December unemployment numbers were out last week (Link) and they are still hovering around 10% for the country, with parts of the country doing better and other parts doing worse. For your blog post this week, you need to decide whether you think the government is doing a good enough job stabilizing the economy or that government needs to do more to help boost the economy back up. In your post you are to find an article online that supports your position and post the link that article to your post while explaining how it supports your opinion.
Please post responses by clicking on the "comment" section below ONLY.
Word Count: 300+
Due Sunday 1/17/10 @ 12pm.
Posts
I do not think the government is doing enough for unemployment. This is exemplified through the Jobs for Main Street Act. The article I choose to support my opinion is: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100111/ap_on_bi_ge/us_stimulus_unemployment. Obama in my opinion is trying to re-create Roosevelt’s alphabet soup, making service projects for people to get jobs, when really the unemployment rate is still constant. The article says “Obama’s first stimulus has had no effect on local unemployment rates.” The public is now questioning his argument for more projects. No matter how much money was spent on highways, unemployment rates went up and down despite everything. This proof that the first stimulus project did not work makes people skeptical about funding for the second stimulus project. The first project had a bill of about 28 billion with the second program estimated to cost around 75 billion. “One economist compared [these service projects as] trying to move the Empire State Building by pushing it.” Even if we go through with the second stimulus, unemployment is continually rising and supposed to reach 20 percent. These road jobs will not counterbalance all those jobs lost from the closing of local businesses. This is only one article that disagrees with Obama’s take on how to fix the unemployment problem. In my opinion, the best way to help the economy would be to give tax cuts to the public and with the extra money they have, hopefully start businesses to get money into the government and restart the flow of cashhhh. This will have businesses growing, employing people, and reinvesting in the government. All of this will have a positive effect on the road to economic recovery.
ReplyDeleteI used the link http://www.care2.com/causes/politics/blog/unemployment-fueling-political-storm/ to show that I do not believe the government is doing enough to lower unemployment. Despite the fact that Obama did create a stimulus package to help unemployment, he has not done enough. The author of this article explains that “Obama has hired many of the very policy makers who pushed through the deregulatory agenda back in the 1990s. Top Obama administration officials like Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Gary Gensler and Neal Wolin helped make this mess in the first place.” Instead of hiring the right individuals to help with the economic crisis, Obama has resorted to hiring some of the men who in part helped this bad economic situation to start. And although he created a stimulus package which the article explains may have decreased unemployment by a mere 2%, there is still major unemployment trouble. Also, in Obama’s campaign for the presidency, he declared that he would help solve the unemployment problem. He still has not done that. Obama’s efforts to help heal the economy have been too timid. 10% of people are unemployed. That’s way too many. In order for the economy to run as it should, this number needs to decrease. And in order for this to happen, Barack Obama needs to step it up as President to create plans, stimulus packages and, overall, needs to create new jobs. When people do not have jobs, they have less income. Without as much income, they are forced to spend less money. If people would spend more, the economy would rise up from its current lowly state. And I believe the responsibility of offering people jobs is up to the government, which right now, is not doing as much as it can do to provide people with the jobs they want and need.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that the government is doing enough to stop the current horribly bad unemployment problems. The article I chose to support my opinion is http://www.creators.com/opinion/daily-editorials/obama-s-stimulus-plan-is-not-working.html. Obama is trying to spend his way out of the recession by creating more jobs with excessive money and this is not even working. He has been cleared to spend more than three quarters of a billion dollars just to create jobs that will likely go away once the money goes away. As stated in the article the only proven way to get out of a recession is to make tax cuts which as of now the government refuses to do. Without the tax cuts to lower companies costs and allow them to produce more, sell at lower prices so that more people can buy the product, and employ more people all of which would help solve the unemployment problem. Despite these facts the government refuses to cut taxes which seems to be the clear way to get out. As we were told in class in the 1930’s it was a job given to the government to take care of all financial problems in the United States. They have tried but have clearly not done a good enough job even though we have what seems to be a clear answer right in front of us. Over all the government has not done their duty to us as citizens of the United States of America. Because of the duty given to them they need to do whatever it takes to help get us out of the unemployment rate we are at, and after the first attempt failed they have done nothing else to fix it which is unacceptable. The government has failed to do their duty to us and fix our financial problems.
ReplyDeleteThe question "Is the government doing enough to help unemployment?" brings in another question : "What CAN the government do to combat unemployment?".
ReplyDeleteNow, lets consider their options. As said by Kylie, the most obvious solution is the reinstate FDR's alphabet soup organizations and hire people to do menial jobs such as dog counting in order to receive a paycheck. Many of you would agree that its a good idea. Any job is better than no job right? But the problem with creating jobs is that if the jobs were needed in the first place, they'd already exist. All a new Works Progress Administration would entail is more debt as people are getting paid to do unnecessary tasks, like raking leaves in a park. These days, FDR's program wouldn't have legs to stand on.
With that "solution" out of the way, the only other way to prevent unemployment is to stop corporations from shutting down. This entails, obviously, giving them money. But these "bailout", as they have been oh-so-critically termed, have been lambasted by critics on both sides of the political fence.
The government's in a damned if they do and damned if they don't kind of situation. Either they WPA and bailout corporations, incurring debt and critics, or they do nothing and get criticized.
I feel that the government has done enough, and the only true cure to this unemployment is time. Every economy has its ups and downs, so take what you can get for now and let it be.
I think that the government is doing a good enough job to help the economy because this is the most involvement that we have seen. However, I feel that maybe the government role in the economy is getting too big. According to The Christian Science Monitor’s article, entitled, “Government’s Role in Economy Getting Too Big,” by Mark Trumball, believes that there are many negative consequences of the large government involvement. One example that Mark Trumball states is that “the efforts [of the government] to save industries in the short run might have negative consequences in the longer term. To pave the way toward more government aid for GM and Chrysler, an Obama administration automotive task force has been broken deals with creditors, workers, and retirees – trying to win concessions from all of them.” Ironically, however, I believe part of the problem with the economy is part of the government’s fault. I believe that the government has been spending too much. “If government spending rises by 1 percentage point of GDP, the economic growth rate falls on average by 0.13 percent,” studies have shown. According to Michael Cosgrove, a University of Dallas forecaster and economist, believes that the “current fiscal course of the government may mean that the economy grows at about 2 percent a year, rather than the 3 percent annual pace that’s been common for the past four decades.” “In one scenario, government debt would reach a level equal to one year’s GDP before 2025. That level is considered a danger zone, and some economists worry that the result will be higher borrowing costs for the nation as lenders mark down America’s credit zone.” So far, the government involvement is large, however it is too early to determine if it will have a positive impact on the government. According to Mark Trumball, “how large could depend upon the performance of the economy. The longer the United States is [ in the bad economy], the harder it may be for the government to unload its stake in carmakers or banks to private investors.”
ReplyDeleteFor this weeks blog I decided to talk about Obama’s plans to boost our economy. In this article http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/ Barrack states three solutions that he has done and plans to do for the economy. First he passed the American recovery and reinvestment Act less than a month after his inauguration that would give jobs to millions, second he plans to fight the housing and financial crisis, and last make good investment on health care and education. I think that the government in my opinion is trying to help our economy as seen though this action that our president wants and took. But I feel that these actions are not being taken fast enough and are not working. For example the Act that Obama passed after his inauguration was supposed to give jobs to millions but it seems that those millions are still unemployed. He tried to increase the work on roads and outside jobs but those jobs are only temporary because of the season changes. I know that we cannot ask for this crisis to be solved in a period of 24 hours but we are sitting back in my opinion. There has been a constant rate of unemployment. And it’s not going down hugely. Obama has a plan to push for health care, when he should be focusing and giving the people the jobs he promised. There has been a lack on the president’s side to push plans on for the unemployed in my opinion. There is ten percent unemployment right, when we should be a five percent. Barrack should step up as president as start pushing the government to put out more plans. Barrack has stated that he will focus a little more on the legislation of illegal immigrants this year and for me that is a good idea because I feel that this will help our economy in the long run. And all that money that the government is spending on border could be used for better things. Because there spending dollar on something that is not making a huge impact on the economy.
ReplyDeleteI think that the government is not doing the right thing to lower the rate of unemployment. This article: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/01/13/federal-job-creation/ shows exactly what I mean. The government is trying to make people believe they are lowering unemployment by spending trillions of dollars that really are not benefiting anyone. The government is spending the money trying to make jobs that seem to make the numbers go down. When in reality they are just changing what the numbers mean to make them seem that they are benefiting society.
ReplyDeleteTo actually benefit the unemployed the government should be helping those who do have a job, survive until they find a job. They should also spend the money to find them jobs that already exist, not ones that don’t and will make people worse off than before.
They should also be trying to help those people that have jobs keep them. That way unemployment will not worsen and then they can focus on helping those people without jobs find them.
If the government would just stop spending money on useless places, wasting it and focused the money on real improvement, the situation would be just a little bit better. The government obviously wont be able to give everyone a job overnight, but if they started trying to help those who are looking for jobs the situation will start to be fixed. No matter how small their steps are to get to stabilization, they are still progressing and will help more people than what they are doing now. Once the government takes these steps then people will be able to spend more money and will start to take us out of this recession and back to how the economy was before.
The very end of the article says how the government can draw a magic wand and make everything better and there is no free lunch. It will still cost the government to do this and it will take time, but it is possible for them to do this.
No matter how you look at it, it is obvious that the United States is still facing an economic recession and the end doesn’t seem very close. Although Obama is trying to create more jobs, he has yet to be successful. A New York Times article, found at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/economy/09assess.html?scp=1&sq=obama%20unemployment&st=cse explains that Obama would like to focus on the economy but is too preoccupied by other events to make it a real priority. I completely agree with this article which states that for Obama, “showing concern is not the same as showing results”. However, this raises the question: what is to be done to pull us out of this recession? Two clearly different opinions have emerged. The Republicans believe that the government needs to step back and let things work themselves out while the Democrats believe more intervention is needed. Although Obama did initiate the stimulus package, I believe that if nothing more is done, the nation will be unable to escape the high unemployment rates. We need something to be done and soon. The article also questions Obama’s focus in the past year, asking why Obama has spent all of his time focusing on health care when the economy is what really needs to be fixed. Although changes to health care were important they were not as important as fixing our economy. Yes, our nation has many aspects to it and many things to focus on but the state of our economy effects just about everyone in the country. The article also makes a good point about this year’s elections. As they rapidly approach, people want to see a positive change in the economy and at this point they are not really seeing what they were hoping for. If things do not change quickly, it will hurt the Democratic party going into election day this November. Therefore, the government needs to place its focus on improving the economy and ending the high unemployment rates so we can end this once and for all.
