We knew that the unemployment rate was higher than 9.5% because, damn, we can actually do real math, have eyes in our heads to see what is happening to our families and neighbors, and have been paying attention to the bank closures and home foreclosures.
The following statements, by the way, are the personal views of Atlanta Fed Chief Dennis Lockhart. The real question would be, “what outcome is The Fed shooting for with information like this being distributed to the public?”. We know that if The Fed can shut down all information about where $9 Trillion went, these statements being made by a Fed chief outside of NY is, more than likely, on purpose.
The real US unemployment rate is 16 percent if persons who have dropped out of the labor pool and those working less than they would like are counted, a Federal Reserve official said Wednesday.”If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking — so-called discouraged workers — and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart.
He underscored that he was expressing his own views, which did “do not necessarily reflect those of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee,” the policy-setting body of the central bank.
Lockhart pointed out in a speech to a chamber of commerce in Chattanooga, Tennessee that those two categories of people are not taken into account in the Labor Department’s monthly report on the unemployment rate. The official July jobless rate was 9.4 percent.
Lockhart, who heads the Atlanta, Georgia, division of the Fed, is the first central bank official to acknowledge the depth of unemployment amid the worst US recession since the Great Depression.
Lockhart noted that construction and manufacturing had been particularly hard hit in the recession that began in December 2007 and predicted some jobs were gone for good.
Prior to the recession, he said, construction and manufacturing combined accounted for slightly more than 15 percent of employment. But during the recession, their job losses made up more than 40 percent of all US job losses.
“In my view, it is unlikely that we will see a return of jobs lost in certain sectors, such as manufacturing,” he said.
“In a similar vein, the recession has been so deep in construction that a reallocation of workers is likely to happen — even if not permanent.”
Payroll employment has fallen by 6.7 million since the recession began.
Howard J. Rubenstein founded the company in 1954. They are considered experts at crisis management and financial relations, they serve as counselors on image management and corporate citizenship. They take an aggressive, hands on approach to obtaining coverage for their clients. A majority of their staff interacts with the media daily and are very capable of placing articles, letters to the editor, and op-ed pieces in newspapers to bolster visibility for their clients’ message and products.
On their web page they state they “shape and organize publicity programs and create pitches to help our clients achieve a wide range of goals.” They “understand that a public relations program and communications plan are only effective if one has the ability to place stories and get results and thus maximize exposure and business potential for a client.”
They are known for being one of the best in the industry in crisis management and had the following to say in this field: “We are highly skilled in quickly identifying the salient points that must be addressed and in determining the manner of delivery most likely to counter the crisis at hand. By disseminating the correct message to key journalist, we are able to help significantly reduce the intensity of a crisis so that an organization may return as swiftly as possible to its day to day business operations.”
They do not release the clients they handle who are involved in crisis, litigation, legal services or corporate strategy. Among their over 450 clients are:
Are you ready to start removing the cancer from our Congress?
Where is a congressman or senator who wishes to elevate themselves to a place of historic statesman by calling for an investigation of all things “White House”?
Glenn covers the new FCC Chief Diversity czar, officer, advisor, whatever, the crushing of free speech and an interview with Rush Limbaugh. Glenn is finally saying what we have been saying for years, namely “We Are So Screwed”. Better start talking about the 9.12 March Glenn.
We have lost all confidence and trust in our government. The more I learn about the history of the last 120 years, the more jaded I become about the District of Corruption and all the players ensconced there playing with their little twisty plots to benefit themselves and their lobbyist buddies. It is my understanding that Obama’s National Civilian Service agenda will be announced on 9.11.09. I am currently looking for hard facts to substantiate this bit of info.
Glenn Beck today on his radio program wanted to know what the motivation for The One declaring 9.11 to be a national day of service. We all are more than just a tad bit suspicious of the resident with his czars, lobbyists, unions, and information gathering programs.
This is the desecration that Glenn is talking about.
