It's STILL the Jobs, Stupid!

Talk of a second stimulus, even before the first is given time to work?

Back on April 8, I wrote that President Obama needs to create jobs, and create them now -- not in 2010, when most of his $787 billion stimulus is due to be released.  Or, he could suffer a severe backlash.

Well, it is a whole THREE months later and some white house economic advisors are already starting to panic. They are talking about drafting a second stimulus package as unemployment hit 9.5 percent last week – the highest level since August 1983.

When Obama signed the stimulus package back in February, one of the major benefits was job creation. Bloomberg.com reported that the President’s economic advisors were forecasting that the unemployment rate would hold below 8 percent, thanks to the stimulus.

The President himself recently was quoted saying that he thinks unemployment will go above 10% before it starts to decline. Vice President Biden chimed in recently and said that unemployment may rise, as he noted that only 10% of the stimulus money has made it into the economy. 

Yet one of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory board members, Laura Tyson, told the Nomura Equity Forum in Singapore on July 7, “The economy is worse than we forecast(ed) on which the stimulus program was based. We probably have already 2.5 million more job losses than anticipated.”

She also went on to say that the U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package arguing that the first one was “a bit too small.”

Is anyone confused yet? Are we getting a little bit of mixed signals from the President’s economic advisors?

I know we live in a great country where everyone is allowed to speak their mind and state their beliefs, but with the greatest economic crisis in 80 years upon us, shouldn’t we have some form of consensus among the people in charge of turning this thing around?

Also, call me crazy, but shouldn’t we wait to get some of the taxpayer’s money back from AIG, the automakers, Wall Street, and get the other 90 percent of the stimulus money into the economy to create jobs, before we go on another spending spree?


Mr. Beck is a partner at Wealth Management Group of North America, LLC, a state Registered Investment Advisory firm – Farmington, CT and is registered with National Planning Corporation (NPC), Member FINRA/SIPC, a Registered Investment Adviser.  He is not employed by NBC Universal or WVIT.  For more information please visit his website by clicking here.

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