The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Obama: ‘Countless New Jobs’

Posted on | January 26, 2011 | 32 Comments

– photo via Instapundit

“In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.”
– President Obama, State of the Union Address

“Countless,” as in: You won’t be able to count them, because they exist only in my imagination.

Why does the president say things like this? The political appeal of Obama’s Magic Clean Energy Job-Creation Machine is that it shifts the burden of proof into the indefinite future. Government will “invest” however many billions of tax dollars into this technology and — Trust us, we’re experts! — it will “create countless new jobs” eventually.

This is the Economics of Assertion: Expecting people to accept a promise about future results based entirely on the authority of the person making the promise. Action X will produce Result Y because I said so!

Leaving aside common-sense economic objections — e.g., if there is genuine market demand for these technologies, why aren’t companies investing their own money to develop them? — people won’t buy into Obama’s “countless new jobs” promise because his past performance doesn’t justify that kind of confidence.

Why is this lack of confidence in Obama’s ability as an economic prophet not reflected in a flash-poll showing a general approval of the president’s speech?

According to the poll, which was conducted online by Knowledge Networks immediately after the president’s address, 91 percent of those who watched the speech approved of the proposals Mr. Obama put forth during his remarks.

“Those who watched the speech,” of course, were far more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. And the poll was “conducted online” — what percentage of voters were online late Tuesday night? Not me. I went to bed early and didn’t even watch the speech.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! You know things are bad for Obama when even “Morning Joe” can’t muster any excitement.

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Category: Barack Obama, Economics

Comments

  • http://twitter.com/Dandapani Dandapani

    Speech? What speech?

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    And Trains! He wants to reinvent America to a business model that’s over a century old.

  • gg

    Don’t tell me you missed Bachmann’s speech too. That was comdey gold.

  • gg

    You mean buses (next to horse wagons and trains) for inter-state public transport would have been a slightly better chronological upgrade?

    What will make you happy? Rockets? Volunteer your sorry ass first.

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    If there was something available to the public that is affordable and is capable of traveling long distances.

    Give it a nice sounding name.. Cars.. or something.

    Freedom of the open road!

  • http://pumping-irony.livejournal.com/ Wilbur Post

    Comdey? Don’t tell me, sociology major, right?

  • gg

    Nope. Electronics.

  • gg

    Year Caaaaars…those that can run ONLY on petrol/diesel, lets be clear on that one.

  • Anonymous

    Biomedical research for what purpose? O’Bumblefuckcare disincentivizes the field of medicine to the point that there is no real reason to do any more research.

    Information technology as a field certainly needs no government subsidies, it’s doing pretty well on it’s own.

    Clean energy research has already been done, it’s called nuclear power, and if we had half the balls of France, for fuck’s sake, we’d already have switched our electric production over.

    “Countless new jobs”, indeed. For government desk jockeys and pencil pushers, maybe. Real human beings will continue to get bupkis from this Chicago con man’s schemes.

  • starsfan6878

    Over a century old? You mean like the Constitution? Just like that musty old thing, it’ll never work! ;-)

  • Anonymous

    Oh yeah, electronics. That makes sense. gg has the smell of the class ‘tard, the guy that gets charged capacitors tossed at him every practicals lab.

    Got any feeling left in your extremities, gg?

  • daveinboca

    Obummer simply reflects a silly toothless liberal mindset that has descended on MessNBC to new depths, as shouting morons like ‘Tingles’ Matthews calls Michele Bachmann a ‘balloon-head’ in one of his Freudian episodes on air. Obummer is avoiding coming to grips with the real problem, his outdated libtard view of the world. “Countless” jobs are just another hilarious instance of his shallow vapid world view and tactical incompetence.

  • http://twitter.com/nsivakumar Nagarajan Sivakumar

    You know how a countless jobs are created ?? by having the US Federal Government pay people to count ALL the stars – i think this is the “Kaputnik”…er Sputnik moment Obama is talking about.

  • Adobe_Walls

    Well we did get something out or at least I did. Even if President Sputnik does get Congress to fall for the same old spending gag, and what ever the merits or glaring lack thereof to his fantasy spending/investment plans, none of President Sputnik’s Ralph Kramden schemes are designed to produce jobs in the near term. It appears that O’Sputnik hasn’t grasped the concept of reducing unemployment before the summer of 2012.

  • Adobe_Walls

    Well we did get something out or at least I did. Even if President Sputnik does get Congress to fall for the same old spending gag, and what ever the merits or glaring lack thereof to his fantasy spending/investment plans, none of President Sputnik’s Ralph Kramden schemes are designed to produce jobs in the near term. It appears that O’Sputnik hasn’t grasped the concept of reducing unemployment before the summer of 2012.

  • Adobe_Walls

    Well we did get something out or at least I did. Even if President Sputnik does get Congress to fall for the same old spending gag, and what ever the merits or glaring lack thereof to his fantasy spending/investment plans, none of President Sputnik’s Ralph Kramden schemes are designed to produce jobs in the near term. It appears that O’Sputnik hasn’t grasped the concept of reducing unemployment before the summer of 2012.

