government policies

Jobs Saved or Created: Armed Security to Guard Unemployment Offices

by Kathryn Ciano on November 4, 2010

in Economy, Employment

Here is a must-read for naysayers ready to indict current regulatory policies’ ability to create or save jobs!

With December looms the deadline for folks on federal unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. Desperate “ninety-niners” have demanded extension after extension. Early December means the really-real end to this income stream. And the 99-ers aren’t happy.

Indiana state officials have hired armed security guards to protect 36 unemployment agencies around the state.

Now: These are positions that the government will certainly count as “created” new jobs. Yet these are guards hired to protect state agents against citizens so far down on their luck that they are desperate.

No violent incident spurred this measure of protection; this is merely the method governments choose to cover their own backs with regard to a desperate citizenry:

Lotter said the agency is merely being cautious with the approach of an early-December deadline when thousands of Indiana residents could see their unemployment benefits end after exhausting the maximum 99 weeks provided through multiple federal extension periods.

“Given the upcoming expiration of the federal extensions and the increased stress on some of the unemployed, we thought added security would provide an extra level of protection for our employees and clients,” he said.

Put another way: Here are security guards armed, state-backed, and ready to shoot should their less-employed neighbors storm the unemployment offices demanding further help.

What caused the job gap in the first place was an attitude of excessive regulation, overprotection, and the promise to back up private businesses no matter what they do.

When in the course of human events it becomes clear that the government has failed, it is the duty of the people to demand a change. This election Tuesday the American people made perfectly clear their frustration with failed government policies.

Perhaps these unemployment offices in Indiana should find a better way to counsel job seekers, rather than wrap themselves in further state protection, not blind but tangibly uninterested in what the people have to say.

“One of The Great Success Stories of All Time”

by Iain Murray on October 16, 2008 · 3 comments

in Bailout Watch, Economy

While conservatives are angry about a number of things at the moment, they should be at least as angry that the Congressional Democrats who helped stoke the mortgage crisis are getting away with blaming everyone else for it. Today, Senator Chris Dodd, the prime recipient of GSE lobbying funds and proud holder of a sweetheart mortgage from Countrywide, is holding hearings where the witnesses will blame everyone but Dodd, Barney Frank and their cronies. Republicans asked to invite witnesses but were barred from doing so. The Wall Street Journal has more:

In February 2004, while Republican colleagues warned of the systemic risks posed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Mr. Dodd pronounced the mortgage market “one of the great success stories of all time.” A year later, the Connecticut Democrat voted against a reform that would have limited the size of Fan and Fred’s mortgage portfolios…At today’s hearing, his mission is to weave a tale that somehow manages to avoid mentioning his own role in this debacle. That won’t be easy, but Mr. Dodd has shrewdly selected a series of witnesses who, like him, contributed to the mess, and have every incentive to point fingers elsewhere.

Read the whole thing for details of the ridiculous witnesses and a strong suggestion for who should be called. Meanwhile, in The Washington Post, Peter Schiff has a good outline of how government – and the actions of Bill Clinton – really did help cause this mess and is probably now making it worse:

Yes, many Wall Street leaders were irresponsible, and they should pay. But they were playing the distorted hand dealt them by government policies. Our leaders irrationally promoted home-buying, discouraged savings, and recklessly encouraged borrowing and lending, which together undermined our markets…By refusing to allow market forces to rein in excess spending, liquidate bad investments, replenish depleted savings, fund capital investment and help workers transition from the service sector to the manufacturing sector, government is resisting the cure while exacerbating the disease.

There’s actually a school of thought that this decade is paralleling the 1930s quite closely (see the Oct 7 edition of The Short View, about 2 minutes in) and that we’re in the thick of something that actually began in 2000 or so. Over in Britain, Gordon Brown has apparently decided that increased public spending is necessary. The 1930s all over again, indeed. We need to get angry about the wool Chris Dodd and co are pulling over our eyes.