The Obama Lost Decade

     This Friday when the jobs numbers are released to the public for the month of December, the expectation is that the economy added some 200 thousand jobs. This, of course, will be hailed by the main stream media and others on the Left as an achievement by the Obama administration on par with Sir Edmund Hillary conquering the icy slopes of Mount Everest. And while 200 thousand jobs added in a month would be a positive sign for an economy just beginning to emerge from the depths of a recession, it is far less than adequate for an economy that is headed towards its fifth year of recovery.
      I have written before about this administration's pathetic hubris with regards to what they call "an improving job market." The fact is that the average monthly job growth for the United States since the end of World War II is somewhere north of  200 thousand. In periods of recovery from the many recessions the nation has endured in that same time frame, monthly job growth typically reaches half a million new jobs or more. During the Reagan recovery in the mid to late 1980s, some months saw job growth approaching a million. Barack Obama himself promised monthly job growth of half a million by the end of his first term, just one of the many promises broken by this president for which he is not held accountable.
     Americans have now suffered more than half of what is shaping up to be an Obama lost decade. With devastating effects that include, but are not limited to, substandard Gross Domestic Product growth rate, real unemployment around 15%, a doubling of food stamp recipients, a record 90 million working age adults unemployed, and economic malaise that has transformed this engine of world economic growth into a pathetic, slobbering, grasping transient looking for a handout.
     The United States has had at least seven substantial recessions in its post World War II history, none lasting as long, cutting as deep, and inflicting as much economic hardship as the Obama recession. Not only have none of us under the age of 70 ever lived through such rampant unemployment and anemic economic growth for such an extended period of time, but we have also never had an administration that seems not to care. In fact, this obtuse administration plays with their mathematical models borne of some twisted fantasy of academia, instead of the economic realities of an economy in which none of them have ever had to earn a living.
     By the time Mr. Obama leaves office in January of 2017, the damage done by his economic policies will require at least another two years to repair, rounding out the Obama lost decade. And while he and members of his administration will brag about having "transformed America," they themselves will never be touched by the grief and misery that that "transformation" wrought on a free nation. It is ironic in so much as the man who promised hope only brought hopelessness to millions of Americans. He will have increased poverty more than any president of the modern era, reduced the standard of living and brought about the decline not only of the United States' stature in the world, but a giant step backward in the delivery and quality of medical care for the average American. Such is the accomplishments of a man who entered the presidency as the least accomplished person to ever hold that office.