What to say when thedoomsday scenario doesn’t pan out: UPDATE "Thisis not what a real recovery looks like," Romney said.
Like a flip-flopping, fasttalking used car salesman, Mitt Romney may have outscored Barack Obama in verbiage in the recent debate.But his doomsday scenario about the economy is becoming unraveled. For thelongest, his campaign tagline has been: Unemployment has been above 8% sincePresident Obama took office. The economy is getting worse, not better.
However, today’s report showsthat the economy added 114,000 jobs in September, sending the unemployment ratedown to 7.8%. What will Mitt Romney say now? Will he continue to say theeconomy is failing, when “theeconomy has now added jobs for 24 straight months”?
What will the prophets ofdoom, like Rush Limbaugh, say? As we all recall, from the time Limbaughprofessed that he “hopes Obama fails”, there has been of chorus of audiosuggestions of the president’s failing. Like sorcery and witchcraft thatrepeatedly suggest to a healthy man that he is sick, some people were convincedthat our economy is dying. What now? A new false prophecy?
The usual recourse to theevident improvement has been this “sour grapes” assertion: But fewer people are looking forjobs because millions are dropping out of the job market. So the employmentnumbers do not tell the whole story. People are hurting.
This is what we can expect tohear from the partisan naysayers who prefer to paint a dismal economic picture,in order to recapture the White House. Bad news is good news to them, becauseit enhances their cry for change. But if it ain’t broke, why fix it?
That the economy isimproving, despite every attempt by Republicans to make Obama a one-termpresident, they conveniently forget from whence we come, though Romney himselfacknowledges the bad situation the president inherited. But, according to him, “thingshave gotten no better”. Proof: Above 8% unemployment.
By now, we all know that afalling economy does not reverse course just because of a new presidency.Economic laws dictate that an economy must bottom out first. And, by the timeObama took office, the economy was still in free fall.
Maybe with a little morecooperation from the Republicans in Congress, the bleeding might have beenabated before unemployment soared above 10%. Enough said: This administrationhelped break the fall by implementing a stimulus program that included agovernment bailout of the auto industry and Wall Street. Workers went back towork. The world financial markets were stabilized.
For the sake of peace betweenparties, the administration forewent taking punitive criminal action againstthose who caused the crisis. And, Wall Street took a reprieve to resume doingbusiness as usual, using government money to pay high salaries and bonuses.This, no doubt, will cease, if Obama is given a second term.
On the other hand, the GOPwants to go back to business as usual, back to old policies and strategies thatcaused the previous collapse, mainly by giving tax breaks to the rich, in thehopes to induce more investment in the private sector and create new jobs.
This prescription was oncecalled “TrickleDown Economics”. The misdiagnosis comes in when Finance Capital seeksprofit wherever it may be found in the global market. It does not necessarilygo out create jobs for a patriotic reason. The slogan Made in America was created to boost domestic productivity, andhence induce Capital to stay inside the United States.
The Obama administrationremoved the financial incentives for shipping jobs overseas by raising taxes onthose who export jobs. This goes contrary to Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital approach. IfBain were patriotic to the U.S. in job creation motive, it would not haveoffices in London,Luxembourg, Munich, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo.
Keeping jobs at home has beena priority of the Obama administration. And, through federal support for education,the administration is trying to enhance the domestic jobs market with moreskilled workers, in higher payer fields, rather than having to recruit fromoverseas. And, through innovations, it has opened up new markets and newemployment opportunities.
Now that the unemploymentrate has dipped below Romney’s baseline benchmark, the only thing the prophetsof doom can say is: “Sour grapes”.
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