15 years of Economic Policy: What do we have to show for it?

In a recent article, David Stockman sets up the American Economic Scene since 2000 quickly:

Indeed, during that span we have encompassed several business cycles, two financial crises/meltdowns and nearly a non-stop blitz of “extraordinary” policy interventions. To wit, a $700 billion TARP, an $800 billion fiscal stimulus, upwards of $4.0 trillion of money printing and 165 months out of 180 months in which interests rates were being cut or held at rock bottom levels.

You’d think with all that help from Washington that American capitalism would be booming with prosperity. No it’s not. On the measures which count when it comes to sustainable growth and real wealth creation, the trends are slipping backwards—– not leaping higher.

The kinds of breadwinner jobs that we need the most -- those that provide the most productivity and output -- are slipping behind. He explains:

Moreover, within the 70 million breadwinner jobs category, the highest paying jobs which add the most to national productivity and growth——goods production—-have slipped backwards even more dramatically. As shown below, there were actually 21% fewer payroll jobs in manufacturing, construction and mining/energy production reported last Friday than existed in early 2000.

Takeaways:

• Non financial business productivity has grown 1.1 percent annually since the 2007 peak. 
• This is only half of the productivity from 1953 until 2000.
• So despite 15 years of stimulus there is little to show for it.
• During the Eisenhower years, which saw balanced budgets, this growth rate was two and one half times what it is now.
• The number breadwinners jobs in the economy is still 2 million lower than it was in 2000.
• Breadwinner jobs are defined as "construction, white collar, manufacturing, FIRE, transport, information, trade."
• Breadwinner jobs are jobs that pay around $50K. 
• There are about 70 million of these breadwinner jobs.
• $50K is enough to support a household without government assistance.
• Editor's Commentary: I make much less than $50K. While I am not on government assistance, I am on parental assistance.
• The part-time economy -- $14/hour or $20K/year jobs -- is booming.
• This is the second part-time job boom of this century.
• This means that all of the job growth that occurred in the first boom -- the Bush II years -- were also part-time jobs. 
• The top 10% of income earners account for 40% of the spending in an economy.
• We are in the middle of the third financial bubble of this century.
• This bubble will pop too.
• The part-time jobs that were created as a result of wealthy people spending more will vanish in the next bust.
• As Stockman puts it, "On a net basis, the only jobs created during this entire century are in the HES Complex (health, education and social services)."
• But why? Well, again, as Stockman puts it, "they are a function of the entitlement state and the massive $200 billion per year of tax subsidies which support employer-funded health benefits."

There's more information that I did not summarize. See the rest by clicking the link below.

Read David Stockman's 15 Years Of Stimulus—–Nothing To Show

Harry Reid Must Talk With Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke Before Considering Fed Audit

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he would have to have a “real serious conversation” with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke before he considers bringing the Federal Reserve Transparency Act to the Senate Floor.
......

As CNSNews.com previously reported , Reid was once a strong supporter of auditing the Federal Reserve System - in 1995. Then being discussed was then-Senator Bryon Dorgan’s (D-N.D.) amendment that would have required the Federal Reserve to a prepare a report to Congress and disclose the financial impact of changing interest rates on the public and private sector.

In 1995 Reid went into great detail about how the Federal Reserve wasn’t talked about enough, how it not only affects the federal government because of the money it borrows but also the private sector because “higher interest rates effect everybody,” and how he’s called for an audit of the Federal Reserve System and offered “that amendment every year.”

“Every year the legislation gets nowhere,” Reid said in 1995. “I think it would be interesting to know about the Federal Reserve. I think we should audit the Federal Reserve.”

Reid: I’d Have a 'Serious Conversation' with Bernanke Before Considering Fed Audit | CNS News

Alan Greenspan on Supply & Demand Applied to Money

"But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets. The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy's books are finally balanced, one finds that this loss in value represents the good purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion." Alan Greenspan, Gold and Economic Freedom

Alan Greenspan on the Welfare State

From his essay, "Gold and Economic Freedom" (1967)

"Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support the wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is affected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale." ~Alan Greenspan