When: Thursday, August 27, 2009 10:30 A.M. Eastern
Where: National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial Preview Site 20 Vesey Street (across from Ground Zero) New York, NY 10007
What: In April 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act authorizing the establishment of 9/11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance. The President is expected to officially designate the day as such by Proclamation this year, and has announced that his United We Serve (serve.gov) campaign will culminate with service projects throughout the nation on September 11, 2009.
At this press event the founders of MyGoodDeed, which in 2001 first conceived of the idea of establishing 9/11 as a National Day of Service, will join with the leaders of ServiceNation, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, and the Corporation for National and Community Service to announce and unveil plans to build widespread national support for marking the September 11th National Day of Service and Remembrance in 2009 and beyond. The goal is to organize the single largest day of citizen service in U.S. history on September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
They will also jointly announce plans for the September 11 National Day of Service Commemoration and Tribute, to be held at the Beacon Theater on September 11, 2009, beginning at 5:30 PM.
Organizers will unveil the names of musical performers and probable speakers.
MyGoodDeed will also announce select national partnerships and funding relationships, preview its newly launched website – 911dayofservice.org – and reveal other important programs and events planned for this year.
Who: Presenters and program highlights to include:
— David Paine, president and founder, MyGoodDeed.org — Susie Stern, Chair, New York State Commission on National and Community Service — Joe Daniels, President, National September 11 Memorial & Museum — AnnMaura Connolly, ServiceNation and City Year — Julie Fisher Cummings, Board Member, Corporation for National and Community Service — Gary Bagley, Executive Director, New York Cares — GlaxoSmithKline, Target Corporation, and other funders — Leaders of prominent 9/11 organizations
Here is Matthew Vadum’s take on the groups and agenda from the American Spectator:
The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.
This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year’s election campaign. The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, but it’s not likely many lawmakers thought this meant that day was going to be turned into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing.
The administration’s plans were outlined in an Aug. 11 White House-sponsored teleconference call run by Obama ally Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, and Liv Havstad, the group’s senior vice president of strategic partnerships and programs.
Yearwood, who uses the honorific “Reverend” before his name, has been in the news in recent years, usually for getting arrested. After Democrats took back Congress, the rowdy activist was handcuffed outside a congressional hearing in September 2007 when Gen. David Petraeus was to testify. Yearwood told the “Democracy Now” radio program that he wanted to attend the hearing to hear Petraeus give his report. “I knew that when officers lie, soldiers die,” he said.
On the Aug. 11 call, Yearwood and other leaders kept saying repeatedly that they wanted 9/11 to be used for something “positive,” “forward-leaning,” and “productive,” said a source with knowledge of the teleconference.
The plan is to turn a “day of fear” that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left. In other words, nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.
“They think it needs to be taken back from the right,” said the source. “They’re taking that day and they’re breaking it because it gives Republicans an advantage. To them, that day is a fearful day.”
A coalition including the unsavory left-wing pressure group Color of Change and about 60 far-left, environmentalist, labor, and corporate shakedown groups participated in the call. Groups on the call included: ACORN, AFL-CIO, Apollo Alliance, Community Action Partnership, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, 80 Million Strong for Young American Jobs, Friends of the Earth, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Mobilize.org, National Black Police Association, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, National Council of Negro Women, National Wildlife Federation, RainbowPUSH Coalition, Urban League, and Young Democrats of America.
When any kind of shift in a government happens, there will be people and companies who scramble to be part of the new groove and hop on the gravy train. GE is one such company. I expect to see Oracle and Caterpillar to show their tickets to the ride soon.
The separation of state and private enterprise ended in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was born to tell the government what would be what. In a stunning turn of events, Barack Obama’s takeover of the banks, car companies, and financial institutions in 2009 flips that power struggle over to the government’s side and it is making people even more uneasy than allowing corporate lobbyists to run Washington DC for some 100 years.
Yesterday, I ran across an interesting assessment of what fascism actually is:
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
Fascism is to be distinguished from interventionism, or the mixed economy. Interventionism seeks to guide the market process, not eliminate it, as fascism did. Minimum-wage and antitrust laws, though they regulate the free market, are a far cry from multiyear plans from the Ministry of Economics.
Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms. Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission. Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and “excess” incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or “loans.” The consequent burdening of manufacturers gave advantages to foreign firms wishing to export. But since government policy aimed at autarky, or national self-sufficiency, protectionism was necessary: imports were barred or strictly controlled, leaving foreign conquest as the only avenue for access to resources unavailable domestically. Fascism was thus incompatible with peace and the international division of labor—hallmarks of liberalism.
Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography. In this, fascism revealed its roots in syndicalism, a form of socialism originating on the left. The government cartelized firms of the same industry, with representatives of labor and management serving on myriad local, regional, and national boards—subject always to the final authority of the dictator’s economic plan. Corporatism was intended to avert unsettling divisions within the nation, such as lockouts and union strikes. The price of such forced “harmony” was the loss of the ability to bargain and move about freely.
GE sees the fascist handwriting on the wall and now appears to bowing down in order to survive, thrive and profit. I am sure that no one is going to be hearing about this story, now that we will have wall-to-wall coverage of Ted’s passing. BTW, I completely disagree with the title of this article because I believe that if GE thinks they got the narcissist-in-chief’s number, they are sorely mistaken.
“The intersection between GE’s interests and government action is clearer than ever,” General Electric Vice Chairman John G. Rice wrote in an Aug. 19 e-mail to colleagues.
Rice was calling on his co-workers to join the General Electric Political Action Committee. “GEPAC is an important tool that enables GE employees to collectively help support candidates who share the values and goals of GE.”
The full letter suggests that “share the values and goals of GE” really means “support policies that profit the company.”
Steve Milloy, a pro-free market investor at the Free Enterprise Action Fund, obtained this e-mail and says it reveals General Electric for what it really is. “GE is lobbying to become the biggest rent seeker this country has ever seen,” Milloy told this column. Rent seeking is using government legislation or regulation to generate private profits the free market wouldn’t provide.
“On climate change,” Rice wrote, “we were able to work closely with key authors of the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill, recently passed by the House of Representatives. If this bill is enacted into law it would benefit many GE businesses.”
Most of all, Waxman-Markey would profit a GE joint venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which deals in greenhouse gas credits, products that have value only if a cap-and-trade bill like Waxman-Markey passes.
The leaked e-mail shows how tightly GE connects PAC contributions and lobbying efforts. “Our Company is heavily impacted by a number of issues pending in Washington this fall,” Rice wrote.
GE spent more on lobbying in the second quarter of this year than did any other company, according to federal lobbying files. Since 1998, GE has been the king of lobbying expenditures, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, outpacing its runner-up by 40 percent.
Last election, GEPAC spent $2.4 million, with a slim majority going to Democrats. So far this year, two-thirds of GEPAC money has gone to Democrats.
Rice’s description of how PAC contributions help the company (“we must also make sure that candidates who share GE’s values and goals get elected to office”) belies the true dynamic in political giving, as the rest of the e-mail suggests.
By calling for PAC contributions in the context of GE’s lobbying efforts in coming weeks, Rice is clearly not talking about electing pro-GE candidates in November 2010. He is talking about making current congressman more pro-GE.
If GEPAC was just trying to “make sure that candidates who share GE’s values and goals get elected to office,” why would the PAC give $15,000 each to the Republican and Democratic senatorial campaign committees? Those contributions cancel each other out if they are considered ammunition for allies in electoral battles. But they complement one another if they are considered the ticket price to access with lawmakers.
The recipient list of GEPAC cash also suggests the PAC is more about access to power brokers than support for friendly politicians.
The “intersection between GE’s interests and the government’s actions” is plenty crowded. GE is betting on climate change legislation, high-speed rail funding, electric car subsidies, embryonic stem cell grants, expanded federal health care spending, subsidies for renewable energy, defense contracts and continued financial bailouts.
GEPAC pays the tolls to make sure all this traffic gets through.
