Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary: June 2009

Too depressed to give all the "highlights".

Nationwide Unemployment 9.5%

Michigan--------------------------------------15.2%
Rhode Island----------------------------------12.4%
Oregon----------------------------------------12.2%
South Carolina--------------------------------12.1%
Nevada----------------------------------------12.0%
California------------------------------------11.6%
Ohio------------------------------------------11.1%
North Carolina--------------------------------11.0%
Washington D.C.-------------------------------10.9%
Kentucky--------------------------------------10.9%
Tennessee-------------------------------------10.8%
Florida---------------------------------------10.6%
Georgia---------------------------------------10.2%

Still a few farm belt and Mountain states with small populations come in with fairly low numbers.

Montana---------------------------------------6.4%
Oklahoma--------------------------------------6.3%
Iowa------------------------------------------6.2%
Wyoming---------------------------------------5.9%
Utah------------------------------------------5.7%
South Dakota----------------------------------5.1%
Nebraska--------------------------------------5.0%
North Dakota----------------------------------4.2%

At this point a 7-8 % unemployment rate for a major state is reason to crow.

While Washington D.C's rate is high as normal, two neighboring states, Virginia and Maryland which comprise the bulk of the greater D.C. metro area show surprisingly good figures in spite of being hit by a significant housing price crash.

Virginia--------------------------------------7.2%
Maryland--------------------------------------7.3%

This supports my theory of a new "Obamaconomy" or Bushobamaconomy in which the private sector is crowded out by a parasitical state.

Table B. States with statistically significant unemployment rate changes
from May 2009 to June 2009, seasonally adjusted
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Rate |
|-----------|-----------| Over-the-month
State | May | June | rate change(p)
| 2009 | 2009(p) |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arizona ........................| 8.2 | 8.7 | 0.5
Florida ........................| 10.3 | 10.6 | .3
Georgia ........................| 9.6 | 10.1 | .5
Idaho ..........................| 7.8 | 8.4 | .6
Iowa ...........................| 5.7 | 6.2 | .5
Massachusetts ..................| 8.2 | 8.6 | .4
Michigan .......................| 14.1 | 15.2 | 1.1
New Jersey .....................| 8.8 | 9.2 | .4
New York .......................| 8.2 | 8.7 | .5
Texas ..........................| 7.1 | 7.5 | .4
West Virginia ..................| 8.4 | 9.2 | .8
Wyoming ........................| 5.0 | 5.9 | .9

Why Do People Vote For Collectivists?

This post was originally posted on Tea Party Patriots.

One of the great mysteries in social and political science is that a large number of people who personally, experienced the failures and horrors of Collectivist rule still want more of it. This is obviously one of the reasons.

"In contrast, the enlargement of the state always means an attack on responsibility. Under a communist regime, self-responsibility is eliminated. The more a government intrudes into citizens’ lives, the less people feel a sense of responsibility for their actions. Bureaucrats do not typically have full responsibility for their actions. Politicians, central bankers, and judges do not pay for their mistakes. They experience a kind of immunity from bearing blame for the consequences of their actions during the time they are in power.

The same holds true for police officials, public surgeons, public school teachers, etc. All mistakes that are made by public employees are often paid for by others. The bill is paid by taxpayers, by people sent to jail mistakenly, by people killed in public hospitals, by Iraqi citizens, etc. Not even people who earn private salaries are fully responsible under the State. Under the larger and larger safety nets created by the state, firms get more and more dependant on public help in order to survive. Big companies lobby for subsidies, duties on imports, and other kinds of help. Banks and large industries such as airlines hope to be declared “too big to fail.”

Individuals are also less and less responsible. In Europe many people grow up with the idea that the State owes them something: jobs, health, free education, vacations, happiness, and deliverance from despair. People are led to believe that the State will always care about their problems and address their community concerns. People are made to believe that whatever they do (they lose their job, they get sick, they become depressed) the State will be there to help.

The perverse result of all this is that citizens no longer bear full responsibility for their actions. All this can be explained through the concept of the moral hazard. The mechanism works as follows: on the one hand the responsibility of public employees is transferred to everyone affected by their mistakes (among these, the taxpayers); on the other hand, taxpayers demand also for a shift of their responsibility to the State. Given the taxes they pay, they should get something back, shouldn't they?"

Needless, to say this places the costs of "society" on anyone who takes responsibility for anything.

Obama Admits To Illegal And Unconstitutional Agenda

Obviously, I'm A guy so I''ll only post on here once in a while.

My previous posts, here, here, here and here are filled with dozens of quotes from the nation's founders, showed the pretty stark difference between their ideas and those that seem to drive most politicians today. Thes ideas were the basis of our Constitution, a document that is supposed to be the supreme law of the land.

In this Interview from 2001, Obama a legal scholar, admits openly that his goals to redistribute wealth are in conflict with the Constitution which was clearly designed to restrain government power. Little, we have seen since indicates things are different now.



I know that far to few American's on either party have bothered to obey or perhaps even read our Constitution and most have seen power as a tool to do whatever they wished, always in the firm confidence that they would always be the ones wielding it. I hope we have finally woken up.