Tuesday, February 05, 2013

So much to ridicule in one short editorial

The New York Times editorial today - "More jobs, higher pay" - really is a work of art.  At least I think it's a performance piece of some kind, maybe neo-symbolist poetry, since it makes no sense and is detached from reality.  Here's the first graf:
In President Obama’s first term, the fiscal stimulus and the auto-industry rescue of 2009 created and preserved millions of jobs. But the stimulus ended years ago, replaced with temporary measures that have been insufficient to propel the economy forward. Health care reform in 2010 was a major step in the effort to support the middle class, but its broad effects will be felt only in the years and decades to come.
You'd think an establishment shedding dozens of high paying jobs would refrain from such fiscal grandstanding but, hey, it's the NYT.  And there's a kernel of truth here: the stimulus and auto bailout did save jobs if you don't bother to consider the cost.  The so-called stimulus cost us $278,000 per job (minimum) and the auto bailout will cost taxpayers $25 billion, never to be recouped, as GM sinks back into bankruptcy.  But, hey, it was a small price to add to the national debt.

As for the latter statement that Obamacare's "broad effects will be felt only in the years and decades to come" - I couldn't agree more but not in the way the NYT implies.  Millions of Americans will lose their health care coverage and health care premiums will not drop but rise sharply.  Source: the New York Times one month ago:
Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
Awwww....even though!  And that's just the first paragraph of a nonsense editorial that supports everything in the left-wing wish list from union irrelevancy to the Constitutionality of recess appointments when the President is of a certain party affiliation.

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