Obama did not satisfy the markets last night.
Although his $447Bn American Jobs Act is a step in the right direction, $307Bn (68%) of the money is coming in the form of tax cuts and Unemployment Insurance extensions, leaving just $140Bn to go towards the creation of actual jobs. Even if every single dollar of that money went directly towards paying a $40,000 salary – the entire amount would employ just 3.5M people, not even 1/4 of the amount of people who are out of work.
Is that the best America can do? Come up with a jobs program that MIGHT lower unemployment from 9% to 7% over the next year? Of course we won’t create 3.5M jobs for $140Bn because a lot of that money gets spent on parts and materials. It’s certainly not that the projects are unnecessary, it’s just that the scope of the program is too limited to have a substantial impact.
In fact, exactly one year ago, I wrote “Jobless Thursday – America’s Infrastructure Crisis” where I laid out the TRILLIONS of Dollars worth of repair work that MUST be done in this country sooner or later. Why don’t we do them SOONER, while 20M potential workers are sitting on the sidelines? We MUST spend at least $2Tn on infrastructure in the next 10 years so why not spend $400Bn this year and next rather than waiting until the last minute to do anything? The money is all borrowed over time either way but NOW is when people need to get back to work and, of course, if we get necessary projects done now instead of 10 years from now, then we, the People, get to enjoy 10 years of beneficial use out of them. This is not complicated stuff folks, just common sense…
Nonetheless, $447Bn is 3% of our GDP and figure about 2/3 gets spent in the first year so the program SHOULD keep us out of Recession in 2012 – yay for that at least. If Recession is off the table, then the markets are underpriced – now we have to consider whether or not the bill can get past the Republicans in Congress. By the way, if you have not read “Reflections of a GOP Operative” yet, please do – it’s an excellent insight into the current political climate.
We had flipped bearish yesterday, anticipating…
