the U.S. economy are gloomier than the ones released three months earlier, with an expectation for higher unemployment and a steeper drop in economic activity.

The Fed's forecasts, released as part of the minutes from its April meeting, show that its staff now expects the unemployment rate to rise to between 9.2% and 9.6% this year. The central bank had forecast in January that the jobless rate would be in a range of 8.5% to 8.8%, but the unemployment rate topped that in April, hitting 8.9%.

The Fed also now expects the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic activity, to post a drop of between 1.3% and 2% this year. It had previously expected only a 0.5% to 1.3% decline."


Or how about this report (also from CNN):
"Welcome to the summer of the furlough. Manufacturing workers have long suffered from these "temporary layoffs," but the white-collar world is feeling them now, too: During this recession, everyone from universities to technology companies are using furloughs as a way to cut payroll without further trimming their staffs.

And while furloughs are already underway around the nation, human resources specialists say that required unpaid days off are only going to heat up as we head into the summer months, when employees are more amenable to time off -- albeit unpaid.

"Companies have done the huge surgery in terms of offering reductions in forced and involuntary ways," says Fred Crandall with consulting firm Watson Wyatt."


Of course, if Bush had said something as incredibly moronic as what Obama said, the Media would have lambasted Bush. But since it comes from the Obamessiah, not a peep is heard.

2 comments:

William R. Barker said...

(*SIGH*)

Yep.

I now have TWO friends out of work; one of whom is a doctor... as in MD who is looking for a hospital staff position, the other is an electrical engineer with both Fortune 50 and entrepreneurial "start up" top level executive experience.

God frigg'n help us.

Oh... and Kim and all her newly minted BA/BS holder friends are all freaking; for Kim, now isn't exactly the best time to get her first full-time staff tenure track teaching position. Nor are her "business grad" friends fairing any better.

Me? My business is pretty much shot. Thank God Mary's job is secure and her income sufficient for us to tread water until I decide what to do. (Probably go back to school and finish my Masters in Library Science.)

BILL

EdMcGon said...

Good luck Bill. My prayers are with you.

I'm looking at a furlough in July. Unfortunately, I'll have to dip into my retirement savings to get through that month.