The gradual decline in the unemployment rate over the past 4 years does not reflect rising prosperity.  It is a statistical deception, due entirely to a shrinking labor force. The Labor Department’s Jobs report for the month of April once again called attention to the alarming drop in what statisticians call the “labor force participation [...]

Rarely has there been a better opportunity to judge the validity of economic ideas than the last four, miserable years.  We have experienced in real time an audacious experiment, testing the theory of economist and progressive hero John Maynard Keynes that the government can buy prosperity by spending enormous amounts of borrowed money and the [...]

President Obama roared into office vowing to “fundamentally transform America.”  The transformation has not been kind to middle class workers. The Labor Department just published another new normal – miserable – jobs report.  The headline, that in March unemployment ticked down from 7.7%, to 7.6%, was, once again, an illusion that masked the real news.  [...]

During his first two years, with the support of commanding Democratic Party majorities in Congress, President Obama placed the biggest bet in US history on centralized government power.  The People lost.  We’re still losing. The Commerce Department just published its final revision of the 4th quarter 2012 GDP growth rate.  From October through December the [...]

The headline jobs statistics understate the depth of America’s misery and despair. The White House and President Obama’s media groupies we’re popping Champagne corks when the Labor Department released its monthly jobs report showing that the unemployment rate had fallen to 7.7% in February, from 7.9% in January.  Employers created 236,000 jobs the fifth best [...]

The labor Department reported the unemployment rate ticked up from 7.8% to 7.9% in January.  Most of the media marched in lockstep with the White House, emphasizing the other headline statistic, 157,000 jobs created in January.  While not enough to keep up with population growth that number was, as the loyal reporters chanted, “moving in [...]

Another month of anemic job growth as the weakest post-recession job market ever recorded grinds on. Employers added 157,000 jobs in January, fewer than needed to keep up with growth in the working age population and replace the jobs lost during the recession.   The unemployment rate ticked up from 7.8% to 7.9% and has hovered [...]

After three years of inadequate growth the economy contracted during the final months of 2012. GDP turned negative by 0.1% during the fourth quarter. After the Commerce Department issued it’s quarterly GDP report the White House tried to present a deteriorating economic indicator in positive terms: This was the first quarterly drop in real GDP in [...]

President Obama decided that New Years Eve, as the Senate was considering the fiscal cliff bill, would be a good time to mock Republican voters and the Representatives they elected.  So he organized a campaign style rally complete with a cheering audience of White House staffers.  He claimed the purpose of this media event was [...]

Much of the political-media establishment’s “information” about massive government deficits and fiscal cliff negotiations is deception made possible by the arcane budgeting process in Congress.  President Obama didn’t invent the process.  But he’s an enthusiastic practitioner of the deception. [continued below the chart]While most of the “news” bout fiscal cliff negotiations has been about tax [...]