Barack Obama has done something no other president has done in the five months after his election.

He and his pals Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid laid the groundwork for this achievement back in June when they created what I have since last July been calling the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, so it is fair to say that Obama’s accomplishment, spanning November 2008 through March 2009, belongs to him, with a heavy assist from his fellow party members.

It took a lot of hard work, perseverance, and persistence, but he and they have done it.

Obama is the first president to have five straight months of decline in real employment following his election.

We’re not talking about that seasonally adjusted stuff that gets reported every month and misinterpreted as if that is what actually happened. No-no-no. I’m referring to five straight months of decline in the number of Americans actually working, i.e., the not seasonally adjusted figures. Defying any and all seasonal factors that would work against this accomplishment, the economy on the ground has lost jobs in each and every one of the past five months:

You start to appreciate just how difficult this achievement was when you look at how large the job additions were during comparable months in 2004 through 2008.

It gets “better.” The real, on-the-ground job losses represent the only time in 70 years of history available at the Bureau of Labor Statistics that the real, on the ground, not seasonally adjusted economy has lost jobs for five consecutive months. The, only, time (click on graphic to see a full-size version in a separate window):

And of course, although I hope I’m wrong, the losing streak may not stop at five.

It’s conceivable that March’s on the ground loss of 58,000 might be changed in subsequent revisions, but that seems highly doubtful. January’s original seasonally adjusted -598,000 went to -741,000 after subsequent revisions. February’s first seasonally adjusted revision released today had no change from the original -651,000. A March reversal of +59,000 or more in the next two not seasonally adjusted revisions seems pretty unlikely. Even if that happens, no other president has seen the economy lose jobs on the ground for even four consecutive months after his election.

Is anyone foolish enough to believe that the applauding establishment media will take note of what has really happened with jobs on the ground since Dear Leader’s election?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

This one, I suspect, won’t be pretty.

In the run-up:

• ADP’s Employment Report Wednesday showed 742,000 nonfarm private jobs lost.
• Bloomberg’s sources predict about 660,000 jobs lost and an 8.5% unemployment rate.

Here is the actual intro from the Bureaus of Labor Statistics (bold is mine):

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline sharply in March (-663,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.1 million jobs have been lost, with almost two-thirds (3.3 million) of the decrease occurring in the last 5 months. In March, job losses were large and widespread across the major industry sectors.

Those “last 5 months” just so happen to be the same 5 months since the country learned who its next president would be.

The POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, now known as The POR Recession As Normal People Define It, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid since June of last year, marches on.

Thanks, guys.

A closer look may come later.

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UPDATE: Since The POR Recession As Normal People Define It began in July (normal people look at recessions on a quarterly basis), over 4.3 million seasonally adjusted jobs have been lost:

UPDATE 2: Barack Obama’s Unprecedented Accomplishment.

It’s here.

It will go up at BizzyBlog on Sunday morning (link won’t work until then) when the blackout expires.

__________________________________________

I’m posting the two graphics from that column to extend points made in the column:

The first graphic, straight from publicly available information at the Congressional Budget Office, shows the amount of money — $2,331.6 billion — Uncle Sam has taken from Social Security through Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses to fund the rest of the government during the past 23 years. Technically, Uncle Sam has “borrowed” it.

The second graphic’s original purpose was to show how February “went negative” (i.e., tax receipts were less than benefit payouts plus expenses).

But it also shows that total “assets” (i.e., the balance of the “trust fund”) are $2.434 billion. That amount is only about $100 billion more than the amount of money Uncle Sam has borrowed from it.

This means that over 95% of the so-called “assets” of the “trust fund” consist of IOUs from the rest of the government, which is itself over $11 trillion in debt.

Now that we’re only a year or two away from when current operations of Social Security “go negative” on an annual basis, as described in the column, Social Security is going to have to turn those IOUs into cash. One of three things will have to happen:

• The rest of the government will have to borrow more money to come up with the cash.
• The rest of the government will have to raise taxes.
• The rest of the government will have to decide to cut Social Security benefits.

Oh, there is a fourth possibility: Ben Bernanke can just print more money and inflate the currency.

Before the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, now known as the POR Recession As Normal People Define It, began, Social Security projections showed benefits outstripping costs by over $100 billion a year during much of the 2020s and 2030s. Now those large system deficits are on track to arrive many years sooner.

