Economic recovery will take time

From the 28 September 2009 Greater Niagara Newspapers

ECONOMIC RECOVERY WILL TAKE TIME
By Bob Confer

Virtually the same cast of characters who missed the boat with their assessments of the economy prior to the meltdown of September 2008 is now guilty of issuing a lie just as damaging: Their belief that the recession is over and recovery is well on its way. The power brokers in Washington and Wall Street and the economists in academia and government cannot be trusted in this assessment for they either willingly chose to not believe in or were oblivious to the recession when it actually began in 2007. They were not in the position to properly assess the economy last year, so, obviously, one cannot believe what they have to say now.

There is nothing that indicates a speedy recovery is on the horizon. Earlier this year, President Obama’s advisers predicted that unemployment would top out at 9 percent. We’ve already gone beyond that (9.7 percent at last report) and plant closures and downsizings across multiple industries persist. It’s not a stretch to say that unemployment during and following this recession will peak at 14 percent. Even the President and crew have changed their tune to say it will hit “somewhere” in the double digits early next year. Nebulous comments like that speak volumes about the unknown into which we are venturing.

As that withering continues on the employment rolls the economy will continue to retract. With less consumers available, and those who do remain becoming even more conservative with their discretionary income (not knowing if it may exist in the coming months), the hope for a recovery is delayed. Who can the entrepreneurial machine sell to if the marketplace it knew just 3 years ago is more than 10% smaller by participants and over 35% smaller by purchasing desire?

Compounding this mess is the fact that it’s easier for an economy to shed jobs than it is to replenish them. In 2006 unemployment was near what some call a “full employment” level of 4 percent. To get back to that and add more than 10 million jobs will take years, maybe even two decades. Recent history shows that it took seven years starting in the mid-1990s to go from just over 6.7 percent unemployment to around 4.2 percent in 2001. That 2.5 percentage-point recovery is minute in comparison to the 10 percentage-point hole that our economy must overcome when this recession begins its recovery. And, this time around, things are different. As a general rule, factories and retail establishments were not permanently shuttered in the 1990 and 2001 recessions; jobs were cast aside temporarily and business went on almost as usual. But, in just the past two years alone, hundreds of thousands of businesses have closed for good, their assets, investments, and customer base gone. That said, to reclaim the jobs lost by this recession, businesses – and therefore jobs - will have to be created from scratch. In order such virgin growth to occur, a healthy economy – one that promotes the free-market - is a must.

Stifling that free market and slowing the development and redevelopment of jobs is the very thing that created the recession, the ongoing and unprecedented expansion of our government. It was the altruism of our government that forced lenders against their will to provide loans and mortgages to the unqualified who in the end proved unable to pay their debts, leaving every lender and ultimately every American on the hook. To correct the monster it created, the federal government has spent trillions on bailouts and oversight, creating a national debt that now totals $11.8 trillion and is expected to reach $21 trillion by 2019. To satisfy that debt, the government will have to greatly tax those who have jobs or create money out of thin air, sending the American dollar on a path towards worthlessness.

Unfortunately, too many people in the ranks of the unemployed or the underemployed are oblivious to this and are getting their hopes up based on false promises being delivered by the charlatans who oversee or analyze our nation. President Obama, the Federal Reserve, and economists everywhere would have them believe that their job woes will be over soon, that sometime in the very near future they will once again be collecting a paycheck and supporting their families. Sadly, the truth does not match such a dream. Rather, it is a living nightmare, and like most nightmares, this one started peacefully and has become something which one cannot escape until the sleeper has awakened. And this sleeping giant – our economy – has a long way to go before it does.

The great lie about economic recovery

Originally published at the New American at:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/opinion/950-bob-confer/1884-the-great-lie-about-economic-recovery


The Great Lie About Economic Recovery
By Bob Confer

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent beginning of the demise of the U.S .and global economies. That unofficial start to the end of economic normalcy as we once knew it represents one of the greatest mistruths of the past quarter-century, ranking right up there with the Bush administration's initial reasons for the invasion of Iraq.

