Obama Speech: "The private sector is doing fine"

[Lord MJ]

What do you think?

Mainly about his statement that the private sector is doing fine? Corporations are bringing in record profits, but that statement certainly opens him up to attack from the right. I think it also didn't mention the small business economy which isn't doing as well as the big mega-corps. Though ironically most of Obama's proposals would do well to help small businesses. The crowdfunding bill is a good start. But anything that takes the burden off of someone starting a business would be a plus.

But even if Obama's statement is absolutely true, not saying anything to counter the inevitable GOP retort is pretty foolish. He really needed to address exactly why the private sector is fine, and any areas where there are potential things that may harm the private sector and counter any possible GOP retorts before the GOP has a chance to make them. Now is not the time to give the GOP more ammunition. Now the Romney camp and the GOP congress will have days or weeks to mock Obama for all it's worth. And this time I think the American people will more receptive to the GOP point of view.

[Mr Bean]

Which Speech is this? He tends to give a speech a day if nothing more than a quick stop by the White House Press Briefing when it's not a more formalized speech before contributors. Where and when was this Speech?

[Dalton]

Probably the big economy speech he gave yesterday at UNLV. I didn't watch it since I was otherwise occupied (I'm usually on air when he gives speeches).

[Lord MJ]

It was a public White House press conference where he was encouraging the congress to adopt his jobs proposals. He took questions from the audience. It happened just an hour ago and was aired on the major news networks (well at least Fox News which is running in the background in my office, and I'm forced to listen to for 8 hours every day...)

To me his fielding of the questions was good and he seemed to have a good grasp on the cause of the economic problems in both the US and Europe.

However he stepped into a huge hole when he said "The private sector is doing fine."

[Lord MJ]

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/ ... -jobs?lite

Updated 11:47 a.m. - President Barack Obama urged Congress to pass stalled elements of his jobs plan, warning that severe cuts to government spending, combined with reverberations from Europe's economic downturn, could spend the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

At a press conference on Friday at the White House, the president offered his own kind of warning against deep and immediate cuts to government spending, which he said would only stall the pace of the recovery, and in turn, exacerbate the government's ability to address debt and deficits.

"We've got a couple of sectors in our economy that is still weak. Overall, the private sector has been doing a good job of creating jobs," Obama said. "The big challenge we have in our economy right now is state and local government hiring has been going in the wrong direction."
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Romney condemns Obama as 'out of touch'

Losses of government jobs have been a major factor in lackluster hiring reports in recent months; the most recent monthly jobs report, released last Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, indicated that the economy added only 69,000 jobs last month -- a number well below expectations.

President Barack Obama takes questions from reporters at a press conference in the White House briefing room.

A major factor in the slowed pace of hiring, reports had indicated, were layoffs associated with government spending.

The debate over jobs and the mouting national debt have framed the general election campaign between Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor's team was quick to seize on the president's press conference, particularly his pronouncement that the private sector was doing "fine" versus public sector employees.

"The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we've created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months; over 800,000 just this year alone," Obama said. "The private sector is doing fine."

In response, Ryan Williams, a spokesman for Romney, said: "Today, President Obama inexplicably claimed that ‘the private sector is doing fine.’ But the 23 million Americans who are struggling for work are not ‘doing fine.’ Job creators and small businesses are not ‘doing fine.’ The middle class is not ‘doing fine.’ There is no denying that President Obama has been fundamentally hostile to job creators and his policies have prevented our economy from rebounding. America needs a president who understands the economy and knows how to get our country back on track."

Romney condemns Obama as 'out of touch'

Romney was set to speak late Friday morning in Iowa, where he was spending most of the day campaigning. House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor scheduled an afternoon press conference on Capitol Hill to respond to the president, as well.

Obama avoided explicitly political barbs toward Romney or Republicans in Congress, but today's press conference came againist an explicitly political backdrop. The president's re-election team has been reeling from last week's jobs report, one of only a handful remaining federal reports that could sway voters' perceptions of the central issue of the campaign: the economy.

European nations' struggles to address a growing financial and monetary crisis have only slowed already-tight markets, and Obama was sure to note the impact on U.S. businesses.

