It was a very bad day for Pres Obama:
1) The North Koreans have fired more missiles.
2) The "jobs report" was dreadful.
The NK missiles make him look weak.
On jobs, he looks clueless.
By the way, pushing an energy tax increase and promoting an extremely expensive health care program is not helping either!
At least, this is a reminder that campaigning was a lot easier than governing.
You can give a speech and say that you will heal the planet.
You can't give a speech and turn the US economy around. Did I tell you that the stock market lost 180 points today?
What happens next?
We can't do another stimulus because we are already running a US$ 2 trillion deficit. (We repeat it: BO's deficits are 4 times larger than Bush!)
Besides, this is not a situation that calls for more government stimulus. We need a president who understands how jobs are created, i.e. jobs are created in the private sector!
Jerry Bowyer is chief economist at Benchmark Financial Network, is a member of the Kudlow Caucus, and makes regular appearances on CNBC.
Bowyer has a message for the Obama White House:
"America isn't hiring precisely because of government policy.
Small business owners, who are usually the first into and the first out of the job pool, are standing by the fence and watching.
They are paralyzed by regulatory uncertainty.
If they hire someone who ends up doing poorly, will they be able to fire that person?
Will they have to pay their health care bills after they've been terminated?
If so, for how long?
Who will pay for all these stimulus checks?
If it will turn out to be small business, why would they hire instead of keeping costs low to prepare for the big tax bill?
Where will the market move?
Are you in the right business or are your clients in a politically disfavored industry?
Are your clients in health care (being nationalized), autos (already nationalized), banking (somewhat nationalized) or any energy production process which uses carbon (pulverized)?
Until you know, you don't grow, and until you grow your market, you don't grow your payroll.
Jobs aren't languishing despite the government's best efforts. They're languishing because of them."
In other words, Obama has scared the heck out of people who create jobs and produce wealth.
Karl Rove has an interesting take on the jobs picture:
"Overall, the Obama Administration is now 3.4 million jobs below where they should be to create 3.675 million jobs by the end of 2010.
The only sector to create jobs in June was the Education/Health sector, even though it still was 18,174 jobs short of the Obama Administration's monthly target."
MarketWatch has some bad news:
"Indeed, Obama hasn't seen a month of job gains yet.
Since he took office at the end of January, total job losses number 2.6 million.
The fiscal climate couldn't get much tougher for Obama, especially since he wants to fund an expensive health-care overhaul without adding to the deficit.
The White House could speed up the stimulus, try to enact another one or simply wait for the current one to show more results."