ReplyDeleteI believe our government is doing too much for unemployment. http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/02/06/obama-stimulus-not-necessary-as-this-is-no-great-depression.html. As I was looking for an article I realized just about everyone believed the government was not doing enough. I came to find when one person says something another American tends to follow because we do not all really have a mind of our own. What we see and hear is (nowadays) what we believe. As Americans it is not our job to try and convince people of what is going on, which is what we are doing, but rather to inform them so they can decide on their own based on their own individual reasoning. Which is another reason our economy suffers and is why I would also like to reference this article http://personal-development.com/chuck/gullibility.htm. Americans are so gullible and a lot of the time lazy or not easily motivated that they will live their life off of other people’s money if it means they do not have to do anything. This is the problem with our government and the help it is giving. People can apply for unemployment even if they just got fired from McDonalds. Those are the people that do not care to start working again which means they will be living off the government who get their money from the people who actually earn their money. If the government keeps handing out money freely and trying to get more lenient with the rules of unemployment then the percentage will keep increasing and the economy will continue to decrease. I’m not saying they should cut off unemployment all together, but they should at least put more restrictions and deadlines on it. Unemployment is good for the people who caught a tough break and need a little bit of time to find another job, but most people who have already filed for unemployment did not do all they could do to find a job. They could work at a lower paying job than what they had, but instead they are not satisfied. The government is already trying to create jobs, but they cannot create a job where everyone can be a CEO or a millionaire. They create small opportunistic jobs to get individuals on their feet again and to have a steady salary until they can progress. So in my opinion if the government does more than they are already doing for unemployment people will see no reason to find a job, but they will become more lazy the rate will sky rocket and we will be back to where we were in the 1930’s.
ReplyDeleteAs the increasing unemployment rate shows, our government has not been doing enough to decrease the unemployment rate, as this article shows: http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/mzuckerman/2010/01/15/mort-zuckerman-how-to-get-americans-working-again.html?PageNr=1. I have not yet read any other posts to this point, however I believe that many Americans know that the Obama administration has not been doing nearly enough to either get those who are employed into jobs, or even trying to create the necessary jobs our country needs. Though I acknowledge that some of those who are unemployed have given up and haven’t tried to do their part and search to find a job, about 6.1 million people, almost 40% of the unemployed population, have been looking for an average of 27 weeks. This blows past the most recent record set in July 1983 of an average of 21.2 weeks, as Mort Zuckerman states in the above link. The people that are blaming this ‘job depression’ on those who are slacking and giving up, are in my point of view wrong, because unemployment benefits only allow for one to financially endure with an average family for so long. So logically of course people are going to look for a job, but not find one because there are none to be found. I go back, as probably most voters do, to Obama’s campaign ads and motto, “I Will Bring Hope and Change That You Can Believe In”…where’s this positive change Mr. President? So far there has been extremely little if any positive improvement on both the economy and the unemployment rate. Many voters of Barak Obama are now regretting casting their ballots, but that’s another topic. The economy has been hurting obviously and the easiest way to fix that is with more purchases. The American people want and overall exceedingly need jobs, which provide a source of payment or income. So in conclusion, I believe that the Obama administration needs to increase their efforts without creating more debt, before any real positive “CHANGE” will be seen by the struggling American population.
ReplyDeleteI used the link: http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/06/news/economy/jobs_february/.
ReplyDeleteThe article illustrates how the Obama administration has attempted to stop the recent skyrocket of unemployment rates. This is exemplified by the fact that despite the recent stimulus package, unemployment rates have continued to climb at an alarming rate. The government has been attempting to cover up their recent mistakes and failure to notice the problem with the economy by pouring money into the economy. This is a great idea, but it will not work because people will become too dependent on the government, as witnessed by the unemployment rates continuing to climb. Despite there being more money in the economy, people are still unable to find jobs, and this creates the aforementioned dependence on the government. The article also mentions that unemployment numbers should be even higher due to the amount of part-time workers that would prefer to and would be willing to work full-time. These workers are under-employed and could contribute more to the economy in full-time jobs. Being stuck in these part-time jobs creates a hole in the economy and prevents it from returning to full employment, at least for the time being. The problem I see with the government providing money through stimulus packages like the one mentioned in the article, is that it does not create job opportunities, simply creates inflation because more money is being given away for no return product. This will ruin the economy and harm people who do manage to find jobs by decreasing the value of the dollar. By "throwing" money into the economy, the government is not helping the unemployment situation, because they are not creating jobs for the unemployed. The article was written in early 2009, and the experts will already noticing that the unemployment rates would continue to rise, but they did not do anything. I think that companies should have realized that if they continued to lay people off, then the demand for their goods would decrease due to a lack of income into households. Companies needed to suffer losses in the short run in order to maintain long run equilibrium. Because companies were unable to cope with the idea of losses in the short run because of the expectations the previous decades had created, the economy is now hanging in the balance, and it will have to turnaround sharply in order for unemployment rates to begin to lower again.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn times of desperation people often choose to blame other people and factors besides themselves for their current situation. For instance, the increasing unemployment rates and the recession that the economy is undergoing are often blamed on the government. However I question the amount of action the government can take to fix this. If the economy is bad, causing businesses to cut their expenses by firing employees and often declare bankruptcy, what can the government do? They can continue to grant bail-outs and attempt to “jump-start” the economy, but the reality is that at this point there isn’t much that the government can do to decrease unemployment. Unemployment implies that the economy is under a recession, and if the government can’t control the economy effectively, how is it to stop unemployment? In this article: http://www.fff.org/comment/com0901d.asp by Sheldon Richman, he talks about the inability of the government to “jump-start” the economy. He states that because the government has no money “laying around, waiting to be spent”, it cannot help the economy. In order to boost it, spending needs to increase and as much as the government may try to encourage people to spend, their efforts have proven to be unsuccessful. Therefore, the answer is both yes and no because the government is doing all it can to create programs that will decrease unemployment, however all these programs require government spending, increasing the national debt and making the economy even worse than it already is. I believe that if the government were to take action at any time, it should have stopped the financial industry before it allowed this recession to occur by allowing outrageous expenses and loans based merely on credit. Right now, all the government can do is encourage its people to invest in order to boost the economy and increase employment. Spending more money on bail-outs and incentives will not help anyone because people aren’t going to spend that extra money; they are going to save it because they are afraid they are going to run out. I don’t believe that the government can be held accountable for the unemployment rate, its time for action is over.
ReplyDeleteSite: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100111/ap_on_bi_ge/us_stimulus_unemployment
ReplyDeleteIn my personal opinion, I feel that at this point there is very little the government can do to even attempt to alleviate the burdens of the unemployed. I know that they are trying and failing, but I really don’t think that there is very much more that they can do given our current economic situation. It appears to be just another part of the endless business cycle, for no matter what the government is trying to do, it is not working. To even imagine lowering the numbers back to normal unemployment ratings, the nation would have to bring its debts and problems down to the scale of that during FDR’s administration. While reading the other posts, I understand some arguments for the alphabet soup programs, and I would strongly support these opinions, but after speculation, our economic situation would not allow it at all, for the growing recession will keep running people out of business and greater unemployment is inevitable.
I feel like the government may even be adding to the great burdens of the people because they keep proposing programs that I do not believe they can fund. Our national debt is already astronomical and adding more funding into areas such as highway construction does not seem to be working. Despite efforts, the numbers just seem to be increasing, and the money seems to be going to waste, adding more and more to our debt. No matter how much we want to believe it, FDR’s alphabet soup legislation, in my opinion, cannot exist in today’s society given our current situation, because it appears multitudes worse than it was during his presidency. Furthermore, at this time, people are becoming much more intelligent, finding work and education outside of our country, for they know that our economy is very unstable right now. So all the efforts really are not helping, since more educated people are leaving and not helping stimulate our economy. At this point, I strongly believe that the government is just going to have to take some blows because if they do more, they will make it worse, and if they do less, they will take criticism, and personally, I would much rather the government just try and convince us that it will just take time rather than wasting taxpayer dollars on programs that are used to make the people think that they are doing something when really they are not.
I believe that the government is not doing nearly enough to help reduce unemployment. This in turn is not stabilizing the economy. Congress has spent most of its time this year debating health care, global warming, and changing policies dealing with terrorism. They have not spent nearly enough time discussing how they are going to fix unemployment rates and stabilize the economy.
ReplyDeleteTrying to regulate health insurance is the only way that the government is trying to help. And in that case they should not be involved. Yes, I get that it is their way to help the economy but we need unemployment numbers to go down. Not health care. The government needs to stop getting involved in health care and worry more about inflation and unemployment rates. In this situation the number of people that are actually being helped by this is smaller than the number of people they are hurting with the health care reform.
Government bailouts were another attempt to help out our country and get us out of this problem. But they spent all this time, effort, and money bailing out people who dug a hole too deep for themselves to get out of. As soon as they got into trouble the government was there to hold their hands and bail them out. Essentially they were bailing out people who do not deserve it. Once they were back up and on their feet they just went back to doing the same thing that got them in trouble in the first place. So it ended up that they never learned their lesson and they just received a slap on the wrist.
So in conclusion, the government needs to do more to make the unemployment rate decrease and inflation rates too. But at the same time they need to stay out of the health care.
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2009/09/24/biggest-government-bailout-yet-come
Now, the topic of government involment is a tough issue. No matter what, everyone will generally have an opinion that leans towards both: they like what the government is doing; and at the same time, they will not like what the government is doing. In my personal opinion, we as Americans need to be independent and stop blaming the government and instead blame ourselves. If we keep blaming the government and do not take personal action, we will never dig our ways out of this mess. , and what they are doing, in my opinion is all that they can. If anything, I belive the government needs to stop trying to assist unemployment and instead The government can only do so muchlet us tough it out. If the government does not stop, they are only going to burn deeper and deeper into debt. Now at the time, this may sound like the best choice;however, by doing so, after the economy picks back up, it is only going to fall again due to the high debt everyone will be working to pay off through taxation.
ReplyDeleteWhich, is another point. For those that believe the government giving them money is awesome, it's not. Too many people are becoming dependant on the government and not even attempting to overcome their personal issues. Also, the government is only going to tax us later on, and in return make back the money they are giving us now.
So, all in all, the government needs to keep doing what it's doing, or maybe even hold back a little bit. But whatever the case, Americans themselves need to stop being dependent and learn to help themselves for a change.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-an-enduring-unemployment-crisis-1802702.html
I feel that the last paragraph of this article describes perfectly what I stated above. The article states that "the Government has no magic wand it can wave" which perfectly desribes what I was trying to say. And then the article later states that Americans themselves needs to pick up the slack.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124761945269242551.html
ReplyDeleteThe article I used is discussing the cons of the health care reform. It describes how the current health care system basically says that even though we own our bodies the government should be responsible for paying for them. It says that the health care system will protect us not only from diseases such as leukemia but also from things that our own fault such as obesity. The entire article is discussing how the health care is unnecessary and how the government should stop interfering. If the government were to provide health care to everyone then no one would have any reason to prevent themselves from becoming obese or an alcoholic. If they were to become an alcoholic then the government would pay for any damage that being an alcoholic may cause. The government is interfering too much, what it is trying to do is a good plan in theory, but unlikely to succeed. It wants to provide equally good high coverage to everyone however; it will be way to expensive causing America’s debt to, once again, increase. If the government let things be instead of constantly sticking its nose in other people’s business then we wouldn’t have such a large debt. It would not be able to provide equally high coverage to everyone. Even if, by some miracle, we could afford to give everyone really good health care we still wouldn’t be able to make it equal for everyone. There will always be some doctors that are better then others or that may have access to equally good drugs and services. Also, not everyone has the exact same conditions, some people may be sicker than others or have other problems that could influence their sickness. Since, the government cannot provide good coverage to everyone then people will have to settle with bad coverage.
