The 2011 SOTU: A Report Card (Not a Very Good Grade)

brentspeak

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Fri Feb-04-11 09:15 PM
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The 2011 SOTU: A Report Card (Not a Very Good Grade)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-hindery-jr/the-2011-sotu-a-report-ca_b_816798.html

Leo Hindery, Jr.
Chairman, U.S. Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation
Posted: February 1, 2011 12:30 PM

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The reality, however, is that when Barack Obama gave his first report to Congress in February 2009, a SOTU of sorts albeit not an official one, the number of real unemployed American workers was 25.8 million. Twelve months later, in January 2010, when he gave his first official SOTU, the number of unemployed American's had skyrocketed to 30.2 million. And today, in January 2011, the number of unemployed Americans is still 29.6 million. In other words, we have 3.8 million more unemployed Americans today than on Inauguration Day, and only 600,000 fewer than at the end of last year. And at least 10 million of our unemployed have been out of work for a half year or longer.

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The Korea Free Trade Agreement (or FTA) is one of the strangest administration fixations since NAFTA under Clinton, and how it was decided that the President would devote so much of his SOTU to it is worth a blog or two of its own. Paul Krugman is emphatic that this FTA will not create jobs. Obviously, the President disagrees.

But while the President 'over dwelled' on Korea trade, he virtually ignored our abysmal trade relations with China, wherein fully 90% of the cost advantage between a product manufactured in China and its counterpart in the U.S. arises from other than cheap labor. American manufacturers, and in turn American workers, are being swamped every day by a combination of illegal subsidies -- e.g., undervalued currency, grants, low-interest loans and free land -- and environmental abuses (and thus advantages). Paul Krugman wrote in a recent column that countervailing duties on Chinese exports which attacked these illegal actions would be "job-creating". Obviously, the President preferred to ignore this fact in his most important speech of the year.

snip

In wrapping all of this up, it is increasingly apparent that "Obamanomics", which is now two years old, is just a synthesis of Clinton-Rubin-Summers neoliberalism: namely, we can let "old" industries go and concentrate instead on the professional jobs of the future and the "green collar economy". In his July 14, 2010 speech announcing his Graduation Initiative, President Obama outlined precisely his neoliberal understanding -- or misunderstanding -- of the economy and economic history. And so it's no surprise that on the eve of SOTU 2011 he would name General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt to head the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, a move intended to show the country that the President is really serious about dealing with the nation's economic woes through the free market system.