Those who claimed “there is no crisis” during the past quarter-century since the Greenspan Commission supposedly “fixed” Social Security (all it did was raise taxes and push the retirement age up by a whole two years — big whoop) were lying all along. The lies turned into super-sized whoppers during the past decade as the impending problems became ever more obvious. Those who knew the truth and lied anyway need to explain to us, and especially our kids, grandkids, and generations yet unborn, who will have to bear the burden of their lies, why they did it.

From Camp Denali, Alaska:

Updated: 04/01/2009 11:42:31 AM AKDT

The Alaska Army National Guard’s 207th Aviation out of Bethel successfully recovered two lost snowmachiners 43-miles southwest of Bethel near Tuntuliak, Tuesday.
The two men were traveling on snowmachines from Pilot Station to Bethel when they got lost in a snow storm and veered off course. Alaska Sate Troopers began organizing a search for the missing snowmachiners on Sunday, however due to difficult weather conditions and limited resources, AST called the 11th Rescue Coordination Center at 10:15 a.m. on Monday to ask for assistance.

“Because the reduced visibility, caused by dense clouds and blowing snow, created difficulty with flying the Alaska State Trooper’s fixed wing aircraft, they needed the assistance of the Army Guard out of Bethel to put more eyes in the sky,” said 1st Lt. Peter Pagni, an Alaska Army National Guard pilot.

At approximately noon the RCC dispatched a UH-60 Black Hawk out of Bethel to assist in the search and rescue of the two snowmachiners.

After hours of searching, between Pilot Station and Bethel, 207th aviators suspended their search until the next morning.

At 11:23 a.m., Tuesday, the 207th Aviation launched again and located the two men over 6 miles from Tuntuliak after a commercial aircraft reported seeing two people walking through the tundra approximately 43-miles southwest of Bethel.

“They were way west of where they should have been, dehydrated and fatigued,” Pagni said. “Some how, they just skipped right over Bethel and several other villages during the storm.”

The Army Guard Soldiers loaded the two men onto the Black Hawk and transported them back to Bethel where they were released uninjured to Alaska State Troopers. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

Truth to power? Give me a break.

Mark Levin mmentioned a report by McClatchy’s Steven Thomma tonight on his show. When I heard Levin read from it, I assumed that when I went to the web page that McClatchy would label it as “analysis,” or “background,” or something similar.

Nope. Apparently, it’s supposed to be a straight news story.

Thomma writes as if world peace and civility were salvaged because President Obama supposedly brokered an agreement on an important matter. It wasn’t a treaty, which would require ratification by the Senate. It was a (non-binding) pact, “calling for” certain things. And the thing that was the hang-up was (I’m not really typing this, am I?) whether or not certain tax havens, which everyone who needs to know about already is fully aware of, should have their names published in an attempt to shame them. Not the names of the people taking advantage of the havens, just the havens themselves.

As fellow NewsBuster Noel Sheppard would say, “I kid you not.”

Shake your head in amazement as Thomma actually treats the naming of well-known tax havens as important and takes dictation from the White House:

G-20 reaches accord after Obama steps in to broker a deal

The G-20 economic summit reached a final agreement to restore the world’s economy Thursday only after President Barack Obama personally intervened and negotiated a compromise between France and China, White House officials said.

It was a remarkable stroke of personal diplomacy by a new president who’s making his debut this week on the world stage.

Heading into the summit’s final hours, however, it appeared that the group would fail to reach a consensus, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy pushed to have the G-20 spotlight offending tax havens based on a list published Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and China objected, largely because it doesn’t belong to the OECD.

That was when Obama, long a champion of ending or curbing tax havens, decided to float a compromise and pulled Sarkozy aside, according to a senior White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as a matter of policy.

“The president thought he could be helpful in resolving the differences,” the official said.

Obama proposed that the G-20 merely “take note” of the OECD list, thus opening the door to implicit but not direct endorsement of that list.

What a guy.

What a waste of ink and bandwidth.

Thomma’s tripe isn’t as bad as “Everything seemingly is spinning out of control,” which was put forth by the Associated Press’s Alan Fram and Eileen Putman in June of last year — but it’s close. Though with a slightly messed-up title, Fram’s and Putman’s effrontery is still carried in its entirety at China’s Daily (hmm …. I wonder why?). The report is unaffectionately known to yours truly as the “Worst. AP. Report. Ever” (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog).