While some reports say the jobless rates are higher than ever, other reports say the economy is stabilizing. One of the articles I am siting says unemployment rate was 10.1 in December. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6030ZW20100107, and the next article says the stock market is stabilizing which makes us think the economy will get better eventually. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60649P2010
ReplyDelete0107.
I am actually not sure if the economy is getting better or not, all I know is that my neighbors had to move because they lost their jobs, and my little sisters best friend left the country because her parents lost their business.
I think the government needs to help more by contributing to the infrastructure of the states, with road construction and expansion and railroads and other projects which will help create jobs and help support the stabilization of the economy. The government seems to be doing a good job by stopping the steady decline in jobs, but now it is time to create new jobs. I think if the Federal government gives aid to the state governments each state can create new jobs for the people who lost their jobs. I also think companies should employ people who do not have work, not people already working that just want to switch jobs (for at least a little while). While some think government help is socialistic, I think it is humanitarian. I find it appalling that the CEO's of companies get huge bonuses while they fire their hard working employees and start overloading the ones they keep with the former employees work. While they are on the golf course or in Tahiti with money they absolutely do not deserve.
In short, I think we are starting to come out of the recession, I think the government can absolutely do more to create jobs and help state government by improving the infrastructure. I also think corporations and big business need to do their part as well, smaller bonuses when they are cutting jobs, not such a high mark up on goods and services, we all need to do our part to help get out of this situation.
I believe that the government is not doing enough to stop the raising unemployment rate. The government is throwing trillions of dollars creating job that will go away within the next few years. In the article http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/01/13/federal-job-creation/ it shows that the government is throwing “trillions of dollars at the economy in a vain effort to create jobs”. The government thinks that this problem can be solved by throwing money at it but they cant keep throwing money at the unemployment problem they need to start focusing on the actually jobs that exist. The government believes that it can create new jobs but in reality the government and major companies need to stop outsourcing because they a major cause to the unemployment rate in America. If we did not outsource there would be thousands of jobs for Americans. In this recession we can no longer afford to send more jobs over seas, we need those jobs to stay in America. That way the unemployment would go down because there would be more jobs in the country. We need to slowly start bringing jobs back into the United States that way the there is a steady flow of jobs coming back to America. In order for the unemployment problem to go away we need to attack it one step at a time, focus on the jobs that exist. The most important thing is to make sure that the unemployment does not get worse, and that the jobs that are created reasonable for the average American.
ReplyDeleteI chose the link : http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1889611,00.html
ReplyDeleteIn this link, it explains how the unemployment dilemma is being solved, and that rate continues to skyrocket. It also explains the government's attempts to create it better, but the government can only do so much. Although they try to set up plans and jobs, citizens will continue to lose there jobs, and only few can find another job, or get on the government's set-up plans. The admininstration, who try to set-up stimulus packages to better the economy, says, "how much money is going to be enough?" Thinking about that question, you will also arrive at the question, "what else more can the government do?" The blame that goes on the government is a lot, but they try to do as much as possible. The only problem is that jobs will consistently be lost, and the unemployed people can not find other jobs. the Gov't has set up benefits for them, but ultimatly it is the citizens who need to try harder in finding a job.
"If unemployment gets worse much faster and the government's plans for making the economy right are shattered soon, the free market movement will get its wish by default." As this quote explains, right now the situation is that the unemployment rate is bad, and the gov't is trying. It also analyzes that if the gov't fails, the economy fails. This is a great deal of stress on the gov't, who already is spending a lot of money that they dont have on the economy. From what the gov't is doing now, the economy is still going, but not in the right track, which means something needs to be done, but not necessarily by the government. As i said before, the government can only do so much, and right now, we need more then "so much."
I think that the government is not doing nearly enough to help our unemployment rates. In the Daily Herald on Jan17, it shows that at the beginning of president Barack Obama’s term, there were about 13 million 16 and older unemployed and after a year with Obama in office, the numbers have tremendously increased to 14.7 million. This shows that the government isn’t doing enough if the numbers keep increasing. According to http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=351617&src=110, Glen Boyd in Seattle felt a “tremendous sense of pride” when Obama entered office. A few weeks before the inauguration, Boyd lost his job as a DIRECTV salesman but Boyd still felt that Obama could help him and many other Americans who have lost their jobs. Now, a year later, Boyd sits at home wondering what happened to all Obama’s “yes, we can” speeches and where are they now when people need them the most to help them get through the hardest times. Although Boyd believed in Obama in the beginning of his term, he now says, “To say I'm disappointed by the Obama presidency thus far would be an understatement.” Everybody had such faith in Obama and his plans to fix everything including unemployment. Standing in America, I get to see many Americans who are struggling because they have lost their jobs and were relying on Obama to make it all better. I am grateful to have two parents who both have sturdy jobs. According back to my article, it states that Americans can forget about “can," ''change" and, above all, "hope." The new word echoing in the blogosphere and beyond as Obama enters Year Two: disappointment.” Boyd and many other Americans admit to hoping too much too fast. I can see where they come from because I know I expect a lot too happen very quickly but since Obama promised unemployment to change more rapidly, it changes the views and trust Americans can have on our US government.
ReplyDeleteSee: http://briarpatchmagazine.com/are-governments-doing-enough-to-address-the-global-jobs-crisis/
ReplyDeleteOf course I think the government should be doing more to correct the problem of unemployment because obviously our situation isn’t a good one, and if the system is broken, it needs to be fixed. However, I can’t say that I know what they should do. This article relates to the global economic crisis, which is not only affecting the United States, but the rest of the world too. It deals with the idea that in order for the unemployment crisis plaguing the world, the nations of the world need to cooperate and agree to help each other out. How could I disagree with that? It is a good idea, though something that seems that easy never really is. The most interesting part of the article though, is the reference to an Oxford study that showed the correlation between economic recession and suicide and homicide rates in Europe. I think that when things this extreme are backed up by science, something needs to be done (because I’m sure just because it is a European study doesn’t mean that it doesn’t apply here).
I also agree with some of the other posts when they said the government has its hands tied because every fix is an expensive one and that we can’t really hope for them to do much more than what they are doing now. Although I do think there probably is something else that could be done (don’t count on me for any suggestions, I’m not a political or economic theorist) the people of America can’t really complain because there is stuff out there for them. People complain about of government, our president, our whatever, but the truth is we, as Americans, have it pretty good. Our government literally hands out money to people who need it. Granted, it’s not that much money or enough to support a family with, but it’s something. The bottom line is I’m sure that if our law-making bodies cooperated—not even with other nations, but with each other—we could come up with a fix to this problem more quickly than most people think.
I believe the US should increase spending a little bit to help unemployment strictly because so many people have been affected by the recession. Teenagers apparently have been hit harder then adults because it's been found that the teenage employment rate has been at its lowest since WWII. It's up to 1 out of 4 of teen workers now becoming unemployed compared to 1 of 10 of adult workers becoming umemployed.
ReplyDeleteThe article I found supports the idea that our government need to focus on providing financial support to unemployed teens and other aspects to raise the unemployment rate because some of them have dropped out of high school and must secure a job because it is crucial for their future. Some may want to have a job in preparation for their future careers or to gain experience.
A couple of the measures the article suggests the government must enact inorder to raise the employment rate for teens is provide more career training centers (like Tech Campus) for high school students so students are better educated in the field of work they will be going into; fund programs to help teens find job, especially those who have dropped out of high school; as well as other things.
As one person pointed out "The short-term priority must be to help the young people most at risk to avoid the long-term scarring of a generation of young Americans". Even though I believe the economy will eventually return to equilibrium, who knows when that will be. It could take just about another decade to recover and by that time the recession would have strongly impacted our generation negatively.
Article link: http://www.oecd.org/document/18/0,3343,en_2649_34487_44208658_1_1_1_1,00.html
The government is providing government funded entrepreneur jobs for people who want to become salesman. According to an article (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/can-public-funded-entrepreneurship-work-a-qa-with-the-author-of-boulevard-of-broken-dreams/?scp=2&sq=Government%20funding&st=cse) the government is trying to provide over 3000 jobs for passionate Americans. Since the government is helping them with these jobs then they can go out and sell products and eventually return supply and demand to equilibrium. I think the government is using most of its power to helping the economy. They know that by helping essential business and intermediaries then there will be more of a distribution of producer to consumer ratio. Introducing new products can result in an increase in demand because consumers will see a product that they could enjoy and the demand will increase; resulting in the economy essentially getting out of its current trough and recovering in the process. “But in many senses, federal money played a crucial role when it mattered most: during the period when the foundation for that spectacular growth was being built and key aspects of the Silicon Valley business culture were being developed and refined.” In this quote Josh Lerner, of the Harvard Business School, is saying that the government’s funding played a very important role of refining and developing the Silicon Valley’s business sectors into fast pace and developed corporations. There already are developed corporations like Apple Inc. and eBay; but those corporations are having lay-offs like every other company and needs some help too. In conclusion, I think that the government is using most of its power help the economy and reduce unemployment. If they used more money to help the companies then they would not be able to help struggling countries like Haiti and India.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/business/economy/07jobs.html - Link to article.
ReplyDeleteIn my article Peter Goodman gives great insight to our current economic situation, and rational solutions to unemployment in the U.S. I believe, as argued in Goodman’s article, that the Government is doing enough to reduce unemployment, and that it is the people’s patience and trust in the economy that will bring unemployment down. Goodman brings an optimistic viewpoint to the shocking 10.2% unemployment rate, predicting that “We’re getting very close to the peak unemployment rate”. He believes that the economy and unemployment can only get better from here and that as long as we don’t prolong our mistakes unemployment will soon decline. The outline of Goodman’s article can be seen as this: “as the economy expands, companies will use fresh profits to add to payrolls in a reach for increased sales. As workers spend their paychecks, they will create opportunities for other businesses, generating more jobs — an upward spiral”. Basically Goodman is saying that we must focus first on the economy, then unemployment. He wants consumers to spend their money and trust the economy, allowing it to grow which would lead to a decline in the unemployment rate. Goodman believes that recreating jobs will be a slow tedious process however, saying that unemployment will most likely rise to 10.6% by next year before it goes down again. This is where consumer patience becomes valuable. Accepting that diminishing unemployment is not an overnight process is a big part of doing what you can to help. President Obama and congress are trying to distribute jobs into the US in whatever ways they see possible, and there is not much more than that they can do. If there really is a solution to unemployment I’m not sure, and it’s a very ambiguous situation. However, even with the economy what goes up must come down, but when is something that nobody can predict.
