Jobs Summit Review: Opening Remarks

Well the jobs summit is over. The Evil Black Economist will have an in depth review of all seven tracks at the summit. The five tracks are: Innovation and Green Jobs, Small Business, Infrastructure jobs, Export Jobs, worker training, and "Encouraging Business Competitiveness and Job Creation. Plus opening and closing remarks. Today we look at the opening remarks.

Opening Remarks Analysis:

Well there really was not much in the opening remarks. Basically the President and Vice-President said: 1) there are limited resources to create jobs, 2) we had a major financial crisis and had to fix that, 3) we know it is bad out there for the unemployed.

What they did not mention:

The economy works in cycles and jobs will return naturally; but we cannot tell when or how many jobs will return. No one knows if the US is in the midst of a rise in the long term structural unemployment. There is almost nothing the executive branch of government can do about job creation. The two wars are costing a lot of money.

Opening Remarks Summary:

Joe Biden, the vice president opened the forum. He stated that there is limited resources in government to create jobs. He noted that economic bubbles have gotten the US into trouble. He discussed the large rate of job losses which bottomed out at 700,000 a month in January 2009 He then claimed credit for averting the financial disaster and credit for the jobs created by the ARRA 2008(The American Recovery Act of 2008). Biden said the Congressional Budget Office determined the ARRA was responsible for creating as many as 1.6 million jobs. He then circled back to say that the President, who has a lot on his plate from day one, was focused on creating good jobs.

President Barack Obama, welcomed the assembled crowd. He then talked about the personal effect of the jobs losses on the unemployed. He brought up the financial crisis, the ARRA and the loss of 700K in Jan 2009. He noted that the economy was growing, productivity was up, the stock market was rising and corporate profits were high.

President Obama posed the question at the center of the jobs summit, "How do we get businesses to start hiring again?"

He pointed out that the private sector was the key to job growth. Also that government was limited in what it could do because of reduced receipts and increased expenditures. He also said that he was listening for new ideas. He mentioned FDR's call for "Bold, persistent experimentation" was now required to resolve the crisis.

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