Obama’s loyal apparatchiks must be thrilled (and snickering behind Thomma’s back) that they actually convinced an establishment reporter to carry a story that wouldn’t even have passed the laugh test had it been issued as a press release under their name.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

At Jewish World Review:

The government, which is decreasingly capable of running itself, will now dictate to corporate America how to run companies. The Obama administration has even promised that government will insure any warranties that might be in jeopardy should GM and Chrysler declare bankruptcy. It is a dangerous precedent that should frighten all of us into opposing the administration’s plans with every fiber of our still free beings.

President Obama says the American auto industry will not be allowed to “simply vanish.” No, but the direction in which it is heading will require what’s left of the companies to manufacture cars even fewer people want to buy, thus requiring the effective nationalization of the automobile industry. If people aren’t buying cars from GM and Chrysler in sufficient numbers to make a profit today, why would they buy them when they are even less attractive?

The numbers of people who will buy GM or Chrysler cars will more than likely shrink on its own in the coming months due to principled objections to bailouts and concern over warranties and repairs, despite government reassurances (we’re supposed be reassured because warranties will be handled by the same people who brought us a now-broke Social Security, a nearly-broke Post Office, and $400 hammers?).

The faster, the better. Companies, or workers, thinking that they will be saved by bailouts need to learn that it’s not going to happen. Obama and Geithner must be forced to see the futility of what they’re attempting, even if means consumers take the role of making GM and Chrysler vanish. Bankruptcy now or very soon is vastly preferable to shoveling never-ending billions into these companies.

On Tuesday, both USA Today and the Associated Press highlighted guarded optimism that seemed a bit beyond the justifiable after the release of March’s sales results for the auto industry.

Though there is perhaps some cause for hope, both reports made more out of the industry’s roughly 25% sales pickup from February to March (compared to a typical 20% in previous years) than was justified. More importantly, both reports failed to specifically cite:

• Continued market-share losses at bailed-out General Motors and Chrysler.
• Ford’s disproportionate share of that decent but not exceptional industrywide February to March pickup).

Both AP and USAT particularly emphasized that February to March improvement. USA Today’s James R. Healey and Chris Woodyard brought it up almost immediately:

Auto sales plunge in March from year ago, improve from Feb.

Never has bad looked so good.

Automakers sold new vehicles at an annual rate of 9.86 million in March, Autodata reported Wednesday, much worse than a year ago, but up from February’s 9.12 million annual pace. While more cars and trucks usually are sold in March than in February, the jump this year was 24.5%, the biggest February-to-March gain in at least seven years, Autodata noted.

Analysts and investors saw even the Detroit 3′s big sales drops as less terrible than expected. “We think we are getting close to turning the corner,” Ford Motor economist Emily Kolinski Morris said.

The Associated Press’s Tom Krisher took a bit longer to get there:

Glimmer of hope in March’s steep auto sales drop

Talk of government loans and bankruptcy and a 37 percent drop in March sales isn’t good news, but despite it all, there seems to be a little optimism returning to the U.S. auto industry.

Carmakers’ March sales were dismal compared with last year, but consumers lured by record incentives pushed the February-to-March increase above the normal rise that comes at the end of winter.

“Maybe we’ll get — imagine that — some momentum going,” said Mike DiGiovanni, executive director of global market and industry analysis for General Motors Corp., whose 45 percent sales decline last month was the worst among the major automakers.

Americans bought 857,735 new vehicles in March, compared with 1.36 million in the same month a year ago, Autodata Corp. said Wednesday. But sales jumped nearly 25 percent from February, beating the typical increase of about 20 percent and increasing optimism that the worst may be over for an industry battered by the global recession and bad publicity about GM and Chrysler’s financial woes.

It’s interesting that Krisher would bring up the “woes” of GM and Chrysler. I would suggest that it isn’t the companies’ “woes” so much as their bailed-out status that is hurting them in two ways: Some potential customers are refusing to buy on principle from a bailed-out-company, while others are worried about warranty and repair issues. Proof that the latter concern is valid is seen in President Obama’s announcement earlier this week that Uncle Sam will back the two companies’ warranties.

Before receiving its government “loans” (in quotes because based on what has been happening, whether they will ever be repaid is objectively questionable), GM’s monthly year-over-year sales monthly dips averaged about 30%. During the past three months, its drops have averaged almost 49%, making the company by far the industry’s worst performer in that statistic. Chrysler, at -46% is second-worst.

