US jobless figures worsen
Unemployment in the US has reached almost 10%, the highest for over 25 years, but experts and politicians disagree over how Obama's bailout money should be spent to fix the problem.
Yet the nation’s capital seems to be doing just fine with its traffic jams, packed restaurants and busy people rushing in all directions. Some even think that Washington hasn't noticed how much the rest of country is suffering.
While much of the rest of the US is dealing with skyrocketing unemployment rates, deficits, and a growing recession, Washington D.C. remains a vibrant metropolis of government bureaucrats, businessmen, and young professionals.
But as the US government admits to economic mistakes, one cannot help but ponder: could this be one of the only cities with a happy ending or will even the nation’s capital fall prey to the financial downturn?
Perhaps that’s a question best addressed to the American government, which is now admitting that its own predictions proved economically unsound.
“The truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad of an economy we inherited,” confessed US Vice-President Joe Biden.
The nearly $800 billion stimulus was supposed to make everything better, but this time, government incompetence might stand in the way of success.
“What Obama underestimated was the difficulty of spending that much money, and also he’s spending it the wrong way,” says economic expert Professor Peter Morici. “He’s spending too much on government bureaucrats and not enough on shovel-ready projects that put people to work.”
And these days, when it comes to the economy it seems those in power have more questions than answers.
“Did the economic package we put in place, including the Recovery Act; is it the right package given the circumstances we are in?” questions Joe Biden.
But experts say even the so-called economic rescue in the form of a stimulus package was highly politicized.
“It became a Christmas tree of special-interest spending that will do little to stimulate the economy,” predicts Peter Morici.
Still, Vice-President Biden seems optimistic about the government’s ability to manage the US economy.
“Bottom line is, I think everybody will say this has been managed well so far,” concludes Biden.
Yet his argument is not that convincing, at least not for the founder and director of Trend Research Institute, Gerald Celente.
“They’ve over-borrowed, they’ve over-spent, and they’ve over-loaned,” says Celente. “The United States economy is now facing unemployment levels that the Obama administration wouldn’t have even dreamed of hitting, even in 2010.”
Unemployment in the US has reached a whopping 9.5% and the economy is still shedding jobs. And with that, creating a nightmare scenario for the US government in which its citizens are losing faith in their ability fix the mess that some say, they helped to create.
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