President Barack Obama holds a press conference in the White House briefing room discussing jobs and the economy.

But the overarching purpose of the press conference was to urge action by Congress, which has struggled to reach agreement on only a few elements of the jobs plan.
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"They left most of the jobs plan just sitting there," Obama said of congressional gridlock in advancing elements of his jobs plan, which he first unveiled last fall. "And in light of the headwinds we're facing right now, I urge them to reconsider. Becuase there's steps that we can take right now to get people back to work."

But given Republican control of the House and Democratic control of the Senate -- and the deep differences that separate them -- action on any part of the plan seems unlikely. Cantor outlined the summer agenda for the House a few weeks ago, which included more politically-themed votes to frame the election this fall than advancing the president's agenda.

Republicans have long complained that much of the president's recent policy actions have been motivated by election year politics; the GOP has extended that claim to recent leaks of national security victories, suggesting that the White House might have released details of top-secret operations in order to aid Obama's re-election.

The president called that suggestion "offensive," and suggested that his administration has a "zero tolerance" policy for leakers, who could face possible prosecution if they're discovered.

"The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive. It's wrong," Obama said.

Obama declined to comment on an reported cyber-sabotage operation against the Iranian nuclear program, as well as a reported "kill list" containing the names of high-value targets that he allegedly supervises.

He also would neither confirm nor deny any existing investigation into leaks, saying that his administration always looks to identify the source of any intelligence leak.

[Grumman]

Romney condemns Obama as 'out of touch'

Says the guy who challenged a political opponent to a $10,000 bet on national television.

[Lord MJ]

I don't like that the GOP can't understand that the Private Sector doing fine and people being out of work are not mutually exclusive things. The Private sector can be booming while at the same time the booming private sector simply has no demand to hire the significant amount of unemployed workers. In fact the private sector wants to avoid the unemployed and wont hire them unless they have such a manpower deficit that they would have no choice but to dip into the ranks of the unemployed.

Obama needs to articulate that, since it appears that Romney has the upper hand in the debate and in characterizing Obama as out of touch with reality.

[Lord MJ]

Can the thread title be changed to Obama: The Private Sector is Doing Fine?

The GOP is already up in a frenzy over this, I really hope this doesn't come back to bite Obama come election day.

[D.Turtle]

Can the thread title be changed to Obama: The Private Sector is Doing Fine?

Sure.

The GOP is already up in a frenzy over this, I really hope this doesn't come back to bite Obama come election day.

The chance of any single speech, action, non-action, gaffe, whatever having a significant effect on the result of the election is extremely small.

In this case, I agree with Obama: A large problem has been the massive layoffs by local and state governments. The private sector could be doing even better through more stimulus, but simply undoing all the cuts from local and state governments would already make very large inroads towards reducing unemployment and increasing demand.

Of course, admitting that would require acknowledging that Obama has in fact not presided over a massive increase in government size, so ...

[Lord MJ]

The chance of any single speech, action, non-action, gaffe, whatever having a significant effect on the result of the election is extremely small.

I don't know. I can imagine many unemployed people (that don't understand the difference between the private sector doing fine, and whether employment numbers are fine) throwing their hands in the air and saying "Fuck You Mr. Obama."

In this case, I agree with Obama: A large problem has been the massive layoffs by local and state governments. The private sector could be doing even better through more stimulus, but simply undoing all the cuts from local and state governments would already make very large inroads towards reducing unemployment and increasing demand.

I agree with Obama too. The problem is that people don't necessarily want to undo the cuts from local and state governments. If the Wisconsin recall vote is any indication. And I can almost imagine Romney saying "Mr. President the American people want real jobs, not government jobs." Trimming at the State and local level is the trend, and I doubt it will be changing anytime soon, especially if the GOP takes control of the federal government in November.

[D.Turtle]

I don't know. I can imagine many unemployed people (that don't understand the difference between the private sector doing fine, and whether employment numbers are fine) throwing their hands in the air and saying "Fuck You Mr. Obama."

Luckily, you don't have to rely on imagination or guessing or whatever - there is lots of political science research supporting the idea that political campaigns have pretty little effect and (except for extreme cases) individual actions having pretty much no (lasting) effect at all.