While Ford is third-worst at -43% over that same three-month period, the chart below clearly shows that its March-over-February improvement of over 32% significantly outpaced everyone else’s (February’s sales are at this previous post containing a USAT graphic, except for Total and All other sales, which I backed into using the 24.5% increase cited above by USAT):

GM and Chrysler have been consistently losing market share for quite a while. While Toyota’s share loss may be a one-off, that company’s situation bears watching.

Ford’s share pickup may of course be largely due to improvements in the merchandise. But it’s not unreasonable to believe that part of it should be attributed to the fact that the company consciously chose not to be among the bailed-out.

Many Americans may have only recently learned of Ford’s uniqueness in that regard. Press reports in December and January, especially the headlines and short radio/TV items, tended to be about bailing out “the domestic auto industry,” of which Ford is of course a member. Many less-engaged news consumers probably lumped Ford in with GM and Chrysler during that period. It is likely that Ford’s refusal to take Uncle Sam’s money has only recently dawned on many of them.

Now that the government has taken a much more direct role in management decisionmaking at GM and Chrysler, it will be interesting to see if the clear shunning of the bailed-out that occurred during the first quarter will accelerate. I believe it will. Barack Obama, Tim Geithner, and the government’s car guys may soon learn that they only have empty shells on their hands.

Exit question: If GM is only selling about 50% or so more vehicles than Chrysler, why is it getting over three times as much bailout money?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

____________________________________________

Validity Check: February’s 2009 sales in the chart are within a few thousand of the 685,397 reported by Reuters a month ago. This figure probably increased as additional results trickled in.

Relevant Restatement: If Ford’s March-over-February increase had instead been the same as GM’s and Chrysler’s weighted average of 21.9%, it would have sold over 10,000 fewer vehicles.

From Cleveland (links were in original):

April 2, 2009

Jory Aebly Given Rosary Blessed by Pope John Paul, Recovery Could Help With Sainthood

When Jory Aebly was shot in the head, execution-style during a mugging five weeks ago in Cleveland, Ohio, that should have been the end of it. Doctors at the Metro Health Medical Center told his family it was a “non-survivable” injury, according to the hospital’s Web site.

But Tuesday, a very-much-alive Aebly was wheeled to a press conference before he went home in what some believe is a true “miracle,” possibly good enough to help earn deceased Pope John Paul II sainthood.

“It’s one in a million,” Dr. Robert Geertman, a neurosurgeon involved in Aebly’s treatment, said in a press conference just days after the shooting. “My jaw was on the floor after a day or two of seeing he is hanging on. … I’d say it’s pretty miraculous.”

The connection between the 26-year-old’s incredible recovery and the late pope came in the form of hospital chaplain, Father Art Snedeker, and a single blessed rosary Snedeker gave Aebly soon after the shooting.

“[Pope John Paul II] promised me that he would always pray for the patients at Metro and he blessed a dozen rosaries with special patients here,” Snedeker said in the press conference. “The first night that Jory arrived and I performed the sacrament of the sick, I also asked Pope John Paul to pray for Jory and to protect him.”

Snedeker gave Aebly the last of the rosaries that were blessed by the pope.

From then on, Aebly repeatedly amazed doctors with consistent improvement culminating in his release Tuesday, just two days before the fourth anniversary of John Paul’s death.

“I stand before you today and can say, to my mind, Jory is a miracle,” Snedeker said at the press conference.

‘Miracle’ Could Help Earn John Paul II Sainthood

At the press conference, Aebly’s family also showed no shortage of faith concerning Aebly’s recovery.

“I believe in the power of prayer and I firmly believe that your prayers are the reason why I can introduce you to my brave and determined son,” Aebly’s mother, Deb Wolfram said.

….. If Aebly’s recovery is validated as a miracle, it would be enough for Pope John Paul’s beatification, leaving just one more before sainthood would be possible.

Go here for the full story.

At Townhall:

The reason why your college professor, politician or minister cannot give a simple yes or no answer to the question of whether one person should be used to serve the purposes of another is because they are sly enough to know that either answer would be troublesome for their agenda. A yes answer would put them firmly in the position of supporting some of mankind’s most horrible injustices such as slavery. After all, what is slavery but the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another? A no answer would put them on the spot as well because that would mean they would have to come out against taking the earnings of one American to give to another in the forms of farm and business handouts, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and thousands of similar programs that account for more than two-thirds of the federal budget. There is neither moral justification nor constitutional authority for what amounts to legalized theft. This is not an argument against paying taxes. We all have a moral obligation to pay our share of the constitutionally mandated and enumerated functions of the federal government.