Even though it may not exactly look as though our government is doing everything they can with our unemployment rate reaching 10.2% in October, which is the highest it’s been in 26 years, everything the government does is aimed at combating this reoccurring problem of joblessness. As shown through this article in the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/business/economy/07jobs.html, Obama’s highly criticized stimulus package is actually doing great things for all of the unemployed. Even though to some, they are not as optimistic as others when it comes to the stimulus package but it has worked in was such as lowering the number of jobs lost to about 188,000 a month in September from some 645,000 jobs being lost a month in April. Also, the number of temporary workers has risen to about 44,00 temporary jobs that have been created. This is a sign that businesses have squeezed as much production as they can out of their existing work forces and felt the need to bring in more people. These are all positive signs for the work force and the rest of our country while we are still deep into this economic crisis. See right now we are simply living in a world with this high unemployment rate as the main product of this recession that in turn, we helped create. And even though many are pessimistic about this whole situation, I believe this government is truly doing everything they can to improve the unemployment rate, and not disrupt other aspects of the economy. These temporary jobs that Obama is creating are what people need to help and try to hold them over until things start to turn around and they can hold down full time jobs. These jobs are going to also help jump start this economy and even though it may take some time, get our economy back in line, and get that unemployment rate down to that magical number of 5% or less.
ReplyDeleteI think the government is doing something to help, but it is not enough or it is not helping. The article link is: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/economy/09jobs.html?pagewanted=1
ReplyDeleteThis article explains that we lost eighty five thousand jobs in December. It said that we are not just going to suddenly stop job losses, we are still in a weak economy. We had spent seven hundred and eighty seven billion dollars on helping and simulating the economy. People and economist think that the ten percent unemployment rate, will worsen in the upcoming months. I think the rate will worsen if the government tries something different besides Obama creating another stimulus package and wasting money. In the article a economist named Mark Zandi perdicted that the unemployment rate will reach ten point eight percent in October. He also thinks that the economy needs an additional one hundred and twenty five billion dollars of stimulus spending on construction projects. Mr. Zandi also says if we refuse to sped now America wil be in an even bigger hole. I think all of these things are true, our government must act now. Some economists think that expantion on the factory floor will bring ecomomic improvement that will soon deliver job growth. The article explaned that it will not because Manufacturing lost twenty seven thousand jobs in December. Construction jobs declined by fifty three thousand. Health care remained a bright spot, expanding by twenty two thousand jobs. One agreement that all economics have is that the nation will not recover without millions of new jobs. The economy needs about one hundred thousand new jobs a month. I think if the government can do this and achieve this goal with time and effort and make the right desicions the unemployment rate will slowly get better, which will also slowly start t help our economy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/14/AR2010011403248.html
ReplyDeleteI think the government has taken the initiative to get the econmoy, including unemployment, back on track through the stimulus package. However, Andrew Taylor writes that the new jobs bill wanted by President Obama probably will not pass the senate. Democrats do not want to support another “deficit-financed” bill and create a bigger debt. Senator Dick Durbin, though, has taken a list of ideas submitted by lawmakers including steps to help small businesses create jobs, money for “green jobs”, and funding for projects like roads and bridges that would create jobs. The government is trying to help with unemployment but the stimulus package and the attempts at passing job bills does not seem to be helping. The idea is to enact fast-acting steps that would boost employment before next fall's election. However, the spending is slow. Projects need to be planned and can require a lengthy contracting process before jobs can be seen on construction sites. The biggest issue in unemployment is the amount of money it would take to create jobs or pass another stimulus package. The government is doing all it can to help with unemployment, but they fall short in enacting the help they want to give. Taylor writes that “prospects for getting the required unanimity among Senate Democrats is especially bleak since the first item of business on the Senate's agenda when it returns next week is a bill to let the government sink itself another $925 billion into debt. To turn around and take up legislation to spend perhaps $75 billion to $150 billion of that strikes some Democrats as a bad vote.” No matter what the government does, it seems that nothing can stop the recession we are in. There is only so much the government can do before we stop blaming them and realize that we have to let the business cycle run its course before anything can get better.
Article link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/economy/09assess.html?scp=1&sq=obama%20unemployment&st=cse
ReplyDeletePersonally I believe that the government is not doing nearly enough about unemployment. This article talks about how Obama says this and that about how we need to focus on unemployment and help the economy, but for the past year he has not been doing anything about unemployment. The article says that Obama has just been focusing on health care this past year. Although that is important, right now the economy should be the number one priority. He needs to stop talking and proposing ideas and starts doing them. He keeps making promises and is not trying to fulfill them, which is going to cost him the loss of many supporters. Although the government went through with the stimulus package, it just put the country in even more debt. On top of that there are contradictions as to whether or not the stimulus package is actually working. Unemployment has not improved and many people are suffering because they cannot find work or they have been laid off. Families are going through tough times because parents cannot find work. Which puts a lot of stress and pressure on each member of the family. It is not fair for kids to have to witness parents struggling and fighting just to keep money in their pockets. The government needs to recognize that fixing the economy is not just about the money. It is also about fixing families and homes and bringing putting the broken pieces back together. Many economists believe that jobs growth will start to pick up again as the year goes on, even though the unemployment rate is expected to remain high. I hope for America’s sake that the government is able to step up and start doing something to help the unemployed. If the government is going to put itself in charge of the US then it better start taking responsibility.
I believe that the government is not doing enough to help with unemployment issues. In the article http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/01/analysis_shows_government_stim.html it talks about how the government has spent its money incorrectly trying to help jumpstart the economy and create new jobs. So far Obama’s stimulus plan has not created jobs as it was promised to do. Obama’s first area of focus is the construction industry. Much money has been spent on roads and bridges which has lead to no effect on the construction industry. Recently a second stimulus package (75 billion) was approved to help revive our struggling economy and help unemployment. As before Obama keeps focusing on road and bridge projects saying “at the heart of our effort to accelerate job growth”.
ReplyDeleteMany economists have shown that a strategy hasn’t affected unemployment rates so far, which leads to a concern that the second stimulus bill will also not help unemployment rates. Also the economists took a look at the affects of the impact of spending money on roads and bridges and found unemployment remained the same. "My bottom line is, I'd be skeptical about putting too much more money into a second stimulus until we've seen broader effects from the first stimulus," said Aaron Jackson. I feel like the government is attacking the situation of unemployment effectively, but like many recessions before the economy always goes back to being stabilized so time will tell.
I do not believe that the government is doing enough to support the economy. I chose to support my opinion with http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/26/AR2009042602838.html.
ReplyDeleteIn this article it shows how taxing wealthier people and small businesses owners because this will cause the economy to have a snowball effect. If the small businesses owners were taxed more they would have to start spending less to making ends meet. Then the small businesses would then have to get rid of some workers and those same people will be a part of the increasing unemployment rate. I think that the government shouldn’t tax as much so that the businesses can support themselves but “Already, Obama has proposed an extra $1.3 trillion in taxes for business and high earners over the next decade.” This isn’t a smart idea because this will just put the economy in a bad situation. The small business will have to shut down because they will not be able to afford it and will cause the unemployment rate to increase.
Taxing wealthier people would also be detrimental to the economy because “In a 2007 survey, the National Federation of Independent Business found that about 15 percent of small-business owners -- and half of those with at least 20 employees -- said they expected their household income to exceed $200,000.” If so much of the population is a part of the statistic, making them pay higher taxes will benefit the economy until it starts to affect the small businesses. If the wealthier people stop spending money on needless items and not go to those cute little shops in downtown then those businesses will have to shut down and will be unemployed. Also, many of the wealthy people ARE small business owners and if they were taxed more because they were making money for having a small business they will start to reconsider their decision of opening it in the first place.
In conclusion, I think that the government is not doing enough or doing the wrong thing by taxing the wealthier and small business owners because this is causing the economy to not make progress and causing the unemployment rate to be higher.
I believe that our government is trying but has not done enough for the unemployment problems in our economy. Although Obama is trying to help, he is making a very slow progression. He may be touring the United States, making awareness of unemployment, but if nothing of substance comes out of the tour, it will kill his reputation, and the economy will once again be back at square one. I used http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/04/obamas-main-street-tour-faces-frosty-greeting/ to support my feedback. This article basically shows how our economy has made an “improvement” from 2007 to now. It specifically says that “the unemployment rate fell to 10 percent from 10.2 percent in October…” We are making such little improvement that it seems like we are making no progress at all. There is truth to improvement though, because the average work week was raised from 33 hours to 33.2. It is not entirely the government’s fault that our unemployment rate is so high. The unemployment rate dropped because we Americans are being too lazy to look for jobs and then blaming the government for our lack of motivation. According to this article, the labor force fell by nearly 100,000 which is the third straight decline our economy has seen. This decline was completely our fault, because if we just give up, then what good will come out of it? Since our recession began, our current participation rate fell to about 65 percent. This is the lowest it has been! We have lost jobs for about 23 months in a row, but because of the very small decline in November, economists are now thinking optimistically about the future and the unemployment rates. They are thinking that because November had such a small decline from October, our economy is climbing back up and will be able to start generating jobs again. If this is true, then we will have less to worry about in our future, and it will have showed that government did do something right for once!
ReplyDeleteI do not think the government is doing a good job of getting rid of the high unemployment but I don not believe they are doing a bad job either. Last month 85,000 jobs were lost compared to the month of June where 427,000 people lost their jobs. I feel that the government is doing a good job of slowing down the number of people who are losing their jobs. It seems that everyone wants to get on Obama because his plans and programs do not seem to be working. FDR, who is considered one of the greatest presidents of all time for getting the U.S. out of its worst financial position in history, took office with an unemployment rate of 24.9%. 5 years later that number was still only down to right around 19%. It takes time for programs to work and help the recession. People expect a lot of their government, rightfully so, but to expect them to turn the recession completely around in just one year is asking too much. Obama has a new job program that is set to put 50-200 billion dollars into road and construction programs and also offering tax incentives to companies who will hire more workers. The government could be doing a better job to stop unemployment but right now they are doing a good job of slowing down that rate at which people are losing their jobs. Once the market and the overall economy starts to go up the unemployment rate will drop and more people will start to look for jobs again. This is process that is going to take some time. The government has not done the best job but we will have to wait and see if they can put our country in the right direction. I used this article http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/10/nation/la-na-jobs10-2009dec10
ReplyDeletehttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/unemployment/index.html
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the government is doing enough to fix the whole situation with unemployment in the US today, but I don't think that the blame falls entirely upon them, there are alot of people out there who are willing to work and wish that they could, but are too lazy to get out and look for jobs. These people are the ones who are making the unemployment number seem so high, because they file for unemployment and live off of the money that the government gives them, but they don't truly go out and look for jobs, they prefer to just wallow in their self pity. I think that if the government started handing out a job to every single person who wanted one, and paid every single one of them good money, that would be the only way to satisfy these lazy people. They want to work, but they are not motivated enough to go out and find work, they want it to be handed to them. but i think that if they are not motivated to go out and find a way of making ends meet, well then they don't deserve it. However, for those people out there who are unemployed and trying to find jobs, I think that the government could do a little bit more for them. The government has plenty of money, if they threw a little bit into a few different places it would open up a lot of jobs, and these people who wanted to work would get to work. But as for the lazy people who say they are “searching for employment” but are actually sitting around all day and wishing for a job, they either need to stop being counted in the unemployment number, or they need to stop being lazy and take action to get themselves employed.
