So, the government's stimulus plan has created or saved how many jobs?
"Stimulus" is in the process of turning a nasty recession into a genuine depression. The evidence is in the "Employment Situation" report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on November 6th. The "headline" unemployment rate shot up to 10.2%, the highest in more than 26 years. But the report was much worse than most people realize.
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Economic growth is supposed to create jobs. However, the U.S. economy shed twice as many jobs (1,332,000) in the third quarter of 2009, when GDP grew at a robust 3.5% annual rate, than it did in the second quarter (691,000), when the economy contracted at a 0.7% rate.
How can this be? To paraphrase the 1992 Clinton campaign, "It's the bonds, stupid!"
The massive sales of U.S. Treasury bonds to finance "stimulus", bailouts, and other government spending is sucking capital out of the private sector and destroying jobs. Once again, the October 6th BLS report tells the tale.
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Small businesses-especially new small businesses-account for essentially all net job growth. However, business creation and expansion requires capital, and more and more of the nation's capital is being commandeered by the U.S. Treasury in the name of "stimulus".
If his speculation is correct, selling the bonds to fund one temporary stimulus job takes enough capital out of the private sector to destroy four real jobs. One obvious remedy would be to immediately suspend what is left of the stimulus plan. But of course what they're talking about doing is expanding it. They're gonna keep stimulating this economy until there's nothing left.
