Obama's economic numbers are weak and bleak
Article added on September 7, 2012 at 16:26 Swiss time
  
The Messiah has not delivered. After four years in office, Obama's economic numbers are weak and bleak.

In November 2008, the month of Obama's election, the jobless rate stood at 6,8%. In February 2009, the Messiah's first month in office, the unemployment rate had reached 8.3%. In July 2012, the rate stood still at 8.3%. In between, it reached over 10%. The August 2012 numbers are just out and the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an increase of 96,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in August. Therefore, the U.S. unemployment stands now at 8.1%. Nothing to be proud of.

The housing market is still in a terrible shape with some 11 million borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their house are worth. Analysts expect some 4 million foreclosures in the next two years. The housing market is in a shape as bad as in 2009.

The national debt crisis has not been resolved. Public debt has reached some $16.015 trillion. Barack Obama had promised to reduce the public deficit in half during his four-year mandate. When President Obama took office in 2009, the debt stood at 10.626 trillion dollars.

The 2012 United States federal budget deficit is estimated to reach some $1.1 trillion (the fiscal year end on September 30, 2012). It is the fourth year in a row with a deficit above $1 trillion. The 2012 deficit is estimated to reach 7.3% of GDP. The United States remain on an unsustainable path.



The American welfare state is not only heavily weighing on the national debt, but also on the budget's of most states. The $800 billion stimulus was of course not really effective. As for 2008-Economic Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman and his magic bullet: If you want another stimulus, please go to the bathroom and leave us alone with your fantasies!

Obamacare has of course not lowered the cost of health care. Some steps have been taken into the right direction to curb healthcare costs, but overall, the result is a mess.

The bailed-out auto industry has well profited from Obama's action. The number of 1.1 million jobs saved is a number nobody can proof. If GM had gone into a normal bankruptcy, maybe someone from the private sector may have stepped in and bought some of the equipment and employed some of the automakers. Other car companies such as Ford could have profited from GM's end. Toyota or BMW maybe would have increased their production in the United States. In any case, it is not up to the federal government to save companies.

Which leads us to the financial sector. There are now fewer and bigger banks. The oligopoly of the big banks is stronger than ever. Therefore, they remain too-big-to-fail. As I have argued many times before, split them up into smaller entities, increase competition, lower their inter-dependency and never again save a bank!

Both Democrats and Republicans will have a lot of soul searching to do since they are equally responsible for the economic and financial mess.

In short, the Messiah has not delivered. It is up to someone else - with economic expertise - to step in. Whether you like it or not, right now, they only such candidate in the race is Mitt Romney.

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