I think that the government is doing as much as they can to help the unemployed find work. However, it is very hard to create new jobs for the unemployed because if there was a preexisting need for some job then would'nt we have created it alread? That is why i really like the idea Obama has to create "Green Jobs" which are jobs within the projects being set up "to develop solar and wind power and energy management technologies". Obama also says that "the government would provide more than $2 billion in tax credits already approved by Congress to add some 17,000 green jobs for 183 projects". Bringing in a new type of job is a great way to help the unemployed because it gives them jobs that did not exist before, instead of people having to compete for the scarce available jobs from businesses that are also suffering.
ReplyDeleteObama anounced last friday the steps he is taking to "combat unemployment including using $2.3 billion in tax credits from the $787 billion economic stimulus package toward the goal of creating tens of thousands of green jobs". Obama also is going to ask Congress for "an additional $5 billion in spending for clean energy manufacturing, an idea first proposed by Vice President Joe Biden last month". I think that these jobs being created will help to reduce the unemployment rate and give hope to those still looking for work. Also it will help to stimulate the economy; there is no telling how much this will help, but anything is better then nothing.
The article I found was: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/08/economy-loses-jobs-december-jobless-rate-stays-percent/
I also found another site that seemed unfortunately very ironic.
http://www.wilx.com/home/headlines/38027569.html?storySection=story
It talks about how last year Michigan was haveing problems with the state's unemployment system and how they were getting so many calls everyday that people were not able to get through anymore and some people ended up getting cut off. So their governor, Governor Granholm, tryed to fix their problem by creating a new call center and "adding 128 more lines to the system". She did this with the "hopes [that] adding 276 more workers to the existing 500 or so will get money in people's pockets faster-- and for the first time, people can now check in with MARVIN online". I think that it is kind of sad that the only new jobs people can think of to create is a job that deals with other people who are also unemployed. But none the less its a job and that is what people are searching for so desperately these days.
This article came from: http://www.wilx.com/home/headlines/38027569.html?storySection=story
I used this article http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122394,00.html. I think that the government is not to blame for our nations 10% unemployment rate. It is corporate America's fault. Outsourcing jobs overseas, or to other locations in the country has killed the job market in the U.S. "Nine percent of non-seasonal U.S. layoffs in the first quarter were due to outsourcing, but less than a third of the work was sent overseas, the Labor Department said in releasing new figures on mass layoffs and outsourcing. "In more than seven out of 10 cases, the work activities were reassigned to places elsewhere in the U.S.," the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its report on mass layoffs for the January-to-March period." The greed that these big corrporations have to save a few bucks makes up a good chunk on the unemployment. Our problem as a nation is that we look to the govenment to solve everything for us. Obama has created a stimulous package already and is working on other projects as well to try and create jobs, but apparently that isn't enough, and it isn't going to be. Our economy is, like i said before, in the hands of the big corporations. In these hard economic times, they need to put aside their greed and stop outsourcing. Our unemployment rate is the highest it has been in 26 years. You would think that people could take a hint. The economy is not going to improve by only relying on the govenment. Sure the economy will bounce back eventualy, like it always has, but no more outsourcing would certainly help it bounce back a lot faster.
ReplyDeleteNo the government is not doing a good enough job to stabilize the economy and no the government should not do more to boost the economy back up.
ReplyDeleteTo support this statement I used an article called "Obama's Fantasy Job Plan" by Steven Chapman.http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/10/obamas_fantasy_jobs_plan_99492.html
President Barack Obama promised that if his $787 billion stimulus package passed, unemployment would not rise above 8% and it would do nothing but create more and more jobs. This is far from where we are right now. We now have a 10% unemployment rate and and each month thousands of jobs are lost. Last month alone we lost over 85,000. Obama however loves to give speeches bragging about how he keeps saving and creating jobs. First of all, there is no such thing as a saved job and second, ever since his stimulus package, we have lost close to 3.4 million jobs. And most of the jobs Obama keeps creating are only temporary jobs (building roads, bridges etc) and within a matter of months those people will be unemployed again.
He along with many Americans argue that the recent growth in our economy is because of the stimulus package. I disagree. Government spending of multi billions of dollars is not the way to stimulate our economy and certainly not the way to decrease our national debt. Chapman says, "The administration's allies crow that in the six months before the package was approved, the economy shrank, and in the six months after, the economy grew. But just because football season follows baseball season, that doesn't prove baseball causes football. Just because the economy grew after the stimulus passed doesn't mean the stimulus deserves the credit." and that "The contraction of the economy slowed sharply in the first month after the passage of the stimulus -- before any appreciable amounts of federal cash had been spent. Which suggests that the economy, far from requiring huge injections of federal cash to avert a depression, was already bouncing back on its own." The stimulus is not working to boost the economy. Bush's 2008 stimulus didn't work and neither is Obama's. When are these guys going to learn that government is not the answer? But no we are now hearing talks about a second stimulus. If the first stimulus fizzled, why on earth would they push for another one?
Mine Continued.....The best thing the government can do to stabilize the economy is stay away and stop tanking the private sector. The private sector is what we are going to need to fix our economy and create more jobs. Obama needs to stay away from the private sector and stop trying to nationalize everything. Government intervention is almost always a disaster and very inefficient because there is no profit motive for them. The money they get to spend is from the private sector through taxes. Look at what has happened to the post office, social security, health insurance, and the auto industry. The government should not have bailed out the auto companies. In my opinion, if the company has the freedom to make as much money as they can, then they should have that same freedom to lost as much as they can. If they go out of business, that the just way it is. Obama should let the market return to equilibrium by applying free market principles. In the short run this may be painful but in the long run it will cause private investment and the creation of jobs. Unemployment is only going to get better if jobs are created through individual savings and then those savings are used to start or invest in businesses. If those businesses are successful, they will begin to hire more labor, reducing unemployment. The reason unemployment is looking so bad right now is because businesses have discovered that they can get by with fewer workers. They just get their remaining workers to produce more, thus decreasing their costs and increasing production.
ReplyDeleteIf the government just can’t resist and must get involved (which they often do), it must be to a minimal extent and it should not include taxing the rich because that is taking away money from people who are likely to start businesses. If they have to pay more taxes, they will not have as much money in hiring workers, thus making the unemployment problem worse.
I think they are doing a somewhat good job. I don’t think the economy has gotten worse. Unemployment was slightly better because it went down from 10.2 in November. It is as if there are only ten people out of a hundred that are without jobs. Well, that's better than, let's say, 20. Also, the number of jobs lost was less than what people estimated. The article also says that parts of the economy are clearly stabilizing, while others are still struggling. But there has been a generally upward trend in the past months on Wall Street. In the November figure, which had 15.4 million Americans out of work, was the lowest monthly job loss since the beginning of the U.S. recession in December 2007, and the following months followed that trend. People believe the government is not doing enough because they want results fast. What they do not see is that it takes months, even years to fix the state that the economy is currently in. When people in America want something, they tend to want it immediately, and as soon as possible. According to the article I read, the government would need to create 10.7 million jobs in order for the economy to go into full employment. At that rate, it would take up to three years.
ReplyDeleteThis is the link I used for most of it: http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/US-Unemployment-Down-Slightly-78559027.html
I choose the article http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1889611,00.html. This article is a little dated it is from the summer and they projected unemployment around 10%. They were correct this is where we stand now. It would be easy to say the government isn't doing enough because not everyone is working. However, what else could they have done? Nobody really knows how long until we are out of this or how bad it is going to get. There are so many ideas out there on how to get us out of this but nobody can dicern what really will help or just make it worse. When looking over the article it pointed towards two possible ways to get out of the reccesion the first is just doing nothing, this is what Hoover did at the start of the recession. Things only got worse. However endorsers of this plan say that the country would have to be on the brink or past it before things really got better. I am not a fan of this plan iif the idea is to make everyone suffer while the government does nothing I can't endorse something like that. The other plan is what the government did, they created some projects and made recovery package worth billions of dollars to fix the economy and bail out certain companies. I endorse this plan but I would have made some changes to the distribution of money. First I would have set up new regulation for the banks so they could not give out worthless loans. Next I would only bail out the companies that could have substancial future growth. Why reward companies if they are the ones who got themselves into this situation? I do say that the recovery plan hasn't been as swift as I would have hoped but indicators show that we are on a little bit of a rise. The government must not stop though they must continue to create more jobs that will improve our infustructure. A majority of our bridges were built as a result of Roosevelts new deal, and not renovated since. I believe the government has tried to help out the economy but they haver not gone to the extent needed to get us out of the recession and on the path towards long term economic growth.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the government is not doing enough to decrese the unemployment rate. In Peter Goodman's article for the New York Times, "U.S. Job Losses in December Dim Hopes for Quick Upswing", Goodwin argues that although the government has made efforts to decrease the unemployment rate, their eforts are not doing good enough job (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/economy/09jobs.html?pagewanted=1&sq=unemployment&st=cse&scp=2). Obama tried to use the $787 billion spending bill he championed last year to stimulate the economy but the economy was not fixed. He also plans to deliver $2.3 billion in tax credits to spur manufacturing jobs in clean energy, but by the time those jobs open up too much suffering will have been endured already and it will not supply enough jobs for all of the unemployed. Most economists assume the unemployment rate, which was 10 percent in December, will worsen in coming months. The nation will then confront the highest jobless rate in a generation. Ten percent is about double the normal unemployment rate. The unemployment rate should be about 5 percent, allowing 95 percent of the labor force to work. Despite government efforts, manufacturing lost 27,000 jobs in December, construction jobs declined by 53,000, government shed 21,000 jobs, and although it was a surprisingly strong holiday shopping season, retailing lost 10,000 jobs. Th only bringht spot was health care, which expanded by 22,000 jobs.
ReplyDeleteExpansion has been aided by stimulus spending and tax credits for homebuyers, but once these factors run out in the upcoming couple of months, skeptics belive that the economy will confront stubborn challenges like cash-tight households reducing or cutting off spending, banks reluctant to loan and businesses unwilling to hire employees. Data for November was revised and showed that the economy gained 4,000 jobs that month, compared with initial reports showing a net loss of 11,000 jobs. That was the first monthly improvement since the recession began. However, the December data did not repeat the trend. The report showed, once again, slowing in the pace of job losses, but it also stressed that companies were reluctant to hire.
