Obama's Re-Election Plan

A lot of people, pundits and non-pols alike have suggested that Obama will be a one term President due to the unemployment situation and the poor state of the economy.  We say: "hold the presses!"  To declare Obama dead is a bit premature. 

As you know  we are not fans of the President but we are realists. We understand the power of the Presidency and incumbency. Domestically, if the economy is still in the tank and unemployment over 8%, the President will have a rough time getting re-elected. Whereas if the statistics indicate a 5% unemployment and GDP growth, it would be a different story.

Likewise, in  foreign affairs, if Iran gets its nuclear weapons and the Middle East is still a mess, once again Obama will have problems. On the other hand if there is a Israeli-Palestinian agreement or the world decides to terminate the Iranian nuke plant, the election will be different.

Our prediction is that all the positives we stated above will occur. Unemployment will be around 5-5.5%,  GDP growth will be around 3% per year and there will be foreign affairs successes.   Why? Because he can make it so.  For example, the following article by AP today.  Unemployment down to 8.5%, the lowest in 3 years!

Isn't it interesting, the election is eleven months away and all of a sudden the rate start moving down.  Call it paranoia but I smell a skunk. Also buried in these numbers, why do they not count those who have stopped looking for work? Are they not unemployed? Why don't we have some way of counting those who have taken a lower paying job just to bring in some money?

Another issue, why does the CPI not include gas and food?  The official answer is that these items are too volatile and make the index move too much. That might be true in "politics-world" but to the everyday Tom and Thomasina, these items effect our lives greater than any other purchase.  To ignore them is to ignore the real "cost of living" for regular citizens. In other words, the index has been manipulated to come up with the results the leaders want.

There is an old saying that "figures don't lie, but liars figure."  Government statistics are examples of the latter and Obama will take full advantage of them.

We assume that the word has been sent to the Commerce Department (unofficially of course) to make sure that the numbers reflect a decline in unemployment and GDP growth in the year before the election.  We would like to see that communication!

Watch the news in the upcoming months and we believe you will see this scenario appear.

Conservative Tom

Unemployment rate falls, lowest in nearly 3 years

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER | AP – 50 mins ago

 …

• wASHINGTON (AP) — A burst of hiring in December pushed the U.S. unemployment rate to its lowest level in nearly three years, giving the economy a boost at the end of 2011.

The Labor Department said Friday that employers added a net 200,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, the lowest since February 2009. The rate has dropped for four straight months.

The hiring gains cap a six-month stretch in which the economy generated 100,000 jobs or more in each month. That hasn't happened since April 2006.

The steady drop is a positive sign for President Barack Obama, who is bound to face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any sitting president since World War II. Unemployment was 7.8 percent when Obama took office in January 2009.

Still, the level may matter less to his re-election chances if the rate continues to fall. History suggests that presidents' re-election prospects hinge less on the unemployment rate itself than on the rate's direction during the year or two before Election Day.

For all of 2011, the economy added 1.6 million jobs, better than the 940,000 added in 2010. The unemployment rate averaged 8.9 percent last year, down from 9.6 percent the previous year.

Economists forecast that the job gains will top 2.1 million this year.
The December report painted a picture of a broadly improving job market. Average hourly pay rose, providing consumers with more income to spend. The average work week lengthened, a sign that business is picking up and companies may soon need more workers. And hiring was strong across almost all major industries.

Manufacturing added 23,000 jobs. Transportation and warehousing added 50,000 jobs. Retailers added 28,000 jobs. Even the beleaguered construction industry added 17,000 workers.

A more robust hiring market coincides with other positive data that show the economy ended the year with some momentum.

Weekly applications for unemployment benefits have fallen to levels last seen more than three years ago. Holiday sales were solid. And November and December were the strongest months of 2011 for U.S. auto sales.

Many businesses say they are ready to step up hiring in early 2012 after seeing stronger consumer confidence and greater demand for their products.