THE RECESSION THAT LIBERALS WANT US TO THINK IS A DEPRESSION

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan

Even Presidnt-elect Obama is talking about the recession we are experiencing now as though it were the redo of 1929. In his speech yesterday he used the latest unemployment numbers to boost his welfare program plans as a way out of this "economic disaster".

"There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis ... and it's likely to get worse before it gets better," Obama said. "At the same time, this ... provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people by rebuilding roads and modernizing schools for our children, investing in clean energy solutions to break our dependence on imported oil, and making an early down payment on the long-term reforms that will grow and strengthen our economy for all Americans for years to come."

To begin with when President Roosevelt introduced his "New Deal" the unemployment rate was 25% NOT 6.7%! And bank failures were in the thousands, not 400 as we have today! Every time a worker loses their job it is a personal tragedy, but the unemployment rate can be decieving. It is measured via surveys of all who did not work for the month from the age of 14 years old!

An example of severe unemployment can be seen in Great Britain where nearly ten million people are out of work - more than six times the official unemployment rate -British economists, however,predict that the jobless total will eventually peak at somewhat below the near 3 million mark reached in the 1990s recession.

Hisstory shows that a long-term, global perspective is needed to understand fully the unemployment problem and the prospects for eliminating it. Over the past four decades, the world economy has generated more than one billion jobs, more than were created during the previous four centuries. If past trends continue, it will create another 1.3 billion jobs during the next 35 years. The current anxiety in the USA and the West is similar to that which the United States passed through in the 1890s when agricultural mechanization displaced 4.4 million farm workers, generating double digit unemployment and visions of a dismal future. Yet, over the last 100 years, employment in the United States grew by nearly 100 million jobs or 400 per cent. Between 1990 and 2005, it increased by another 23 million. Between 1990 and 2005, it increased by another 23 million. During the last 15 years, total employment in the EU-15 rose by 26.6 million or 19 percent. The same process of structural transition is repeating itself today and raising the same anxieties.
Contrary to common belief, the US employment rate, the percentage of total population with jobs, has risen steadily throughout the century from 38 per cent to 46 per cent of the total population and reached 48 per cent in 2005.

Another factor that affects the unemployment rate, that is purposly avoided by the media, is the dramatic increase of illegal immigrants who arrive here unemployed each day. It is estimated at over 20 million! Yet the Democrats and Rinos choose not to address this obvious employment factor. We can expect the amnesty bill to resurface in the Obama administartion, and this will add to the unemployment benefits costs to US taxpayers!!
Source: The National Bureau of Economic Research

Unemployment is being used by the Media and the Democrats, led by Obama, to justify every bigger government programs—from national industrial policies to governmnet paid civilian labor force expenditures to a return to New Deal-type “make work” projects. However, there is devastating evidence that the major cause of high unemployment, both cyclical and secular, is government itself.

I believe that the Keynesian fiscal demand-management with such policies as minimum wages, labor controls, unemployment compensation, and welfare have played significant roles in generating joblessness. History illustrates that the policies of both President Hoover and President Roosevelt prolonged and exacerbated unemployment during the Great Depression!
Will we see a redo of what Roosevelt did in the 1930s?