These factors of not wanting to hire and lack of money and resources to do so are hurting the unemployment rate. The governments efforts and plans to help to create jobs and decrease the unemployment rate are fine ideas, but they are not working very well and will take a while to make an impact. What they have now is not working well enough, I think they need a plan that is not just a "band-aid fix", they need a plan that will hold strong in the longrun and create lots of jobs as soon as possible.
http://www.creators.com/opinion/daily-editorials/obama-s-stimulus-plan-is-not-working.html.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that Obama and the government are doing enough or the right things to stabilize the economy. The stimulus plan isn’t working and it is just creating more debt for the country. He is making projects that aren’t helpful to society just to create jobs that will be gone in a couple of years anyway. Here are some examples of ridiculous stimulus projects. The government is spending 3.4 million dollars to make wildlife Eco passages for animals in Florida. There are building an 11 million dollar bridge for the Microsoft Corporation. They also are paying 9.3 million dollars to make a “coordinated colony of robotic bees”. (To see more: http://www.verumserum.com/?p=11141). All of these plans are ridiculous why are we paying people to make bees? Sure jobs are being created, but are these the jobs that people want? Instead of making these ridiculous jobs up out of no where, the government should instead concentrate more on making new businesses where people can have jobs that will last. Making these businesses can also make jobs that can be given out again and again rather than just a one time thing. The craziest thing about all this is that the government is thinking about putting another stimulus package in place. Why would they do that if the first one isn’t showing much improvement in creating quality jobs? I think that the government should spend their time trying fund businesses and trying to get the people of our nation more educated. Part of the problem is that some of the unemployed are losing jobs to people over seas. If they are better educated they will not lose those jobs. The government needs to stop trying to create jobs out of thin air. They need to attack unemployment at the heart. The End.
Tim Adornetto
ReplyDeleteMr. Janczak, Prd. 6
AP ECON
1/17/10
Government’s Role in The Economy
I believe that the government is doing too much to boost the economy so I chose an article on the Laissez Faire concept created by Adam Jones. Laissez Faire, meaning “let do” in French, is an economic system where the government does not intercede with economic affairs. I think that Adam Jones’ laissez faire theory is the best way to run a capitalistic government, because when the government is not interfering, competition works as an invisible hand that crafts the economy in the fairest way possible. For example, General Motors filed for bankruptcy because they had been making their cars cheep and they constantly broke down. The government bailed them out and GM hasn’t done all that much to improve the quality of their cars. I think that if a company is failing, then it is obviously not fit for the economy and so it should die out. The only time I feel the government should interfere is when there is some type of abuse on the work force. Otherwise, the government should let the economy work itself out. Throwing money at the problem is only a short-term patch job. The economy has to come out of the trough itself by having more jobs open up and people watching their money more carefully. I think the solution is to lower taxes and eliminate government waste in legislation. Then, people will have more income to work with. We need to cut a lot of the money wasted on Defense. America spends way too much money on that while our national debt is growing. I also believe we need to enforce a favorable balance of trade. The government buys way too many foreign goods and we export much less. Lastely, I think we should encourage our citizens to pay a little more for an American product so that the money goes to our economy rather than buying a foreign product where the money will go into another country’s economy.
http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/laissez.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/business/economy/07econ.html
ReplyDeletethe unemployment rate is at an all time high 17.5%,(highest other than the great depression) this includes people who have just given up but still at one point they were looking for jobs and just could not find one. i believe the government is doing all that they can with the new stimulus package and all of the bail outs that they are giving away. Obama is trying to create more jobs but all the jobs that have been lost were jobs that were made during the bush boom so when the economy dropped catastrophically in 2008 many people lost their jobs because the revenue gained by corporations dropped so much. the real reason unemployment is so low is not because a lot of people are being layed off but more that the hiring rate is not hiring at the same rate as people coming into the labor force. The average hourly pay has risen 1.5-2 percent all across america but the income of most americans has risen 0-1% because the hours of the workers have been cut so badly. the increase in hourly rate also has to keep up with inflation which is also affecting people in the labor force greatly. people who still have jobs right now are doing much better than people with jobs in recent recessions and depressions but this does not mean that this recession is essentially "less bad" it just means that some consumers are not being hit as hard as they were back during other recessions and depressions.
Unlike what seems tp be the majority of other students here, I don't necessarily believe that it is the governments job to fix all of our economic problems. We can't just walk up to to Obama with a list of chores and ask him to fix them all, it just doesn't work like that. Granted, there are some things that government can do for us to help jumpstart our economy back on track, which in the last few months especially, they have tried, including more government spending, tax cuts for businesses, and also programs like cash for clunkers. But the economy is not just the government's problem, it's everyone's problem. According to Paul Cleveland from Leadership University, (http://www.leaderu.com/offices/cleveland/docs/government.html), the government has a very small role, almost no role at all. He clamis that the "government's role with respect to the economy is merely to protect the property rights of its citizenry". So the government, says Cleveland, is not responsible in any part of the economy, not to stimulate it, not to alter it. In fact, a few times in his article he refers to government intervention as "meddling", inferring that government has no right to be there, and should not be interfering with the free markets. While I don't exactly think the government has as small of role as Cleveland is giving it, I do believe that the government is in fact doing what it can to help us out, and should not bbe held solely responsible or criticized for not doing its job.
ReplyDeleteKris Chatterjee
ReplyDeletewww.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,487425,00.html.
Even though this article was written almost a year ago, it did a great job predicting what has happened. I have learned a lot about the details of the government’s unemployment and stimulus plan which was otherwise very confusing. Mr. Lott does a good job in backing up his argument that the trillion dollar plan was not well thought out, and too much government involvement gets us deeper in trouble. One of his arguments was money going for unemployment insurance benefits, $36 billion, was not reaching those truly in need, but just increasing unemployment by giving some people money to quit their jobs and find a better one. Also, getting already employed people to shift jobs to what the government wants them to do is not creating any new jobs, it is just moving people around and making more unemployment in between. This entire government subsidy to industries is allowing them to expand or operate, but we can’t keep lending from other countries and draining the Federal Reserve, spending will have to stop, and with it the truly unsuccessful businesses will not appeal to consumers and shutdown, creating more unemployment. I also think Obama is trying to do too much in too little time. He wants to save the world in one year. All these environment regulations and alternative energy ventures are great, and I love trees too, but not right now. When families are struggling for end’s meet, I don’t think their biggest issue is the O-zone layer. The more control in the economy the government has, the less our capitalistic global economy can function. Investors need to know they can invest without the Fed’s breathing down their back. Another good point was the Great Depression. Government-created jobs and new regulations kept the unemployment circle going longer and maybe just stepping back for a bit would have evened-out the economy in a shorter time span. All in all, I agree with Mr. Lott that more debt and temporary unemployment won’t get us out of debt and unemployment.
The job cuts in the United States are getting out of hand. The government is not doing enough to get more jobs available to Americans. The link I used to support this is http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/chi-0113vpzonenorthlettersbriefs3jan13,0,464872.story because it explains how we should be worried, and looking for hope. The government officials obviously hold down very nice salaries, and do not have to worry about job loss. That is why I think that they do not try hard enough to get jobs to other people. The government is not focused on the job loss problem, but they can go ahead and help Haiti. I am not saying do not help Haiti, but like I stated in my last blog, we need to help ourselves before we help others. Job loss has affected almost every family in the nation somehow, whether it is directly or indirectly. The author of this article states that people in Illinois should be “terrified” because the government is going to increase property taxes among other taxes. Obama is trying his best to create more jobs, but he has not done enough. Yes, we need to give him time, but there is not a lot of progress. Also, how is Obama going to get us out of a recession? He is not going to be able to do it by himself, and it is going to take a whole nation, together, to fix this mess. I am not entirely sure on how I think we can create more jobs, but I am also not getting paid millions of dollars to do so. All I know is that this problem needs to get fixed before our economy gets worse to the point where we cannot fix it.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the government may be trying to help us out of this recession, but the way in which they are attempting to help is useless and only aides companies in the short term. In the article from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_crisis/auto_industry/index.html?scp=5&sq=government%20bail-out%20plans&st=cse, the paper talks about auto industry bailouts and how only one of the Big Three was able to stand on its own. The other two, GM and Chrysler were getting billions of dollars in funding from the government just to keep their doors open. Just giving companies money is no way to get them successfully back on their feet. Almost all big companies have a history of corruption, and so of course that money given to them by the government will be siphoned off to fatten the executive’s income. What is left of this money will then be used to pay overwhelming bills that may have been covered a bit better if the company wasn’t as corrupt. If the government wants to help companies, then there should first be rules on how the money should be used- no increase in wages for selfish executives! If this happened, then GM might not have needed to file for bankruptcy and Chrysler would not have had to make an alliance with Fiat and become a shadow of what it used to be.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is that this money is used only on a short-term, basis instead of helping to create a future where these companies can support themselves. Ford was the only car company of the Big Three to stand on its own because it set aside 25 billion to help keep themselves upright when a situation just like this one came about. Our government should also put in to effect some rules stating that all companies have to set aside a certain percentage of its income to help in times like these. This can help keep bankruptcy at a lower rate when another recession comes about.
The government is already intervening in trying to help boost the economy by providing benefits for a certain amount of time to the unemployed but still that's not enough. Government is doing an okay job at trying to boost back up the economy but they could be doing a lot better, even though they support the unemployed people of America with a benefit of money. The people receive for a seventy-nine weeks period paychecks to ensure they get food, gas and life necessities while trying to find another job, but the amount they receive is based on their previous job's earnings. But apparently seventy-nine weeks' pay isn't enough and people are asking for more weeks to be added on, which to me is a little outrageous! That should be a sign to the government that just handing out money isn't solving anything, and that people actually need jobs! So although they seem to be trying by paying millions of unemployed workers, they should just try to create more jobs, since most businesses and factories are getting overseas workers to do the work that many unemployed would love to do, but not all. Which I think is another point, it's not just government that has to help the people, but people have to want the help and want to work. I'm not saying all American's that are unemployed are to blame because they are lazy, but some just give up since they believe that there is no way that they can find a job, a long with the other million, and why should they care to find a job if the government is paying them to support themselves and their families? All in all I stand that government is trying to help stabilize the economy but with much failure because they need to start looking else where for problems and not just the money issue. They should be doing a lot more to try and fix the rate of unemployment and the recession. But I also believe that people need to start not demanding money from government but demanding jobs, and actually trying to help themselves and others. In the end, everyone needs to be doing more. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/us/02unemploy.html?_r=1).
