Jobs Saved or Created?????

I always laugh when I see the government brag about the jobs they claim to "create and/or save". According to the White House today, about 650,000 jobs have been saved or created because of President Obama's economic stimulus plan. This is right on track with the president's goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments,
nonprofit groups and universities were scheduled to be released publicly later
Friday. White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said the figures will show that, the stimulus plan has created or saved more than 1 million jobs.

"It's a great example of the unprecedented transparency, where the American taxpayer can point and click and see their taxes creating jobs," Bernstein said.

I can't believe they would bring up transparency after creating a new health care bill that's 1,900 pages long, weighing over 19 lbs, and written in legalese hieroglyphics (but that is a subject for another post).

The number of jobs created by government spending is an impossible thing to measure. It is not a recorded statistic, nor is it accepted by any economist who's not working in the White House. Government CAN look at the money they’ve spent, and calculate exactly how many jobs are being paid for by that money. But, to say that they have created jobs overall is ridiculous, and impossible. There are far too many un-measurables involved in calculating the impact of stimulus spending when trying to determine job creation. First, they cannot know what the money could have done if left to the taxpayer. Secondly, they completely ignore the fact that they have taken limited financial resources out of the producing sectors of the economy, which inevitably limits future growth. You also need to consider where the money is being taken from. When the money spent is either borrowed, taxed, or freshly printed fiat money (or in this case all of the above) there are long term consequences to taxpayers. These consequences range from a moderate devaluing our dollar to hyperinflation. But there is more…..

Look at their claim to have SAVED jobs. For this claim to have any tangible meaning, the White House would require 100% accuracy in measuring the EXPECTED employment in the immediate future. This data is crucial for measuring employment levels in the absence of the stimulus. Obama and his economists cannot possibly acheive that measurement with any confidence. The White House knows it, and so does the press that covers them (or don't cover him I should say). It makes you wonder why they let it slide, or even more astonishingly, why they praise him for it. Tony Fratto, of CNBC, pointed out the insanity of this back in March and July, when all this idiocy began:

The White House has absolutely no earthly clue how many job losses have been
prevented because of the stimulus bill. None. These distinguished economists
would have failed Statistics 101 for making such a laughable claim. But we see
them now repeating these assertions to reporters who have seemingly abandoned
all skepticism.

To understand just how unknowable this data is, all you need to do is to look at The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS consists of the best employment statisticians the world has ever known. People whose lives are dedicated to employment data, conducting labor surveys and research. Even they would not be able to tell you how many jobs were created from the stimulus. In fact, monthly BLS revisions of past job creation estimates are routinely off by tens of thousands of jobs, and on occasion by more than a hundred thousand jobs.

Projecting job creation with any degree of accuracy was always inherently impossible, and should never have been taken seriously. If I had tried to pull off this ridiculous gimmick, we would have been run out of town. A self-respecting press corps would vigorously question the White House on their claims. We'll see if we have one.

We certainly DON’T have a self-respecting press corps, but we didn’t need to dissect this issue in order to determine that. Obama is continually making up nonsense statistics, in order to re-arrange this country in a way that Americans don’t want. He is being assisted by a deranged press corps that cheerleads everything he does. And to top it all off: there are now multiple reports coming out today, showing that the White House is overstating the number of jobs funded with stimulus money by as much as 30%! If they can’t even get the easy stats right, how are we supposed to believe they are able to calculate what the most experienced employment statisticians cannot? Democratic voters should be embarrassed by this, but they will most likely tout these magical numbers as proof of Obama’s brilliance.

In light of this post, and the one I did yesterday, let me sum up with a few questions.

Does anyone out there feel like things are getting better?
Is unemployment increasing or decreasing?
Are loans getting easier or harder to get?
Foreclosures going up or down?
Unemployment benefits going up or down?
Government spending, up or down?
The value of the dollar going up or down?
National debt up or down?

This government is destroying the wealth of this nation. And worst of all, they are being thanked for it.