Champagne corks should be popping if you believe certain Democratic strategists, who claim that an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent is cause for celebration.
That is why this more realistic CNN interview with Howard Schultz, the chairman and CEO of Starbucks, and one of the most successful entrepreneurs in America, deserves to be widely circulated.
Schultz says that the economy may have improved “perhaps on the margins,” but he warns that the stock market, now approaching 13,000, is “not a proxy for the economy” and that unemployment is “at a level we should not be celebrating.”
Schultz’s summation:
We still have a disastrous situation in America, where people feel as if they have no hope and no opportunity for jobs. As a result of that, their self-esteem—it’s almost a fracturing of morality of America, when we’re celebrating these kinds of statistics and we still have so many people in the country that can’t find a job.
For once, I am not going to cringe at the invocation of the importance of self-esteem: if you are having trouble taking care of your family, it really does dint your self-esteem, and with record numbers of people receiving assistance with groceries, there are lots of folks who aren’t feeling empowered by this economy.
Gene Epstein of Barrons examines consumer spending and joblessness and finds the numbers “ominous” for President Obama—and that, of course, is why we have Democrats pretending that our anemic economy is more promising than it actually is. Epstein created a measure of voters' economic well-being, or VEWB:
Last November, Obama's VEWB would have been the second-worst since 1956 (behind only Jimmy Carter's in 1980). Sure, the president's number could turn at least flat or maybe even positive by November, but that's quite unlikely. However, as my data show, it isn't always the economy (stupid) that determines presidential elections. But it sure helps the incumbent if the economy is healthy when he seeks a second term.
The important thing is for the voters to have a clear picture of where the economy is when making the decision as to which candidate to support.
The mainstream media can have a profound impact on this. On the other hand, people tend to be aware of whether they have a job or not and if their paychecks are stagnant.
By the way, I learned of the Howard Schultz interview from the best new website to debut in a long time—Washington Free Beacon.
WFB reports on the left with wit, wisdom and facts—and the facts, ma’am, are always deliciously embarrassing.