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don’t think that the government is doing enough but that the unemployment rate will go down sometime in the near future. However, this will not be done if the government continues to spend ridiculous amounts of money on unnecessary things and continually bailing out major corporations. If Obama and his fellow politicians became as interested in creating new jobs as they are spending money, then the 10% unemployment rate would be a lot lower. Although the government might not be doing their share, Americans should not continuously hang on the government. This is another thing that is hurting the economy; people cannot keep on depending on the government to do everything for them. For example, I know some older people who are unemployed and instead of still trying to look for a job they just complain about their woes. When both the government and the people of our country realize their mistakes then the economy, and all the trouble it has brought along, will be stronger and unemployment will be lower. However, the government should not try to intervene too much and attempt to control the people who are unemployed. At the end of the day the American people, the government, and businesses should do more to create stable jobs.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/us/02unemploy.html?_r=2
I do not think the government is doing a very good job with the unemployment because of what had happened in 2009, which obviously…the unemployment rate went up. Although I do believe the government will try his best to resolve the conflict because according to this article: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/president-obama-predicts-unemployment-will-hit-10-this-year.html Obama said “I think that what you’ve seen is that the pace of job loss has slowed, and I think that the economy is going to turn around. But as you know, jobs are a lagging indicator. And we've got to produce 150,000 jobs every month just to keep pace.” he also added that we will also see recovery shortly. Obama also said that the unemployment rate will reach to ten percent. But January of 2010, the incoming administration predicted in a white paper study that without a huge stimulus package, unemployment would reach just over 8%, and would be contained at under 8% with a stimulus package. I believe there should be more action rather than talking but I do hope that there will be some improvement which takes time like Obama had said.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the government is not doing a very good job with the unemployment, and that they should decrease the unemployment rate by doing what FDR did, giving those in need projects to work on so that they make some sort of income. The article that I am using, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/business/worldbusiness/06iht-jobs.4.20659812.html?_r=1, helps state my beliefs that the government has not done enough to help it’s fellow Americans and those in need. However, even though I personally believe the government could do more, I also think that if they are doing the most I can, than the rich who just keep their money for themselves ought to help out some. If the government is not trying its fullest, then I believe that we shall see a drop in the high unemployment rate, which is more than double what is considered normal. I also think that the American’s who have simply given up and dropped out of the work force have caused the unemployment rate to go up. As it says in the article, the GM layoffs really hit hard to the unemployment rate, because one of the biggest industries in the United States was over its head in debt. I also agree with the author of the article that the government should try and retrain workers whose industries are being put severely in debt for other industries. Ever since December of 2007, 3.2 percent, or 4.4 million jobs, of the entire work force has disappeared. Surely, there was some way for the government or the huge industries to prevent this tragic plummet in the labor force. I also think that the $787 billion plan that the government was a big risk. This could cause inflation to skyrocket, or corporations could be greedy and just keep the money for themselves, rather than hiring more workers. All in all, I believe that this increase in the unemployment rate can be fixed, if the government steps in with jobs for people, because they are not doing enough right now.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think the government is doing enough to deal with the unemployment problem. As stated in the article at http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/386586/Falling-Unemployment-%22Not-Good-Enough the government is making efforts that we have all seen and heard before. Tax subsideds and insenstentives for the future. I don’t think were going to see a real change in the 10 percent figure until Obama decides to do something for the short term 1st. Right now I think we will see changes eventually but its going to take a very long time. Until then I think he needs to hire people in the country to do things that we don’t necessarily need right now, but if it hires people go ahead and do it. Also I don’t think anyone should be satisfied with numbers going slightly down because that doesn’t account for people who have just given up hope. So in reality a slight decrease is really a large increase because of the number of people who don’t have jobs but still aren’t considered unemployed. Also I think everyone needs to get away from the idea of a stimulus package because although the idea works in theory it never really seems to work out for us and just ends up costing the government hundreds of millions of dollars in the end. So all the money we pile into those things never really seems to have good effects so stop trying it. The government either needs to steal a previous idea with good results or finally think of a creative idea that has desirable effects for our economy and unemployment rates. But all in all im still optimistic about the future because I believe that even thought the government may not being doing enough something that they have done will help us out in the long run. We may just have to wait this one out if anyone’s hopeing for quick changes in the unemployment rate.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100111/ap_on_bi_ge/us_stimulus_unemployment
ReplyDeleteWhile Obama has made many attempts to help the American population and boost the economy while lowering the unemployment rate, not much has been accomplished through these efforts. As stated in the article “STIMULUS WATCH: Unemployment unchanged by projects,” Obama has already spent billions of dollars and is currently asking for more to “accelerate job growth.” Yet there is no evidence anywhere that employment opportunity has increased during the President’s office. Actions such as endorsing and pumping money into the Main Street Act, an attempt at lowering the unemployment rate in construction workers, show that the President is certainly trying to help the nation, but all of his efforts are in vain as of now. And pumping most of the money into transportation plans doesn’t help the other millions who are still unemployed and not even involved in construction or road projects. On the other hand, Obama has only been in office for a year and it is hard to judge how well the plan is going when you’ve had less than a year to examine all of the change that has occurred. Not to mention that some of the data could have been easily skewed, such as people reporting they were unemployed when really they were only not being paid enough or what they wanted to be paid. I think that the Obama administration has to find a healthy medium between pumping money into factors of employment and helping stimulate the nation’s economy. The Stimulus package earlier presented to and passed by congress helped boost the economy, not as much as was planned, and created a starting point for the new Presidency. At this point it is simply a matter of time waiting for the government to find the right balance to help create a better job industry. The fact that they are trying so much says a lot. But the American population must remember that all of the responsibility does not lie upon the government. They too must continue to seek jobs until none can be found or they at least find a job to get them by for now. The government must do more work trying to boost the economy, but Americans themselves must do so as well.
In my opinion, it’s not that the government isn’t doing enough, it’s that they are doing too much in terms of having the wrong kind of regulations. Then, to try to “fix” the economy, the government throws bail-out and incentive money around with no accountability or consequences. See http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2009/52_still_fear_government_will_help_economy_too_much. I think that the government should let the economy run its course. The economy is self correcting, and therefore should be left alone. The government borrows money to pay for the “Stimulus Package” to bailout banks and companies they felt are too important to allow to fail. Of course it was the government that put the economy in the situation in the first place by basically forcing banks to lend money to prospective home owners that really could not afford to pay for them. Liberals say that all people deserve the “American Dream.” Yet our forefathers only tried to guarantee “the Right to Freedom and Pursuit of Happiness.” They never said that everybody had the right to own their own home. That banks could lend money to people with “balloon payments” who could just barely afford the initial payments is ridiculous. As people began to not pay back their mortgages, the loan companies began to fail, which caused a chain reaction throughout the economy. The money that the government borrows will have to be repaid at some point and to do that, taxes will have to be raised. By raising taxes, people are going to have less money to spend, businesses will suffer, business owners reduce costs by cutting jobs, which leads to fewer people having money to spend in the marketplace, and it’s a vicious cycle that will keep unemployment numbers high and the economy will continue to decline. What the government should do is stop trying to control the market, because the market can adjust in time. However, if the government were to help, they should be doing the opposite of what they are doing. What drives the economy is companies hiring people and producing jobs. So the government should concentrate on incentives for business owners/employers. They should cut corporate taxes and offer incentives to hire additional people. People who have steady, good-paying jobs are willing to spend money on products and services, but when companies are laying off large amounts of people, people feel less confident(secure) in their jobs, so they are not willing to spend money, therefore not driving the economy.
ReplyDeleteBased on the high unemployment in America, it is safe to say the government has not been doing doing enough to fight this problem. This article supports my opinion http://www.ehow.com/how_5738501_create-jobs-america.html.The biggest thing the government can do to help this problem is lower the tax structure permanently for small business owners. This will allow future small businesses to employ people and keep existing businesses in operation, therefore people keep their jobs. Another area that can create jobs would be in the local and state government public works department. The type of work would be highway construction and bridge work. These type of projects require a lot of work and would employ a lot people. The government has been trying to put people back to work, and hopfully they would succeed in the effort in lowering our country's unemployment rate.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe the government is doing enough to reduce unemployment. If unemployment is at ten percent and is not steadily declining, we are obviously not doing enough to change that. I believe that in order to alleviate unemployment, the government needs to establish new jobs, as stated by Dr. Irwin Kellner, in “How to Create Jobs” (http://www.businessknowhow.com/money/econrep1103.htm). Clearly, it is not an easy task, as Dr. Irwin says, “Are having an extremely difficult time finding new jobs – perhaps the most difficult time since the 1930s.” I think at the current time, we need to focus more attention on unemployment. Yes, President Obama established the stimulus package last year, but it seems that was all the effort put into reducing the unemployment rate. All the people that have lost their jobs are put into a difficult position. They do all they can to support their families and contribute to society, yet their reward is not a pleasant one. A loss in jobs just creates more stress for families and the nation as a whole because people struggle with everyday necessities, such as food, clothing, shelter, etc. The foreclosures in America have skyrocketed over the past few months and families are losing their homes, yet there is nothing they can do about it. Creation of new jobs would better the entire nation. There would obviously be more jobs available for people and eventually they would be able to get back on track and get their lives together. It is unfair for those who are able and willing to work to be denied of that opportunity because there are not enough jobs out there for them, or because companies cannot afford to hire them. I cannot even imagine the stress thrust upon families who struggle just to put food on the table and remain in their homes. They must feel so helpless and probably as if they are letting their families down. However, all they can do is wait for the creation of more jobs.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats in our government have been pushing for government intervention with more and more stimulus packages. The article “Administration Says Stimulus Has Worked” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/business/economy/14budget.html?ref=economy) states that the recent $787 stimulus program has had a positive effect on unemployment. Thanks to this program, the unemployment rate is slowly but surely declining. The Obama Administration has stated that the GDP experienced a 2% increase as well as protecting or creating more than 64,000 jobs. All this government involvement is obviously helping our economy grow faster than it would without it. So it is apparent that the government could be doing more to even further assist the economy’s recovery. This, however, would require more government spending to do so. It is great that our economy is improving and the potential for quicker development clearly exists but when is too much, too much? Personally to me, $787 of citizens’ tax money seems too big of a sacrifice for a mere 2% GDP increase and 64,000 jobs. Although the improving numbers exist, it fails to impress me. Furthermore, it worries me that it will be us that will be paying for this stimulus in the future. Does the slight increase in unemployment today outweigh the high risk of our own unemployment in the future because of all this money that is being spent? Nonetheless I believe it is important to focus on today so we at least have the luxury of worrying about it in the future. The government seems to be doing an effective job at creating more jobs and I hope they can be relied to continually do so. I don’t know what might happen in the future but I do know it is important to combat the existing issues we have today, I just hope that we will be able to handle the probably repercussions.
