New Jobs Numbers, AP/Yahoo! Show Liberal Bias

The new jobs numbers came out today, so liberal spin doctor, Christopher Rugaber at the AP launched a headline that the liberals at Yahoo.com were glad to prominently showcase on their front page"

"US economy adds 146K jobs, rate falls to 7.7 pct."

And for their sub heading:

"US economy adds 146K jobs; jobless rate falls to 4-year low of 7.7 percent; Sandy minor factor"

Well isn't that awesome? Well it WOULD be if these headlines really meant what they said. The truth is all over the body of the article and for at least that little bit of honesty, I give Rugaber a little bit of credit. 

He points out:

1.) "the unemployment rate fell to a four-year low in November from 7.9 percent in October mostly because more people stopped looking for work and weren't counted as unemployed."

OUCH.

2.) "The government noted that as long as employees worked at least one day during a pay period — two weeks for most people — its survey would have counted them as employed."

This is ridiculous. So an employer told me to come in twice last month to sweep up the floor and I am counted as employed?

3.) "Still, there were signs that the storm [Sandy] disrupted economic activity. Construction employment dropped 20,000. And weather prevented 369,000 people from getting to work — the most for any month in nearly two years. These workers were still counted as employed."

Besides the fact that this is more cooking of the books, am I the only one that finds it odd that a storm that destroys property would cause construction employment to drop? I digress...

4.) "In November, retailers added 53,000 positions. Temporary help companies added 18,000." 

So of the 146K jobs added, HALF of them are seasonal or temporary. This happens every year, so this cannot be unexpected. Yet the over-hyped headline seems to beg you to believe that these numbers are somehow great news.

5.) "...overall manufacturing jobs fell 7,000. That was pushed down by a loss of 12,000 jobs in food manufacturing that likely reflects the layoff of workers at Hostess."

Thank you, Organized Labor Unions.

So you can see that the FACTS in the article end up contradicting the tone of the headline, which is exactly what the propagandists on the left want you to believe. But on the outside chance the Kool-Aid drinkers actually read and understood the facts of the article, the author made sure to end it with not one but TWO excuses for Obama:

Excuse #1: Sandy - "The storm held back consumer spending and income, which drive economic growth. Consumer spending declined in October and work interruptions caused by Sandy reduced wages and salaries that month by about $18 billion at an annual rate, the government said." 

Excuse #2: Republicans not caving on Democrat demands to raise taxes, leading to what Obama propagandists call, The Fiscal Cliff - "Still, many say economic growth could accelerate next year if the fiscal cliff is avoided."

The Norquist Tax Pledge vs Fiscal Cliff

For those of you that don't know, Grover Norquist is a conservative activist who created an "Anti-Tax Pledge" for politicians to sign who are against any and all tax increases in order to let voters know where they stand. All over the news lately (or at least since immediately after the election) is what is called "The Fiscal Cliff." In a nutshell, the Fiscal Cliff is what we are told the country will fall over in January 2013 because of an automatic rise in taxes coupled with a mandatory sequestration on government spending which expert say will be devastating to the economy. What doesn't make sense is that liberals are fear-mongering the public into pressuring the Norquist Pledge Signers into caving in to raising taxes. It doesn't make sense because if nothing is done, taxes are set to raise automatically because the Bush Tax cuts expire. Tom Cohen of CNN says,

"With the U.S. economy showing more signs of improvement in its long recovery from recession, economists point to fears about higher taxes in 2013 as a potential threat to rising consumer confidence."

It seems to me that what I am seeing is very well executed plan by Democrats to put Republicans in a no-win situation: Either they violate their pledge and agree on a compromise which includes raising taxes which can be used against them when the higher taxes are blamed for stunting the growth of the economy even further, OR they can blame Republicans for sending us over the fiscal cliff by doing nothing, OR they can blame Republicans for the national deficit spiraling out of control if they keep their Norquist Pledge and pass legislation to not allow a raise in taxes.

What everyone should keep in mind is that taxes are the dollars earned by the hard work of people like you and I and redistributed to politicians to do with it what they want to. Money is power, so this effectively gives even more power to the Socialists in control of Washington.

Please do not fall for this fear mongering and focus on what's real. We don't have a TAX problem. While it might not be true for the bottom 47% of wage earners, the government gets plenty of our money, in terms of percentage of our income. We have a REVENUE problem. The BEST way to increase revenue is by ADDING more taxpayers by way of increasing the number of jobs (decreasing unemployment) and by increasing average wages (by fixing the economy). And honestly, the only reason we have a revenue problem is because the amount of revenue is nowhere near what the government spends, hence the national deficit. So we also have a major SPENDING problem. The biggest consequence of the current spending problem under the Socialists in control is that they are using a big chunk of the taxpayers money to pay able-bodied people to live comfortable enough to NOT work. This creates an unstable situation of reducing the need to work for people who would otherwise be able to earn enough to pay the taxes to increase the revenue that the government so desperately needs. The end result is a collapse, plain and simple. So Democrats are doing this free-stuff-givaway of taxpayer money in order to earn votes necessary to make such a giveaway possible all at the expense of the entire society, and possibly our beloved country as we have known it. What happens to the United States and her Constitution when the government that runs it and protects it dissolves? And are Democrats doing this knowingly or are they just ignorant of these consequences?