Just how powerful is the media's influence? Incalculable. When George Bush was president and the economy was chug chug, chuggin' along, the unemployment rate was 4.6% and the media was in full destruct mode. The horror of the unemployment rate. The outrage at the war in Iraq ....well, you know the rest.
Here we are painfully laboring under Obama's "leadership" (but not yet suffering the full effect of Obama's war on America; the worst is yet to come) and the Eva Braunish media continues to activate, propagandize and cover for the dastardly actions of the most dangerous man to ever occupy the White House.
Needless to say, if a Republican had Obama's record, he would have been exiled to Elba. We have our work cut out for us.
Friday came the news that unemployment climbed again (despite omitting those who have stopped looking for work, etc.).
WASHINGTON -- The US economy added jobs at a slower pace in June than in May, the Labor Department reported Friday, suggesting that the sudden slowdown in the economy might be longer-lasting and more severe than feared.
Nonfarm payrolls rose by only 18,000 in June, well below the 125,000 gain expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch.
Job gains in May were revised down to 25,000 from the initial estimate of 54,000.
Employment growth almost ground to a halt in the last two months after several months of strong gains. Employment rose by an average of 215,000 per month from February through April -- but only averaged 22,000 over the past two months.
The unemployment rate ticked higher to 9.2 percent in June from 9.1 percent in the previous month, reaching the highest level since December 2010. Economists expected the unemployment rate to remain steady. (NY Post)
The same day that the unemployment figures were released, I received notice from my health insurer that they have submitted a request for a rate increase to the New York State Insurance Department (there's a government department for everything).
They seek a 22% increase. Mind you, my premiums went up 36% after Obamacare was passed. And I don't even use my healthcare. I have a deductible that would choke a horse just to keep my monthly premiums manageable. And if there had to be universal healthcare (which I do no believe in), it should have covered only catastrophic health costs.
How can people afford these insane increases while saddled with growing inflation? Go to the grocery store -- what does your dollar buy you? Where is the national outcry? What's it going to take, America?
Are there more moochers and looters than there are producers? Is that why Obama still enjoys a double digit approval rating? He should be in the low single digits.
His foreign policy is delivering the free world into the hands of global jihadists, our soldiers are getting slaughtered under an incoherent foreign policy, we are engaged in four wars without a strategy or a national interest. He traded science for the stone age when he cancelled the shuttle program, and instead instructed NASA to redirect their efforts to outreach with the Muslim world.
America, what's it going to take?
Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAYAt a time when workers' pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY analysis finds.Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.
Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available.
The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year.
Public employee unions say the compensation gap reflects the increasingly high level of skill and education required for most federal jobs and the government contracting out lower-paid jobs to the private sector in recent years.
"The data are not useful for a direct public-private pay comparison," says Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union.
Chris Edwards, a budget analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, thinks otherwise. "Can't we now all agree that federal workers are overpaid and do something about it?" he asks.
Last week, President Obama ordered a freeze on bonuses for 2,900 political appointees. For the rest of the 2-million-person federal workforce, Obama asked for a 1.4% across-the-board pay hike in 2011, the smallest in more than a decade. Federal workers also would qualify for seniority pay hikes.
Congressional Republicans want to cancel the across-the-board increase in 2011, which would save $2.2 billion.
"Americans are fed up with public employee pay scales far exceeding that in the private sector," says Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the second-ranking Republican in the House.
Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., says a pay freeze would unfairly scapegoat federal workers without addressing real budget problems.
What the data show:
•Benefits. Federal workers received average benefits worth $41,791 in 2009. Most of this was the government's contribution to pensions. Employees contributed an additional $10,569.
•Pay. The average federal salary has grown 33% faster than inflation since 2000. USA TODAY reported in March that the federal government pays an average of 20% more than private firms for comparable occupations. The analysis did not consider differences in experience and education.
•Total compensation. Federal compensation has grown 36.9% since 2000 after adjusting for inflation, compared with 8.8% for private workers.
UPDATE: Look at this. USA at the bottom of the bottom of the barrel.