ReplyDeleteUnemployment is a very tough issue to predict, because it seems that every time there is a severe spike in the numbers it is the result of different factors. However, no matter how the unemployment came to be, there always only seems to be two options to get out of it, more/less government spending. One of the reasons that some promote more government spending is that they believe all problems will be fixed quickly as a result. But growth, no matter what, takes time. The article sites the fact that after the last two recessions (1991 and 2001), numbers weren’t much better the next year, yet we were able to recover. On the other hand, not spending any money might be an issue. The article also sites that most economists believe that while the $787 billion stimulus wasn’t exactly stimulating, it certainly stopped the bleeding. The key factor (which the article mentions and I totally agree with) in determining the moves of the government will be their battle plan for the next round of elections. For some politicians, it’s not a matter of spending/saving but winning/losing in 2010. I really don’t like this situation, but it’s the truth. Even if the calls the government are making are the right ones, if the results aren’t shown by Election Day there could be a lot of turnover. The article mentions the almost irrevocable damage done to the jobs in the housing, banking, and motor industries, and I think this may tell the story for the country in the end. The government isn’t the be all end all section of our society, it’s people who may need to sacrifice the way of life they want for the way of life they can get. The only way I see a stabilization of the job market is the creation of more lower level jobs for those who’ve lost the higher level jobs to fill (in addition to those who would be filling the existing lower level jobs). If American’s can learn to live reasonably and be patient, then we just might make it through, otherwise, “We have not seen the highest unemployment rate”.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/21/AR2009062101859.html
Jackson White
For everyone that said that the government is doing all they can to help unemployment in America, I would like you to consider a few points before all of you make up your mind. The government wants to implement a stimulus package, a very great plan! The idea of stimulus is proven to work, as shown in the Great Depression and also in countries like Australia, who rose out of their recession much quicker than we ever did! I appreciate that the government is trying to implement the idea of a stimulus, but the way they are implementing it is all wrong! These stimulus plans are not going towards reviving our economy or funding projects to create jobs at all and 2009 has proven that. We can see already that a lot of taxpayer’s dollars not only went to funding huge bonuses for bankers and insurance companies but also to the “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions who basically gambled our money on bets and faulty contracts. So is the government really funding road building projects, construction projects, and other research projects that will help create jobs for the 10% of all Americans who are unemployed? They might be trying, but the government is still not providing money where it is really needed. Billions of taxpayers, including our families are paying for the bank heads, and government run institutions to pay their company heads more bonuses and dividends. The government has to pull its act together and tighten its belt on spending large amounts of money. Instead of wasting taxpayers dollars on stimulus ideas that are not properly implemented, the government should channel money towards properly implemented stimulus plans. For unemployment to gradually decrease, the government must learn from their mistakes, not commit them over and over again!
ReplyDeleteI got my info from an article by a Nobel Prize Winner in Economics Joseph E. Stiglitz. The link is http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2009-12/31/content_9249981.htm
In my opinion the government is definitely not doing enough. Not only is the unemployment rate slowly rising, but there are many college graduates that should be cycled into their new jobs, but can’t find work. I believe the only way to help the decline in jobs, is for the government create them. That’s right, I do not believe that our government should approach the matter in a Laissez-faire outlook, but they should look to Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a stunning example of what should be. I think a good example the government could help job loss is by making public jobs such as road construction, expansion of railroads, and modern windmills which would not only help with jobs but help the energy crisis, just like how Roosevelt created dozens of dams and roads during the great depression.
ReplyDeleteAs my website I choose: http://www.communitychange.org/our-projects/jobs-and-the-economy, I picked the following site because it directly talks about high unemployment rates in this modern economic depression. I also picked this article, not only because it supports my idea of the government creating jobs, but it shows the ties between the depression, and the immigration reform and health care reform. It tells us, as citizens we should help out the best we can by not only helping out in our community but we should use our voting right as a tool to help the economy grow. I know as Americans, we expect too much too fast, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact that the government is doing hardly anything to help its people, it just blindly pours millions of dollars into the states and government hands, who ask for government bailouts. There’s a 10.2% unemployment rate that is suppose to raise to almost 11% by next year and considering the average is only 5%, all I have to say is as citizens we need to do our part in whatever way we can.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/11/us/politics/AP-US-Stimulus-Unemployment.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=unemployment&st=cse
ReplyDeleteI don’t think the government is doing the right thing to help decrease unemployment. In my articles it talks about how the first stimulus plan did nothing to help unemployment. It employed people in construction for a little bit, but overall made no big impact. As it says in the article, “The effect was so small, one economist compared it to trying to move the Empire State Building by pushing against it.” If the effects are not apparent, I don’t think we should spend another $75 billion dollars on a second stimulus plan that consists of the same thing. If results have proved to accomplish nothing, I don’t understand why we would do it again. I think jobs need to be created and something needs to be done, but I also think we need a different plan this time considering the first one didn’t work. Also in the article, it says that “transportation spending is too small of a pebble to create waves in the nation's $14 trillion economy.” Since the current plans seem to not be effective enough to make any change, I think we need to start thinking about something else we can do to help stimulate the economy. Construction jobs and road projects only last for so long, and also we can’t make a lot of pointless jobs. I also think that people need to patient, because I don’t think it is going to recover very quickly.
After reading the Chicago Tribune article http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/all-economy.7142368jan09,0,3629593.story?obref=obnetwork I think that the government may think that they are trying to solve unemployment issues when they really are not trying hard enough. The article talks about how Congress is thinking about something called a “jobs bill” that all it does is give more money to giving people that are unemployed more benefits. In my opinion this is not solving the problem it is just kind of putting it on the back burner so they think they are doing something about it when they are really just taking the easy way out. Yes it is nice to give the unemployed more money, but that amount does not compare to what they could be making if they actually had a job. It also doesn’t make people feel very good about themselves when they have to rely on the governments money to live instead of earning it for themselves. The government needs to focus on finding and creating more jobs to be done. On Barack Obama’s website http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/index.php he talks about what he think should be done about the increasing unemployment rate. It talks about the American Recovery and Reinvestment act, and part of the purpose of this act is to create or keep going 3.5 million jobs. This is the kind of plan that actually needs to be executed because it is very important in concerning the people of this country. If we could just find small jobs for people like working in construction, because we all know that never ends, that would even help. There are a lot of jobs out there that need to be done and I do not think we are trying hard enough to either find them or save the ones that are already there.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the government has done its job in order to help our economy. During a crisis all people just blame it on the government and expect them to fix it but this problem has not completely been the governments fault. Considering how the unemployment rate is at ten percent and is not declining at a steady rate and the involvement of the government has not changed it proves that this economic problem is not fully the governments fault. The problem is, the government’s role is getting too big and people are becoming too reliant on them. People expect the government to fix every problem for them but the laziness of the citizens of the U.S is the real problem. This is shown in the document http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2009/0503/governments-role-in-economy-getting-too-big. This article explains how the government is becoming too involved with the economy and how people are not doing anything to help the situation. As well, in order to fix this problem people just need to wait it out. At this point the economy and unemployment couldn’t get much worse. Therefore people just need to give it some time and the problem will fix itself. Even though there are some little steps to make this process quicker, there is not any one thing that will automatically fix this situation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of the people here and say that government has already put in a lot of efforts to improve our nation’s unemployment status, or at least have attempted. There ARE probably more things that they can do, seeing as the unemployment is still high at 10%, but with a new President just recently they have been doing what they can do for now. The improvements are yet to be something especially big, but it is definitely there. As said in the article Administration Says Stimulus Has Improved, “The Obama administration… said both the overall economy and employment continued to be in better shape at the end of 2009 than they would have been without the government’s help”. With the government’s attempts to fix the economy, it has finally started facing in the positive direction. As far as it goes, it seems to me that they have done a good part in trying to solve the problem. Now, the government isn’t the only one who has to try to fix this problem. We have to put some work in there too. So many of the people are relying the government to fix this and fix that. But that is never going to get us any further. They don’t have magical powers that can fix everything and make everything better with a simple snap. With the support of the government, we have to take initiative and start finding jobs and applying. Giving up is not an option in our era now, but many people are doing it and those are the ones who are bringing us down. Government will continue on creating opportunities for us and our job is to grab on to every chance possible and work along with them, not just watching them do the work, in order to improve the unemployment crisis we are facing now.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting comments guys! Great job on finding some insightful articles to back up your claim as well.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading through the list of comments I found myself in agreement with a lot of your thoughts and arguments...then it occured to me that while we all look to the government for help after a crisis, shouldn't we look to the government to prevent that crisis? Very few students took that approach (which is totally fine!), but since many of you have asked me what my opinion is on this topic I'm going to give it to you: The government is doing enough to try and help this crisis out, however the government FAILED us in actually PREVENTING this crisis from happening.
I am on board with many of you who have said that President Obama's stimulus program is too expensive for the # of jobs it creates (and how many of those jobs are long term anyway?), but we must look at the problems that got us here, specifically the deregulation of the banking industry. If the government was a little more involved during the Clinton and Bush administration in actually watching over how these banks operated with their risky loans that were prone to default the credit crisis today would not be as severe.
Would unemployment be up? Sure, we operate in a cyclical market and unemployment is going to rise, however if the government would have been more proactive and actually regulated the banks loaning out of money a little more closely we would not be at 10.2%.
The problem with big government is it is always in a catch-22. If they would have stepped in when credit was flowing freely then people would have been upset saying that the government should stay out of the banking industry and let them do their own thing, now when people are suffering the consequences from that lack of oversight, people are upset saying that the government isn't doing enough. Its a frustrating conundrum that continues to plague the leaders of all forms of government: people will criticize you if you are doing to much to prevent a problem (think of how many people got frustrated at airports when we hadn't had any terrorist threats in a long time), but when the problem occurs, those same people expect you to fix it.
Had the government stepped in when they should have, we would not be in the situation today...but most likely those leaders who supported that intervention probably would have too become unemployed.
Great job this week!
I think that what the government is doing is somewhat effective, but then again, they are the ones who got us into this mess anyways. They should have been more careful to keep an eye on the banks, and their loans of money that wasn’t there and then we wouldn’t be having this problem as serious as we are today. I found the website, http://www.fff.org/freedom/1195d.asp that agrees with me, that what the government is doing is not very effective. The article says that “This was an enormous mistake. Governmental UI systems are incompatible with individual freedom, inequitable, and economically damaging to the country”. This is true, because each individual has their own responsibility to keep themselves making money, not the government. The government can not fix a person who is unemployed, if they are just too lazy to get off their but and work. The person has to be determined to find a job for themselves. Also, there is only so much a government can do. Yes, they can help you along the way of finding a job, and make it easier, but it is not always guaranteed that you will find a good enough job to support a family off of. The fact that the government is basically holding our hand, it is kind of embarrassing that people are still unemployed to this day. The article also mentions that “The [UI] system reduces the incentives that people would otherwise have to diligently seek new work after losing a job”. If the government is making it so easy for one to get a job; like them taking a giant leap out of their way, when all they expect us to do is take a small step, is making us lazy. We as humans know that we are responsible for ourselves and our own success, so to have someone else doing most, or all of the hard work into us being employed again, then we aren’t going to have as much of an incentive to take that small step to get a job. For some, the government basically just hands them money and tells them to get a job soon! Well, when your given the opportunity to take money, and not work for it; or actually work and earn your money the hard way…people are going to not want to work anymore. The government is mostly supporting them financially, so why do they have to? They don’t. All in all, the government should let each individual struggle to get back on their feet. Maybe one will learn what to do and what not to do with their money. And if the government doesn’t want to completely step out, they could just take a little step out, and hope that people would finally realize that somebody is not going to hold their hand and give them money, while they take their sweet time to find a job. No. It just doesn’t work that way.
ReplyDelete