(Mark Noonan) – When the news came out that “only” 11,000 jobs were lost nationwide in November and the national unemployment rate went down to 10% from 10.2%, you could hear the sighs of relief from the people who (a) missed the crisis as it approached and (b) prescribed the wrong policies to fix it:
“‘We’re going to struggle even once the national economy recovers,’ said Bill Anderson, chief economist at the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. ‘The holiday hiring will prove to be not as pronounced as it usually is.’
Even so, he and others were impressed by the Labor Department’s report released Friday showing the nation’s jobless rate fell to 10 percent from 10.2 percent in October.
‘…it is a great relief that it did not keep rising, and confirms expectations that we will be turning the corner in the next few months.'”
I’d like to ask everyone who is unemployed or worrying about losing their job: is this a great relief for you? How about those who are “underwater” on their home mortgages: is this a weight off your shoulders? Are you ready, now, to re-elect all the people currently running our government? Want to give a vote of thanks to the bankers? Feeling certain that your kids’ future is assured?
For those of us who are dealing with the day to day reality of an increasingly bad Nevada economy, this isn’t such a great relief. For the worker scrambling two hold down two part time jobs; for those who have had to take pay cuts to keep their jobs; for those on unemployment for months and about to run out; for those who are looking at the kids and wondering if there will be anything under the Christmas tree this year – not so much of a relief.
And it’s an insult to us for those safely insulated in government bureaucracies and corporate boardrooms to tell us that things are getting better when we know damned well they’re not.
Government has taxed, borrowed and spent us in to the poor house. Corporate bosses have sold our jobs to foreign lands. Government regulators, environmentalist busy-bodies and fat-cat lawyers have made it nearly impossible for the average man or woman to start up a business and build just a regular, middle class American life.
Nevada doesn’t need a sense of relief emanating from the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation – we need leaders who understand that we’re under the gun out here and radical, pro-business policies are needed – not so that government can rescue us (we know better than that) but so that we can rescue ourselves from the mess government landed us in.
(Mr. Noonan is co-publisher of Blogs for Victory)
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