Creating Jobs?

Starbucks has distributed more than 500,000 red, white and blue wristbands in the last three months, and, no, it's not just because the coffee giant is feeling patriotic.

The wristbands, sold for $5 each, are intended to fund loans to small businesses, nonprofits and other organizations that will create American jobs.

New figures released by the company on Thursday, show the ongoing Create Jobs for USA program has so far raised more than $2 million. Coupled with $5 million in seed money already donated by Starbucks, the company expects the program to create at least 2,300 jobs.

That said, the money takes time to trickle down to business owners and heads of nonprofits. To get from the Starbucks cash register to a small business or agency, the donations first pass through the Opportunity Finance Network, which then gives grants to community development financial institutions, or CDFIs. Those lenders are tasked with doling out low-interest loans to small businesses and nonprofits in need.

So far, 278 loans have been made in 31 states across the country.

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Cartoon: Meaning of Life

Mises on Government Job Creation

"Government spending cannot create additional jobs. If the government provides the funds required by taxing the citizens or by borrowing from the public, it abolishes on the one hand as many jobs as it creates on the other."

Ludwig von Mises--Planning for Chaos

Job Growth?

Economists are getting more pessimistic about the strength of the U.S. recovery, but they don't think policy makers should do anything more to support it, according to the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey...

The economists, though, generally didn't support the idea of ending Bush-era tax cuts, which will expire at the end of this year unless Congress acts. Just three respondents said that the tax cuts on individual income should be allowed to expire for everyone. Thirty-two economists said they should all be extended, while 11 said they should be extended for people making less than $250,000 a year—the policy option backed by the Obama administration.

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Job Market

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Job Creation Gap

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Saving Jobs

And the White House came right out and with a straight face said it had saved 2 million jobs. How do you like that? More than 7 million jobs have disappeared in the correction so far. But the total would have been more than 9 million, had it not been for the feds.

Let’s see, $700 billion worth of stimulus spending…hey, that’s $350,000 per job. But every dollar of deficit is actually ‘stimulus spending.’ At that rate, each job cost about $800,000. And what about all the Fed’s pump priming? What about all the loan guarantees and toxic asset purchases…and bailouts of the auto industry, AIG, the banks, mortgage holders, Fannie and Freddie…etc. etc? That’s all stimulating too, isn’t it? The total is said to be around $13 trillion, putting the cost at $65 million for each job saved.

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The Lost Decade

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Unemployment: 10.2%

Unemployment by Job Loss

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Jobs: Predictions v. Reality

The Department of Labor today released its monthly jobs report. Does it validate the Vice President’s remarks? No. The jobs report provides no evidence that the stimulus is working. If anything, it suggests the economy’s natural recuperative powers are just beginning to work, no thanks to fiscal policy. Of course, as argued elsewhere, the stimulus was fatally flawed from the outset with no chance of helping the recovery, so continued job losses through the fall should not be surprising.

read the article

A Decade Without Job Growth

“For the first time since the Depression, the American economy has added virtually no jobs in the private sector over a 10-year period. The total number of jobs has grown a bit, but that is only because of government hiring.

The accompanying charts show the job performance from July 1999, when the economy was booming and companies were complaining about how hard it was to find workers, through July of this year, when the economy was mired in the deepest and longest recession since World War II. For the decade, there was a net gain of 121,000 private sector jobs, according to the survey of employers conducted each month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In an economy with 109 million such jobs, that indicated an annual growth rate for the 10 years of 0.01 percent.”

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Cartoon: Promised Jobs and Blaming Bush

Only 3,999,940 Jobs to Go

President Obama said Tuesday that the country already is "seeing shovels hit the ground" on the first infrastructure repair project funded through the Transportation Department's share of the $787 billion stimulus bill.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, "The work begins today in Montgomery County, Maryland, where a work crew is starting on a project to resurface Maryland State Highway 650 -- a very busy road that has not been fully repaired in 17 years."

The resurfacing contract is going to a Pennsylvania-based family-owned company, America Infrastructure, LaHood said.

He said the project will support 60 jobs. "And that's how we're going to get the country back on its feet," LaHood added.

read the CNN story

2008 Unemployment: 2.6 Million Lost Jobs

For the year 2008, net job losses were 2.6 million, the largest total since 1945, however, this is likely to be revised much higher later in the year when benchmark revisions are performed.

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Recession?

U.S. employers shed 63,000 jobs last month, the most in five years, reinforcing a widening view that the U.S. is falling into recession. Among economists and politicians, the debate is shifting to how deep the downturn will be and how to ease it...

Private-sector jobs fell by 101,000, the third straight month of declines. The February unemployment rate edged down to 4.8% from 4.9%, but only because some job-seekers quit looking for work.

"I believe we are facing the most serious...economic and financial stresses that the U.S. has faced in at least a generation -- and possibly much longer," Lawrence Summers, who was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, said Friday at a Stanford University conference. "We are in nearly unprecedented territory with respect to financial strain."

Edward Lazear, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters, "I'm still not saying that there is a recession," but "there is no denying that when you get negative job numbers, realistically the economy is less strong than we had hoped it would be."...

The last two recessions, in 1990-91 and 2001, each lasted only eight months. "This is going to be our weakest quarter," said Mr. Lazear, predicting renewed growth by summer.

read the WSJ article

Job Creation: Jan 2008

Two great charts from the Skeptical Optimist.

The economy is still creating jobs.

1 Million Net Jobs Created in 2007

great charts from the Skeptical Optimist

Not the nightmare the media is portraying.

October Unemployment 4.7%

great charts from the Skeptical Optimist

from the Skeptical Optimist