I agree with Obama too. The problem is that people don't necessarily want to undo the cuts from local and state governments. If the Wisconsin recall vote is any indication. And I can almost imagine Romney saying "Mr. President the American people want real jobs, not government jobs." Trimming at the State and local level is the trend, and I doubt it will be changing anytime soon, especially if the GOP takes control of the federal government in November.

Romney can say pretty much what he wants. The election is largely going to be decided by the Euro blowing up or not.

I don't think control of the federal government will be that decisive on the state and local governments' hiring decisions. That will instead be dependent on the election results at the state and local level. Of course, that result is also somewhat dependent on the overall mood of the electorate, which is largely dependent on the economic development, which is largely dependent on the Euro blowing up or not.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't know. I can imagine many unemployed people (that don't understand the difference between the private sector doing fine, and whether employment numbers are fine) throwing their hands in the air and saying "Fuck You Mr. Obama."

Luckily, you don't have to rely on imagination or guessing or whatever - there is lots of political science research supporting the idea that political campaigns have pretty little effect and (except for extreme cases) individual actions having pretty much no (lasting) effect at all.

Another way to look at this, which I personally find more persuasive...

There are going to be a lot of "individual actions" between now and the election in November. And a lot of policy decisions. The cumulative effect of those (the ads people see, their feeling of the state of the economy, the debates) is going to overwrite the memory of this in a lot of minds, especially if Obama puts any real effort into making sure that happens.

Only a very small number of very strange and stupid people would make their voting decision based on their own ferocious interpretation of a single comment a man made six months ago.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Well, I cannot understand how you can rationally connect the fact that unemployment is through the roof with the idea that the private sector is doing fine, or the economy at all. It must be that I think that markets exist to convenience people and not the other way around. What a Commie bullshitter I am.

[Rogue 9]

Well, I cannot understand how you can rationally connect the fact that unemployment is through the roof with the idea that the private sector is doing fine, or the economy at all. It must be that I think that markets exist to convenience people and not the other way around. What a Commie bullshitter I am.

Employees /= the private sector; private employers do. And employers are doing great, with fewer people. Which sucks, but that's what he means, with the implication that we don't need to go out of our way to help companies that are sitting on record shitloads of cash without hiring anybody.

[Themightytom]

Well, I cannot understand how you can rationally connect the fact that unemployment is through the roof with the idea that the private sector is doing fine, or the economy at all. It must be that I think that markets exist to convenience people and not the other way around. What a Commie bullshitter I am.

unemployment is five percent in my state, and the private sector is calling me regularly to advise me of open positions, whereas before, I had to train clients to compete fiercely for entry level positions, and this has been a very recent turn around, probably the last six months.

[Esquire]

Question about that - I read something the other day about how a fair portion of current unemployment wasn't due to to companies not hiring or applicants not being qualified, but rather the computer systems being used to review resumes not accepting anything less than the ideal qualifications for the position. The idea was that previously, an actual human in HR would have looked over things and said, "well, there aren't any PhDs with prior experience in this exact position, but there's plenty of people who'll do," but that the computers weren't programmed to do the same. Any idea if that's at all accurate?

[Mr Bean]

HR departments have been getting ten resumes per position for awhile now and sometimes even worse ratios that that. So they have come up with ways to sort out applicants. First off they increase the requirements. IE a associate degree position becomes a bachelors degree. Need five years experience? Now it's seven. Computers checking resumes has happened for awhile now but I've yet to meet a place where a computer can throw out a resume, just flag it as "good, okay or terrible" with the idea the HR people start with the good and move down if they can't fill from the upper applicants. It's a bastard in my business trying to compete with people by working down. IE going for jobs I'm overqualified for because jobs I'm well suited for I'm fighting people who have two degrees and five years on me.

[Themightytom]

yeah I strongly recommend bypassing computer applications whenever and however possible because the social niceity is moot of your application is on the bottom of a ranked list because of a sorting setting

[Lord MJ]

What say you.

The cause of our current ills. "Obama's Failed Policies" or "Paralysis in Washington"?