  • gg

    Was that a joke? Maybe he should hire people to ship back idiots like you from where you came from. Seriously.

  • Mike C

    There was a speech? If it was so damn important, why didn’t ESPN cover it?

    Ohwell, back to work.

  • Anonymous

    Since 1974 the government has spent God knows how many billions on alternative energy, energy independence yadi yadi yada. And so far nothing to show for the money spent. What Obama said was nothing more than feel good platitudes, bullshit is what it is. High speed trains, what a moronic idea. No one will ride on them. They go from nowhere to nowhere and when you get to nowhere you still need a car to get to where you are going. And of course these trains will have to be heavily subsidized operationally since the very riders that will ride them will not pay the actual operational costs. A colossal waste of money.

    Some tard who claims to be an electronics major, obviously has not studied enough to realize there are no existing battery or capacitor technologies that would enable a practical electric vehicle capable of offering comparable performance and range to a ICE vehicle. Maybe he on his own can make the discoveries in the various fields of physics and chemistry that would lead to the eventual applied science and engineering to create such vehicles (and one still has the problem of insufficient power plant capacity to actually charge all of those vehicles if the ICE were to be fully replaced).

    What Obama and the rest of the left-tards don’t get is that government can’t invest wisely. It’s beyond the scope of competence for a politician and for a state. If it could be done successfully then the Soviet Union would still exist and would a great success and we would willingly become proud card carrying communists.

    By the way g.g Obama mentioned having 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 20 something. You do know there are over 110 million ICE vehicles in this country so replacing less than 1% of them over a 20+ year period is not exactly overwhelming but sure as hell expensive.

    Obama is true to his roots, Muslims and Africans are into magical thinking and cargo cults. Leftists are true to their roots, who are they going to believe, their beautiful fantasy or their lying eyes? Fantasy every time.

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  • Anonymous

    Using logic and reason to address the Left is like trying to teach a pig the finer points of ballroom dancing: at the end of the day you’re both frustrated, angry and dirty, having accomplished nothing.

  • Anonymous

    Did your sense of humor go on strike recently? You seem even more brittle than usual.

    Maybe your meth supply is running low.

  • Mr Man

    and the pig is usually pissed off

  • Ezra Gonzalez

    If the government is going to invest in anything, it first has to get the money from somewhere. Somewhere like all of us. Great.

  • K~Bob

    “Why does the president say things like this? ”

    Because of the sekrit plan to sell Obamaconomy. What’s the plan you ask?

    Two words: Zombie Billy May

  • Tlaloc

    “Why does the president say things like this? ”

    Yeah, when has investing in technology EVER paid off?

    Seriously? We have a couple centuries of evidence that the nation that does the best research is the one that leads in terms of economic and military power.

  • Tlaloc

    “Since 1974 the government has spent God knows how many billions on alternative energy, energy independence yadi yadi yada. And so far nothing to show for the money spent. ”

    We haven’t spent much at all, that’s the problem, as you would know if you actually bothered to look it up instead of being content with god knowing.

    ” Tax credits, rebates and reimbursement programs are helping make hybrid cars, solar power and other renewable energy options more attractive, but the bottom line is that oil is still cheaper. And a key reason for that comes down to research — or a lack of it.

    For the past 25 years, alternative energy technology was shuffled into the backseat of a U.S. energy market driven by the granddaddy of energy — oil.

    While other countries such as Japan, Germany and Denmark made it a national priority to shift to renewable energy and end their dependence on oil and other fossil fuels, the United States focused its investments and policies toward keeping oil cheap for consumers, according to government and academic studies.

    Even though the United States pioneered the development of energy from wind, water and the sun, the nation’s investment in energy research has fallen steadily since the 1980s.

    But policymakers and consumers seem to be paying more attention to alternative energy now, with high gas prices, growing global demand for oil and worries that trouble in the Middle East or other oil exporting countries could disrupt oil production or U.S. deliveries. While conservationists have long called for greater investment in alternative energy research, the movement has begun to attract some of the most unexpected supporters. ”

    http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/406033/advocates_say_us_spending_on_alternative_energy_too_low/

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WGSX6OS3AJOWWQ7XGTCSCS3CQY RandyW

    Most of those “countless new jobs” will no doubt be for Unicorn Handlers, and for all the people needed to shovel up the Skittles that the unicorns poop.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chuck-Coffer/1296650908 Chuck Coffer

    I wonder if GayGag knows that there is nothing on planet earth more “natural” than crude oil.

  • JeffS

    Electronics? Better check with your registrar, as working at Radio Shack or Best Buy does not count as credit towards graduation, gg.

  • JeffS

    “…those that can run ONLY on petrol/diesel, lets be clear on that one.”

    Glad to hear you agree that hybrids and electrical cars are a waste of time and money, gg.

    Maybe you really are earning a degree in Electronics!

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