(YankeePundit schools David Axelrod - promoted by Rob "EaBo Clipper" Eno)
Republicans would do well to closely parse the words of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this past week. http://www.policymic.com/artic... Federal Reserve data cited by Mr. Bernanke show quite clearly that the policies of Barack Obama not only have not created jobs, that the pace of job growth during the 'recovery' has not even kept up with the growth of population. Instead of treading water, the private sector economy continues to sink.
Halfway through his speech, Chairman Bernanke states:
For example, a study using the Board's FRB/US model of the economy found that, as of 2012, the first two rounds of LSAPs may have raised the level of output by almost 3 percent and increased private payroll employment by more than 2 million jobs, relative to what otherwise would have occurred.
LSAP's being an acronym for Large Scale Asset Purchases-more commonly known as 'quantitative easing.'
So what does this say about the economic policies of the Obama Administration. Obama and his acolytes have been going around claiming credit for the net growth of private sector employment of 4.5 million over 29 months. http://www.barackobama.com/new...
A more accurate accounting of job growth would remove the estimated impact of Mr. Bernanke's LSAP program. The United States has an independent central bank. The Federal Reserve thus acts on economic data, not in consort with the wishes of politicians (at least theoretically). Therefore, since the Fed would have acted as it did regardless of who was President; the 2 million jobs resulting from the LSAP's cannot be attributed to Obama's policies.
After subtracting the 2 million jobs from LSAPs, that leaves a total increase of only 2.5 million during the 29 month period cited by Mr. Obama-an average rate of job creation of 86,000 per month (2.5 million / 29 months). As a benchmark, keep in mind that the United States needs to create at least 125,000 private sector jobs a month just to keep up with population growth.
Moreover, since interest rates are just a hairsbreadth above zero, there is little prospect that future Fed action will have the same impact as the LSAP's of the past.
The result is an economy under Barack Obama where job growth isn't even keeping up with population growth. This isn't a recovery. Instead, Ben Bernanke's data show that job seekers are continuing to lose ground to this day under Barack Obama's economic program. |