Unfortunately, there is no way out of our immoral quagmire. The reason is that now that the U.S. Congress has established the principle that one American has a right to live at the expense of another American, it no longer pays to be moral. People who choose to be moral and refuse congressional handouts will find themselves losers. They’ll be paying higher and higher taxes to support increasing numbers of those paying lower and lower taxes. As it stands now, close to 50 percent of income earners have no federal income tax liability and as such, what do they care about rising income taxes? In other words, once legalized theft begins, it becomes too costly to remain moral and self-sufficient. You might as well join in the looting, including the current looting in the name of stimulating the economy.

I’m not quite as pessimistic as the good professor is, but there is much momentum to be stopped, and much that must be undone.

Noteworthy Net-Worthies:

NOT Positivity, from the UK — “Fire kills child, 3, and parents as police prevent neighbours from trying to rescue them.” Just read Mark Steyn’s reax.

Smokescreen? — Kathleen Sebelius could have reported her tax problems any time during the last few weeks, but she didn’t say anything about them until just before her hearing. That looks like a ploy to get reporters to use their ink and bandwidth writing about taxes, enabling them to avoid the real problems with her nomination, which are “her public association with some of the more notorious agents of the culture of death,” and the request, first by her bishop last year, and just weeks ago by the Vatican itself, that she not receive and not be given Communion because of her persistent public support of abortion on demand. I expect that apparatchik reporters will gladly comply.

France’s latest fad is “bossnapping,” which is where workers hold executives hostage to demand that the government “do something” about impending job losses or the size of severance packages. That’s really not a very big step beyond what America’s President ‘Prompter endorsed (“they’re exactly right”) at Chicago’s Republic Window back in December.

Perceptive observations, and a prediction, from Holman Jenkins at the Wall Street Journal — First, that “The GM bailout has become a political operation run out of the White House” with one overriding goal: to avoid “leaving the fate of the UAW truly up to a bankruptcy judge.” The predix: “Mr. Obama will be content with incoherent policies that poll well — which means GM, Chrysler and perhaps Ford eventually will need taxpayer subsidies as far as the eye can see — or until a real bankruptcy sometime after November 2012.”

Eventually related (HT Instapundit)? — “A survey of ….. where White House staffers park, revealed only five American cars out of 23.” How long before Team Obama mandates that all new government vehicles must be from GM or Chrysler, or that all federal government employees get the GM/Chrysler employee discount?

Very related — This link predicts that “The Detroit 3 will report ….. (March sales declines) of more than 40 percent,” while “American Honda Motor Co., Nissan North America and Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. will probably post March sales declines of around 40 percent.” If true, that translates to another month of market share pickup by “the Transplant 3.”

Also relevant — “CNW Marketing research that shows in the first two months of the year, 19% of consumers who had planned to buy a GM car instead bought a Ford, Lincoln or Mercury. And some 15% of people who set out to buy a Chrysler or Dodge in January instead switched to one of Ford’s brands.” The confirms the shunning of the bailed-out that clearly occurred in January and February. I expect that it will continue. It’s not unreasonable to expect that President ‘Prompter’s authoritarian moves on GM and Chrysler earlier this week will accelerate that trend in April and beyond. Something tells me that Team Obama and the UAW aren’t going to let the non-bailed-out folks in Dearborn and American consumers in general embarrass them.

Also related — Read this comment at BizzyBlog from Vocal Minority yesterday. Amen.

From West Bloomfield, Michigan:

March 30, 2009

The hero who helped save a woman in a West Bloomfield house fire this afternoon wasn’t wearing the sort of uniform you’d expect.

The West Bloomfield fire department is crediting mail carrier Theresa Conner for preventing a tragedy after the eight-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service saw smoke coming from a house on the 6300 block of Branford.

Conner banged on the front door to warn the homeowner. Conner also called 911 and helped the woman, whose name hasn’t been released, escape.

The blaze in the 4,500-square-foot, two-story home was started by a grease fire, according to fire investigators. The owner thought she’d turned off the stove and left to take a shower.

Go here for the rest of the story.