Congress, the Bush Administration, Wall Street, government-sponsored economists, and the news media are all guilty of having painted the economy to be something it wasn’t. The meltdown of the economy didn’t begin with Lehman’s demise in September of 2008. It began many months earlier, starting slowly in late-2006 before gaining strength over the second half of 2007 and all of 2008. The signs were plentiful, from record numbers of foreclosures and bankruptcies to negative personal savings rates to explosive commodity and resources costs to a good many small businesses saying something just wasn’t right.

Yet, the political and bureaucratic leaders in Washington and the thought leaders in the press turned a purposeful and ignorant blind eye and deaf ear to the concerns, focusing instead on the promotion of the economic status quo or on other issues of supposed importance (such as the relentless attention paid to the presidential campaign). By not acknowledging or reporting on the economy’s growing disequilibrium, they failed everyone by not living up to the faith and trust placed in them, and as a result, almost no one — not workers nor retirees nor business owners nor financiers — had been prepared for the horrible free-fall that occurred from September on. Millions of misled Americans were not given a heads-up and the chance to batten down the hatches and adjust their ways of spending, saving, and investing before it was much too late.

It’s that same cast of characters — with the Obama administration the only subtle change — which is guilty of a lie just as damaging, one that has been repeated a great deal of late, their belief that the recession is over and recovery is just around the corner. They cannot be trusted in this assessment for they either willingly chose to not believe in or were oblivious to the recession when it actually began in 2007. They were not in the position to properly assess the economy last year, so, obviously, one cannot believe what they have to say now.

Nor, should we believe them. There is almost nothing that indicates that a speedy recovery is on the horizon. Earlier this year, President Obama’s advisers predicted that unemployment would top out at 9 percent. We’ve already gone beyond that (9.7 percent at last report) and plant closures and downsizings across multiple industries persist. It’s not a stretch to say that unemployment during and following this recession will peak at 14 percent. Even the President and crew have changed their tune to say it will peak “somewhere” in the double digits early next year. Comments like that, which are nebulous at best, speak volumes about the unknown into which we are venturing.

As the bloodletting continues on the employment rolls so will the lack of growth in the overall economy. With less and less consumers available, and those who do remain employed ecoming even more conservative with their discretionary income (not knowing if it may exist in the coming months), the hope for a recovery is delayed because of the well-directed emphasis placed on consumer spending in our world. The marketplace the entrepreneurial machine knew just three years ago is more than 10 percent smaller by participants and over 35 percent smaller by purchasing desire.

Compounding this mess is the fact that it’s easier for an economy to shed jobs than it is to replenish them. In 2006, unemployment was very near what some call a “full employment” level of four percent. To get back to that and add more than 10 million jobs will take years, maybe even two decades or longer. Recent history shows that it took seven years starting in the mid-1990s to go from just over 6.7 percent unemployment to around 4.2 percent in 2001. That 2.5 percentage-point recovery is minute in comparison to the 10 percentage-point hole that our economy must overcome when this recession begins its recovery. And, this time around, things are so very different. As a general rule, factories and retail establishments were not permanently shuttered in the 1990 recession; jobs were cast aside temporarily and business went on almost as usual. But, in just the past two years alone, hundreds of thousands of businesses have closed for good, their assets, investments, and customer base gone. To reclaim the 10 million jobs lost by this recession, businesses — and therefore jobs — will have to be created from scratch. In order for such virgin growth to occur, a healthy economy — one that promotes the free-market — is a must.

Stifling the free market and slowing the development and redevelopment of jobs even more is the very thing that created the recession, the ongoing and unprecedented expansion of our federal government. It was the altruism of our government that forced lenders against their will to provide loans and mortgages to the unqualified who, in the end, proved unable to pay their debts, leaving every lender and ultimately every American on the hook. To correct the monster it created, the federal government has spent trillions on bailouts and new oversight programs, creating a national debt that now totals $11.8 trillion and is expected to reach $21 trillion by 2019. To satisfy that debt, the government will have to greatly tax those fortunate enough to have a job, or the Federal Reserve must create money out of thin air, sending the American dollar on a path towards worthlessness.

