Biden: We Can't Recover All the Jobs Lost ... Vice President Joe Biden (left) gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession." ... "We inherited a godawful mess," he said, adding there was "no way to regenerate $3 trillion that was lost. Not misplaced, lost." – AP

Dominant Social Theme: They may not be able to replace every single job but they're trying.

Free-Market Analysis: One of the hoariest dominant social themes or sub themes promoted by the power elite is that government can create jobs. It is possibly a sub theme because the dominant theme is simply that "government can do it all." In fact, the only things government can do with any modicum of efficiency are collect taxes, inflate currency and pass laws that usually have the opposite effect from what is intended. Of course this doesn't stop government pols from claiming they can create jobs when the economy becomes troubled and needs help. Here's some more from the article:

Claims for jobless benefits fell by the largest number in two months last week, but were still high enough to signal weak job growth. ... Last week the White House put out a Recovery and Reinvestment Act update claiming that between 2.2 million and 2.8 million jobs were either saved or created because of the stimulus as of March 2010. In signing the Recovery Act into law on Feb 17, 2009, Mr. Obama said the measure "will create or save 3- and-a-half million jobs over the next two years."

Peer behind the numbers claimed by the Obama administration and the questions multiply, as was pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal article, "The Media Fall for Phony Jobs Claims." The article explained that one way the Obama administration had been able to make extravagant claims about jobs was by using the "saved or created." The US president used this phrase recently in announcing that the administration, via certain stimulus spending, had saved or created 150,000 American jobs. Obama then claimed that further job-savings programs were in the works to save another 600,000 jobs, but these numbers still pale against promises to save up to four million jobs that were made previously.

Of course, using such vague language makes it impossible to do any substantive fact-checking of claims. And there are no government or even private bureaus that track such statistics apparently. How is it possible to know whether a job has been "saved" or not? The claims are gobbledygook but the administration gets away with it because it has the bully pulpit and the media repeat the claims. Here's some more from the Journal:

If the "saved or created" formula looks brilliant, it's only because Mr. Obama and his team are not being called on their claims. And don't expect much to change. So long as the news continues to repeat the administration's line that the stimulus has already "saved or created" 150,000 jobs over a time period when the U.S. economy suffered an overall job loss 10 times that number, the White House would be insane to give up a formula that allows them to spin job losses into jobs saved.

The real reason for the downturn and loss of jobs have little to do with the Bush administration or even with the current cyclical downturn. It has everything to do with the constant inflationary measures of the mercantilist Federal Reserve and the company-killing graduated income tax that has sent companies large and small away from American shores. The combination of endless asset inflation and punitive taxation has been hollowing out America for at least a century if not longer. Regulatory "free-trade" agreements that are nothing but "managed trade" don't help either.

The American political regime of the past century has truly begun to bankrupt America. The country has lost vast amounts of manufacturing capability and even the chattering classes today speak of America's "service" economy as if this in some sense can compensate for the loss of the vital entrepreneurialism that builds the wealth of nations and individuals. Meanwhile, America's infrastructure degrades, its cities crumble, its vital middle class shrinks and companies that were founded there move offshore to grow.

Conclusion: The reasons for this ruin are clearly evident in the fiscal and monetary policies that the US has adopted over the past 100 years. To claim in any way that the Federal government is able to "save or create" jobs is truly a misleading statement given the policies that the US Federal government implemented in the 20th century. These policies in fact were supported by the larger Anglo-American power elite that has been trying to tear down the American republic since its inception in order to create a seamless US/European governmental authority. The idea that those who create fundamental policy for the US Federal government actually care about American workers, either blue collar or white collar, or want to see them succeed is a promotion, not a credible reality.

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