Commentary
Top Economists Tell How to Grow Jobs
Written by Bob Adelmann
Now that the Senate has officially and resoundingly defeated President Obama’s jobs bill (The American Jobs Act), the question remains: just how do real jobs grow?
In response to AT&T’s proposed acquisition of mobile carrier T-Mobile for $39 billion, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would be bringing suit against AT&T on the grounds the wireless giant is in violation of federal antitrust laws.
Item: “European Union foreign ministers are debating a tax on financial institutions that could raise money for the EU as well as make banks share the burden of bailout,” reported the Associated Press for September 17.
On Monday morning Sentier Research announced the results of its new study showing changes in household income since the year 2000 and how those incomes have fared both during the recent recession and since the recovery that began in June, 2009. Not only did household income (which counts all incomes of all members of the household, including wages, Social Security payments, interest, dividends, welfare checks, retirement income, unemployment benefits, and veterans’ benefits, all adjusted for inflation) decline during the recession by 3.2 percent, it fell another 6.7 percent during the recovery.
America at the end of WWII produced 60 percent of all the petroleum in the world. In fact, its status as the chief exporter of oil (the United States produced much more than the consumer and war economies needed) was a salient factor in the American victory. Interestingly, at one point the nation produced so much oil and gas that natural gas was “flared” or burned away because it was not economical to transport it. Once, in the lifetime of many Americans, filling stations engaged in “price wars” and sold gas at or near cost to consumers.
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