Unfortunately, too many people in the ranks of the unemployed or the underemployed are oblivious to this, and they are getting their hopes up based on false promises being delivered by the charlatans who oversee or analyze our nation. President Obama, the Federal Reserve, and economists everywhere would have them believe that their job woes will be over soon, that sometime in the very near future they will once again be collecting a paycheck and supporting their families. Sadly, the truth does not match such a dream. Rather, it is a living nightmare, and like most nightmares, this one started peacefully and has become something that one cannot escape until the sleeper has awakened. And this sleeping giant — our economy — has a long way to go before it awakens.

The only way to temper this nightmare is with a dream, a real one, the American Dream, the wondrous free market system that brought our economy to its previously prosperous heights. The government that has misled us into — and kept us in — this recession needs to move out of the way. Then and only then can a real and substantial recovery occur.

Sex ed's youth movement

From the 21 September 2009 Greater Niagara Newspapers

SEX ED’S YOUTH MOVEMENT
By Bob Confer

If you ever get the chance to visit the State Capitol, some of the more enlightening sights you’ll encounter won’t be in the legislative chambers. It’s what happens on the streets, outside those tame rooms, that will get your attention. That’s where the lobbyists and demonstrators roam and they run the gamut from the silly to the disgusting.

It was on a 2008 trip to Albany that I saw some lobbyists who did disgust me. Two women oversaw a peaceful demonstration of banners asking for the passage of the Healthy Teens Act. This bill has been floating around Albany where it has been passed by the Assembly for five years running while waiting for Senate approval (which may come in 2010 with the Democrats now in control). The activists’ display was done calmly and professionally yet it still reeked of offense. The individuals they had holding the signage were not adults; they were a half-dozen girls aged maybe 11 or 12.

Now, most anytime a kid gets involved in politics you can’t help but feel proud to be an American. But, there are times like this when you can’t help but feel sorry for them and wonder who put them through it and what kind of parents they have, because there are certain things that young kids really shouldn’t be fighting for.

The Healthy Kids Act is one of them. It sounds like a well-meaning, maybe harmless, bill. It’s not. The only health that it focuses on is sexual health. It would mandate that all public schools in New York force comprehensive sexual education on all of their students, focusing on the entire gamut of sexuality from biology to abstinence to safe sexual activity. The state would pay grants to the schools to cover the costs of the education that would be offered to kids as young as 11 years of age.

As if that’s not outrageous enough, the United Nations recently introduced its own set of sexual education guidelines that it would like to see introduced the world over. It suggests that educators teach 5 to 8 year olds about the basics of reproduction (and masturbation) and offer more detailed information to 9 to 12 year olds. Students in the early teen years would then receive very explicit training about sexuality including abortion and post-abortion care, something the UN recognizes as a basic human right.

The State’s and the UN’s focus – as well as the world’s general acceptance of the UN’s draft - on the sexuality of such young children is very disconcerting. Whether they are 5 year olds or tweens, they should not be told what sex is and how to have it. That’s much too young of an age to indoctrinate them on every nuance of sexuality, even in this era of declining values. They do not possess the maturity, morality or sense to process the information given to them. They’re kids! By showing them the ins and outs of sex, their young, inquisitive minds will no doubt be more apt to experiment at that young age, further driving down the average age at which people have their first sexual experience (15 years of age).

