OBAMANOMICS CAN FIX OUR FINANCIAL WOES!
A Guide on how to fix all the problems
Recently President Obama had the audacity to give a short speech about how the latest economic numbers reflect that his policies are working and that the economic growth was strong and jobs were recovering. He cited the fact that the unemployment rate had fallen to 8.8% nationally last month. He failed to mention that the reason unemployment has fallen is that the Labor department has taken the unusual step of deciding for people whether they are unemployed or not. Incredibly, the labor department does a survey each week in which they ask unemployed people “Are you still unemployed”? As has been the case for years the answer is usually “ NO”. Now imagine you’ve been unemployed for 2 years and every week the labor department calls you and asks this same question and out of frustration you state” To tell you the truth I check the papers, I go knock on doors , I try every thing but I give up , nobody is hiring”! Well that is great news to the Department of Labor and Obamanomics because you now contributed to a decline in the national unemployment rate because an answer like that drops you off the unemployment list. You are no longer unemployed if you give up looking, according to this administration and if you don’t think its having an effect take a look at the raw numbers. Since last year the Department of Labor has removed nearly 2 million Americans from the unemployed list and that act by itself has lowered the unemployment rate from 10% to 8.5% over the past year.
I’ve decide that we should help the rest of the country and the financial industry with this same type of Enron accounting. For instance, why should my home value have to suffer from the glut of foreclosures in my area? I think the Government should do a survey of people selling homes and ask them “ Have you sold your home yet”? and if they reply “ I’ve been trying to sell for 2 years but I give up”..BINGO..they fall off the unsold inventory list. They never existed and they are no longer trying to sell their home because they said they ‘give up”. My next target would be all the Auction Rate Securities (ARS) that have been frozen in the after market for nearly 4 years. There is literally a trillion dollars locked up in the large firms on Wall Street because there is no market to sell them. I suggest we call up the firms and ask them if they have attempted to sell their ARS recently and if they tell the Government worker “Are you stupid? That market has been frozen since 2007, I give up trying to sell them”…BINGO..the whole ARS debacle is behind us and we can just write them off because the holders of ARS have given up.
I’m on a roll now so bare with me. Why don’t we just take all the bad loans the Government is holding as a result of TARP and Fannie and Freddie-Mac and ask the banks if they have unloaded the trillions in bad loans? If they too give up then let’s just write them off too and announce to the world that our mortgage crisis is over. I can hardly wait for the impending Government shutdown because if the unemployment offices are closed for two weeks I can envision the Labor Department and Obama issuing a press release announcing:
UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS FALL TO A RECORD LEVEL! NO UNEMPLOYED AMERICANS FOR THE WEEK ENDING APRIL 15TH. NOT ONE SINGLE CLAIM FOR UNEMPLOYED BENEFITS AT THE CLOSED GOVERNMENT FACILITIES INDICATES STRONG ECONOMIC GROWTH TO CONTINUE THROUGHOUT 2011.
The sad part is this exact scenario did happen last fall when the labor department and headlines crowed that claims for unemployment dropped by 20,000 from the prior week and then much later in the story noted that the unemployment offices were closed for Labor Day the previous week.
Perhaps the Financial system can take advantage of this and use ‘giving up’ to their advantage? The next time you’re asked why you didn’t file a ‘Suspicious Activity Report” on someone name Ali Alkahbarren Abdul from Yemen you should calmly state to the regulator that the system for filing was too complicated and you tried and tried but you finally ‘ Gave Up” and assumed that particular terrorist would just drop off the list. It seems to be working for our President so it has to be worth a shot.
