America's job growth

OBESITY. I just read this and I do not see any sense in pushing the blame on the leaders. Where are the parents, school mates, friends, and the neighbour. I do not agree to the complete article as politicians are not always with the children and why this article was printed at all, surprises me. Congress, particularly Republicans, loves to invoke safeguarding future generations. But no issue so brazenly shows both major parties’ disregard for America’s young and a reflexive pandering to corporate profits as recently derailed efforts to reverse childhood obesity—by, of all things, suggesting that food makers voluntarily change the way they market foods, snacks and drinks to impressionable kids. Childhood obesity affects one in five Americans under 18—15 million or more kids, with the highest rates in communities of colour, according to public health scientists. Advocates, who add in overweight youths, call it an “unprecedented national health crisis” that affects one in three kids. Extended into adulthood, obesity accounts for one-fifth of the nation’s healthcare expenses. Indeed, as two lawmakers who pushed for the marketing changes last year wrote, “Children today are likely to be the first generation to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.” (I disagree with this, as the youths are eating the veg more then their dads did) But even the most innocuous efforts to confront real problems—getting industry to police itself with voluntary guidelines—get shot down by lobbyists and politicians. Last week, a report by the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group pried open the eyebrow-raising paper trail that in mid-December ended a multi-year, science-based effort for the federal government to issue marketing guidelines for cereals, snacks, fast food, sodas and drinks pushed on kids.(You can never push any if you do not want to buy CRM has failed and we are the ones who buy without asking) The paper trail showed the lengths to which corporate America will go to protect profits using every available means—campaign donations, attacking science, asserting corporate constitutional rights, and threatening federal agencies with smear campaigns—and how nearly 200 lawmakers from both parties piled onto their tirade, ignoring a nationwide health epidemic affecting millions of children and teenagers, to say nothing of adults. The evidence—especially letters attacking the initiative signed by scores of lawmakers from both parties—shows how ingrained protecting profits, not standing up for the public interest, is in Congress and Washington’s corporate lobbying culture. Amid deepening poverty and unemployment for masses of American working people, the largest US corporations once again posted record profits last year. Fortune magazine released its ranking of the 500 biggest US corporations Monday, which showed that they received a record-breaking $824 billion in combined profits in 2011, up 16 percent
from 2010. But despite having more money than ever, companies are refusing to invest and hire. Instead, they are paying out record bonuses to executives and hoarding what remains in cash. MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail. In an interview with Think Progress, Acemoglu explained what he called, “a general pattern throughout history”: Seriously? The President, already polling badly with seniors, is about to interrupt General Hospital to come out for gay marriage?!"Mathus may have right as Our highest government officials, up to and including President Bush, broke international and U.S. laws banning torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Worse, they made their subordinates in the military and civilian intelligence services break those laws for them. When the men and women they asked to break those laws protested, knowing they could be prosecuted for torture, they pretended to rewrite the law. They commissioned legal opinions they said would shield those who carried out the abuses from being hauled into court, as the torture ban requires. “The law has been changed,” detainees around the world were told. “No rules apply.” Then they tortured. They tortured men at military bases and detention centers in Afghanistan and Iraq, in
Guantánamo, and in U.S. Navy bases on American soil; they tortured men in secret CIA prisons set up across the globe specifically to terrorize and torture prisoners; they sent many more to countries with notoriously abusive regimes and asked them to do the torturing. I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA

There you have a perfect democracy, economy, theft, wars, and taxpayers coughing more tax daily. For a generation, America's political economy has been gripped in a vicious cycle. IT and economy. Those at the top of the economic pile have taken an ever-growing share of the nation's income, and then leveraged that haul into ever-greater political power, which they have in turn used to rewrite the rules of “the market” in their favour. Wash, rinse and repeat. It is the result of years of institutional investments by the corporate Right (we do not the good copyrights lawyers) to advance a reactionary legal regime in America's courts. In the process, the richest Americans now have their hands in both our legislative and judicial branches, while working America has become a voiceless stepping-stone “The more pernicious effect of economic inequality comes indirectly through its impact on political inequality,” says MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail. In an interview with Think Progress, Acemoglu explained what he called, “a general pattern throughout history”: When economic inequality increases, the people who have become economically more powerful will often attempt to use that power in order to gain even more political power. Once they are able to monopolise political power, they will start using that for changing the rules in their favor. This dynamic is best understood in the realm of electoral politics. In a study of something that most people already consider to be obvious, Larry Bartels, a political scientist at Princeton, examined lawmakers' responsiveness to the interests of various constituents by income, and concluded: In almost every instance, senators appear to be considerably more responsive to the opinions of affluent constituents than to the opinions of middle-class constituents, while the opinions of constituents in the bottom third of the income distribution have no apparent statistical effect on their senators’ roll call votes. In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honour and the highest responsibility anyone could have. -Lee Iacocca, automobile executive (b. 1924). I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA

"President Obama has a decent case to make to the American people. Private employment is higher than when he took office, despite his having begun the job in the thick of the worst downturn since the 1930s. His predecessor, a Republican, was unable to manage net private employment growth on his watch. Since the labour market hit a bottom in early 2010, the economy has added over 3.7m jobs, and private employment has grown by nearly 4.3m—striking numbers given the pessimism that has suffused what many see as a disappointing recovery."

Remember this article R.A. before you write that kind of stuff: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-12/economists-scoff-at-obama-romne....

FED Bernanke's Sacrificial Lambs

Regretfully I am not a FED Bernanke fan.

Anyone owning stocks or exporting will disagree with me.

Thus, since The Economist is an upscale publication where most of the readers possess wealth or stocks or benefit from U.S. exports, my thoughts will not be heard or regarded well.

However, I believe FED Bernanke created a false, empty economy pitting the Wealthy and Financial Institutions and Multi National Corporations against the Recent College Grads, the Middle class, the Average Americans, the Mid Age Executives and the Elderly.

None of the people in these groups are prospering!

And so, FED Bernanke cut the head off the U.S. long term economic prosperity for most Americans so the tail or the Stock Market and Export Business could prosper.

What I believe needs to change:

1. Good paying jobs for recent college graduates.
2. Return to Home Ownership for the Middle Class/Average Americans and good paying jobs.
3. Good paying jobs for Mid Age Executives now unemployed or under employed.
4. Opportunity for elderly to get a descent interest on their bank savings.
5. Opportunity for all of these Americans to escape the massive Inflationary losses of their income or savings.

For these struggling Americans, Mr. Bernanke views them as his sacrificial lambs.

And worse, so long as these Americans suffer, FED Bernanke's economy will be weak and will lead to great despair.

Warmest,

Richard Michael Abraham
Founder
The REDI Foundation
www.redii.org

I find it curious that the Federal Reserve seems to want 2% growth this year, but in other years, either during presidential election campaigns or during recoveries after recessions, the Federal Reserve apparently "wanted" significantly higher growth, say 3%, or 4, or 5. So why does Mr. Bernanke want low growth this year? The article doesn't explain the reason behind it, or else I missed it.

A more cynical reader might think that the Economist is desperately attempting to deflect blame for the slow growth from President Obama to someone else, anyone else, even the Federal Reserve Chairman, but of course, I'm not so cynical. Nor is the Economist so biased, is it?

Who put Ben Bernanke in charge then? Does the President choose the Fed chairman or does the Fed chairman choose the President?

In the fifth paragraph, you twice say rate-cut instead of hike.

The fact is, we're yelling at the wrong guy. As much as Bernanke is to blame, what we need to be doing is yelling at the President - he's already used his recess appointment powers in an extraordinary fashion with the NLRB - but filling the two vacancies on the Fed board with doves would be a far better case for it.

Come on, Mr. President. Bernanke needs someone to pull him in the right direction. You can spin it as part of that "We Can't Wait" campaign.

“Had Mr Obama managed to pass legislation preventing quite so many government jobs from being lost, the economy would have run hotter and the Fed would have been correspondingly less aggressive—leading, most likely, to no meaningful difference in the pace of job recovery.”

I doubt that Bernanke would have been less aggressive. The current growth in jobs is not what Bernanke wants. He has made that clear. He merely thinks more monetary pumping won’t help job growth but will boost price inflation. While job growth continues, he is unwilling to boost inflation but he will tolerate higher inflation if it comes.

If job growth falters, he would risk higher inflation from another round of QE.

R.A.,

Your analysis is flawed.

The Wall Street banks are now "bank holding companies" that are supposed to be under the jurisdiction of the Fed.

That means Mr. Bernanke has to do what is necessary to keep them afloat and growing.

Ergo, Mr. Bernanke works for the Wall Street banks.

Ergo, Ergo, This is the recovery Wall Street wants.

NPWFTL
Regards

So what you are saying is, the pace of the recovery for the rest of the year depends, in significant part, on how enthused (or at least relaxed) Mr Bernake is about a Romney Presidency?

what is the breakout between fed/state/local of the 600k job reductions in government? Tough to take credit for shrinking gov't if the shrinkage was at state and local, if that were an arguement that Obama would consider.