For reasons such as that, it has been proven time and time again that school-based sex ed does not work. The only sex ed that can work and has a better rate of success is that which sufficed for years, the home-based kind. That’s because sexuality is a moral issue as much as it is a biological issue and such pithy discussions should never be left in the hands of the government. A government cannot be allowed to force morality on its people. Doing so takes away the freedom of mind and the human experience. Schools should exist only for the hard facts of math, science, writing and technology. All things focusing on character should be left where it belongs, at home. As uncomfortable as the conversations may be for all involved, it should be up to one’s parents to teach teens – and not children - about the birds and the bees, addressing morality and maturity specific to their upbringing, development, and, in some cases, faith.

Parents should never trust someone else (especially the government) to raise their kids. The schools are there only to educate them, not to turn transform into the adults who their parents might hope they become. If the folks in Albany or the UN headquarters had their way, the trappings of adulthood (like sexual activity) would come at an even younger age and solely at the government’s discretion. Let us hope that common sense prevails, putting an end to this movement and keeping this debauchery out of our elementary schools.

Healthcare reform and abortions

From the 14 September Greater Niagara Newspapers

HEALTHCARE REFORM AND ABORTIONS
By Bob Confer

A great deal of criticism directed at healthcare reform has focused on end of life issues. Many people have decried the potential for rationing and abandonment as well as the “death panel” conspiracy. With all the efforts placed in protecting the right to life of geriatrics, little attention has been paid to the other end of the spectrum, the very beginning of life. Most people are unaware that the reform movement will fund abortions, taking away precious lives before they’ve ever had a chance to experience what we’ve all taken for granted.

The President has been coy on this issue, choosing words that mask his true intent. On August 19 President Obama participated in a national teleconference of some 140,000 religious leaders and heads of faith-based organizations during which the subject of abortions came up. The White House’s domestic policy advisor Melody Barnes responded with, "The president has said that it's long-standing policy that federal funds won't be used for abortion coverage." A few days later during his weekly address Obama added the following: “When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform.”

Those statements are very misleading. They did not say that abortions wouldn’t be a part of the plan; they noted only their funding. Obama is a proponent of abortion so it’s a given that it’s a part of the reform plan (the catchphrase “reproductive services” shows up numerous times in the 1,000-page bill). His voting record in Illinois and Washington, DC shows unyielding support for abortion and he’s the man who during his presidential campaign announced his support of the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that would recognize abortion as a fundamental right. And, don’t forget that on the campaign trail Obama said this horrific and telling line, “Look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old… if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

But, back to his August comments. You must follow the money trail to see that any and all abortions under the public option will ultimately be funded by taxpayer dollars. The public health insurance option, as with all other insurances, must be purchased by interested parties. It’s not free. At the time of purchase it will be private dollars (the customers’) going towards the insurance, so the President is correct in his assessment, but only from a politically-savvy and somewhat temporary standpoint. If you take it one step further, you will find that many of those dollars (if not most) will be made available to that family through public subsidies allowing low-income families to buy insurance. So, while it may be private dollars at the time of purchase, those private dollars may be composed of a healthy portion of federal tax dollars. Whether that means taxes are directly paying for abortions or not, it’s all in the interpretation and that’s the card that Obama, a skilled political craftsman, is playing.

Helping him along in this endeavor is an amendment that was introduced by Rep. Lois Capps. Her plan is to set up a two-account system by which all health insurance policies (public or private) will have to track premiums and federal subsidies independently, and, through that, abortions can be funded by the premium-only account. Critics have pointed out that this is a bookkeeping gimmick and that all insurance funds are fungible and it is impossible to segregate money this way.

Capps’ amendment is a political move that deflects responsibility and allows elected officials to evade it. Similarly, the body of the healthcare reform bill does the same. It authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to decide whether or not “reproductive services” will be allowed under any plan she approves. So, the elected officials – who are supposed to represent us – cannot vote on abortion and instead leave it in the hands of pro-choicer Kathleen Sebelius. This allows any politician who would have voted in favor of abortion to escape the ire of their constituents who would be in disagreement in the event Sebelius allows abortion coverage.

