"The private sector is doing fine" - Obama, 6/8/12

The GOPers are obviously jumping all over this line, because they seem to believe that the private sector is in dire straights because of the Stimulus, Regulations, and Taxes that Obama seems to have dumped on America. But I'm curious to the opinions of non-partisans? As Obama said, in the last 27 months, 4.3M private-sector jobs were added, and 800K this year alone. I also believe that just recently the Fortune 500 reported record high profits for 2011. To me, this is indicative of the private sector thriving.

But maybe I'm wrong about that.

Good luck finding non-partisans.

How many jobs have been lost since he took office? What kinds of jobs are being created in the private sector? How are these companies creating record high profits? I guess you're considered partisan if you ask those sorts of questions.

It depends on how you define fine. The private sector is making a damn lot of money. But it doesn't expect much growth and therefore isn't hiring very much. So it's yes and no.

Obama's comment is akin to Romney's comment that the poor are doing fine -- neither guy meant it quite the way it came out. The two comments also illustrate that yes the voters do have a real choice. These two candidates have fundamentally different world outlooks. Romney would not say that today's private sector is doing fine, and Obama wouldn't say that about the poor.

Of course, some of the private sector is doing fine. They have been able to shed cost after cost for a long time while gradually increasing the price of their service/products to consumers and their stock prices reflect it.

Other parts of the "private sector" aren't doing so good because they have either shed all the cost they can (employee benefits and compensation) or the competition for selling the service they provide or products that they make (non-durable/manufactured goods) has forced them to operate on near starvation margins and their somewhat butthurt by it...




But they, by and large, blame the government, unions (that have very little to do with their products/services, if at all) and public sector employees for their race to the bottom in being "competitive in the market".

No, those are good questions. Since he took office, we've lost a net of 500K jobs...of course we lost, on average, 750K jobs in each of Jan, Feb, and March of 2009.

The jobs, according to the monthly jobs reports, have pretty much been all across the private sector. To white collar jobs to manufacturing jobs.

Some of those jobs are never coming back. They've been either off-shored or in the case of white collar professions like architecture, people are either retiring/leaving the profession and/or will be having their jobs done more and more by interns and/or unlicensed designers under a AoR's stamp. Same with Engineer's of all varieties.

I thought Romney said "I'm not worried about the poor", which to be perfectly honesty is an OK comment for me, if harshly said. I think Obama's point was simply that the path the private sector is on, is a good one. Which I find hard to disagree with.

To clarify what I'm sure that you already know, it's not possible in good conscience to blame Obama for any of those months, and it's not possible even in bad conscience to give him January when he wasn't even in office for the first 3 weeks of the month.

Which is fine, that's just how an economy evolves.

Technically he said, "I'm not concerned about the very poor." Close enough, it doesn't alter the point that Obama is gonna always think the poor need our concern, and Romney is gonna always think that nope it's business that we should be worried about.

As generalities I think that's accurate - very general though. What Romney was talking about though was that we have a safety net, and that's why he doesn't have to worry about the poor. They're being taken care of (or so he believes)

Not really from a public safety and cost/quality of project delivery for both public and private owners.

More and more projects are going out the door in private firms with very little review or less than complete to satisfy unrealistic owner demands or a project delivery cost point. Follow that with state fire marshal and municipal planning departments having less and less staff to adequately review plans with developers/owners screaming that no review or inspection should be necessary and you're creating serious public safety concerns in the future in the built environment.

Buildings are becoming less safe and less sustainable because of this.

The word you are looking for was "devolves", not "evolves".

I think he meant and should have said (in his Obamian way) "Now corporations are doing well, record profits out there for several years. But employees have taken the brunt of those 'gains' in stagnant wages, less job security and longer hours. Many Americans that want jobs can't find them, including millions of college graduates. We have to do something about this because it's a national emergency."

When you think about it, he should've said the same thing in the Spring of 2009.

That would have made him an America Hating Soci.....

Nevermind

Well, it seems that youth are having the toughest time in this economy. Recall this article on Professor Mead's sight:

"The War on the Young: Young Adult Joblessness at 13.6%"


http://blogs.the-american-interest....on-the-young-young-adult-joblessness-at-13-6/

snippet:

There was also this today about the lack of job opportunities for college graduates, the enormous debt they have piled up, and additionally a frightening number of those with out college education have not been able to find work.



"America’s Youth Aren’t Fine, Mr. President"

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/08/american-youth-not-fine-mr-president/

Bite a fart.

Unless you're actually interested in debating rarther tha link dumping. Otherwise, Bite a fart.

ITN???? is that you?

I think if you are talking about those parts of the private sector that are sitting on mountains of cash, then yeah, they're doing fine.

But I don't necessarily think the entire system we call the private sector is doing fine. If the private sector was doing fine, we'd have growth to show for it, and declining unemployment.

So I think I'm going to have to disagree with POTUS on this one.

Our growth, just as since 1986, is concentrated and hoarded. Individual productivity is being absorbed by Mr. Smaug and must be broken loose. Once the hoarded resources are back into circulation these things mentioned by roadkit will flow. (at least until the usual suspects snatch it in to hoard again)

No. InTheNet had the decency to stand up for his convictions. The poster currently known as "Ignored Member" on my page just link-dumps and runs away.

I think the economic ramifications of Obama's gaffe are pretty well covered, but as a political gaffe I think we're at no better or worse a point that before he said it. Romney ads that will play this will say "Obama thinks the economy is just fine, but do you believe it? The economy is doing terrible. Vote Romney." It hopes that the monthly jobs reports continue to deteriorate in order to be effective. If Romney runs this ad all month and next month 150k jobs are added, it will be a month's worth of wasted ads. Similarly, the Obama campaign needs to just move on. If they continue to dwell on the comment, even by going after Romney's own counter-gaffe, it will focus the election even more on the President's record and less on the choice between the two candidates. Personally, I think this ad is less damaging than "guns and religion" because it's still 150 days away from the election, rather than 4 weeks before the Pennsylvania primary. Romney got the nomination even though he likes to fire people, doesn't care about the poor, and believes corporations are people.

Most importantly, 90-95% of us have already made up our minds and the 5-10% who haven't don't pay attention until a few weeks beforehand, so these comments won't really affect persuasion.