This assault on the right to life is not unexpected. Not only does the Obama Administration have a track record that supports it, but they carry with them a sort of arrogance about the issue. Last year Candidate Obama had famously told Pastor Rick Warren that decisions about abortion were above his pay grade. Fast forward to the August 19 teleconference when Obama had done an about face and said, “We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

You have to admit, after a comment like that, it’s a little frightening to realize that our government thinks it’s at par with the Almighty.

Schumer's so-called immigration reform

From the 07 September 2009 Greater Niagara Newspapers

SCHUMER’S SO-CALLED IMMIGRATION REFORM
By Bob Confer

Despite some advances in the battle to reclaim our Southern border we are still unprepared to stop the continued flow of aliens into our country. Over the past two years some 1 million people have slipped past our border protection. At the same time the federal government has done nothing to address the nearly 20 million illegal immigrants who have already claimed the USA as their home.

Seeing this as a chance to further his agenda, Senator Charles Schumer has taken up this cause and, as would be expected from the far left, his plans are anything but real immigration reform and would ultimately hurt America. He gave some insight into his soon-to-be-introduced bill during a June speech describing a seven-step plan that mirrors many of the ideals that brought about comprehensive reform’s well-deserved demise in 2006.

Amnesty is tops among Schumer’s goals. Rather than forcing them from our borders, millions of illegal inhabitants will be granted - with no questions asked and no existing laws enforced - the fast track to citizenship. These criminals (that’s what every one of the illegal immigrants are) who broke into our nation and stole from us billions of dollars in health care and education, will be granted the same rights and privileges that we have rightly possessed or earned. It’s disheartening to realize that once the smoke clears nearly 7% of our population will have become Americans through entirely corrupt means. A number that significant does not speak well about the quality of character of a nation and its people.

Senator Schumer’s plan includes another slight of the American citizen: He hopes to attract more workers to our nation by legal means which include more H-1B visas. The current cap for H-1B’s is 85,000 per year, but exclusions exist for academia which push their actual annual issuance to approximately 120,000. Following the example of the failed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, Schumer might increase the cap to 115,000 while adding a market adjustment that allows for a 20% growth in the cap if it was reached in the previous year. Due to the value and popularity of American jobs to foreigners, it is guaranteed that the adjustment will kick in every year, pushing the number of visas to more than a quarter million in 5 years.

Considering the state of our economy, granting amnesty and adding visas would be dangerous. The unemployment rate stands at 9.7% with more than 6.3 million Americans unemployed. It will take many years – at least a decade - to get close to what many economists see as the full employment rate of 4%. Despite such economic trauma, Schumer sees value in giving employment not to those American families who need a breadwinner but rather to outsiders. This will only prolong the recession by making our citizens unemployable through no fault of their own.

It should be noted that a bill so large in scale would not be complete were it not outfitted with an unrelated attack on our rights. Schumer has said that legal workers can only be verified through “a biometric-based employer verification system.” This all-out assault on our privacy would demand that all Americans – working or not – submit to tracking criteria that uses fingerprinting and iris scans to verify their citizenship. This is something that Big Government advocates have been clamoring for (as a part of a larger national identification policy) and the immigration issue would make it a convenient backdoor for them to institute it.

Schumer hopes to have these supposed reforms enacted by the end of the year and plans to officially launch his bill very soon. As for timing, he could not be more cunning. The bill’s primary opponents are stretched thin from fighting health care reform and, as working middle class families who don’t have the time to devote to policy debate that lobbyists, elected officials and their staff have, it would be difficult if not impossible for them to maintain a similar effort against immigration reform. Related to that, the health care fight has left them and their ideals unfairly marginalized by the mainstream media and, therefore, in the eyes of Schumer and his peers, poorly-equipped to address any issue proposed by the Obama Administration or Congress which, in comparison to the 2006 attempt at reform, has more in its ranks who are open to amnesty and the like.

That said, it looks like Schumer’s bill has a good chance of becoming a reality in the months ahead, marking a huge victory for those who delight in the ongoing destruction of America’s identity, security and economy.