War -- what is it good for when people are out of work?

War -- what is it good for when people are out of work?

On Tuesday night, Obama is set to give a speech on the U.S. military pullout from Iraq. While this war is an important issue for discussion--a war which has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars with nothing to show for it--now is the time for the president to get serious about the economy and job creation. He must decide now if he wants to get the country out of this quagmire that is the Great Recession. With sluggish economic growth at only 1.6 percent in the second quarter, on Monday the president acknowledged that the "economy":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38918309/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/ is still struggling and too many people are looking for work. He also urged the Senate to pass a major bill that would help "small businesses":http://www.thegrio.com/politics/obama-gop-should-let-small-business-bill-through.php with billions of dollars in loans and tax breaks. The bill "has been held up by a partisan minority that won't even allow it to go for a vote," Obama said while commenting on the economy in the White House Rose Garden. "That makes no sense. This bill is fully paid for, it will not add to the deficit, there is no reason to hold it except for partisan politics," the president added. This statement from Obama comes after weeks and months of denial by an administration set on convincing everyone that America is back on the road to recovery. But no one was convinced, and now there is a clarion call being led by the New York Times and others, warning of a double dip recession, a decade-long, "Japan-style recession":http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/weekinreview/29goodman.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview, the need for a "second stimulus":http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29tyson.html if not a second New Deal program, and warning against "fiscal austerity measures":http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/fiscal-austerity-and-americas-future/ that would create another financial crisis. Further, there is a bipartisan consensus building that Obama "fire his economic team":http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/08/24/the_optimism_gap, especially Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, Director of the National Economic Council. The fact is that Wall Street insiders Geithner and Summers were part of the policies that brought the nation's economy down in the first place. They shouldn't have been rewarded for their failure through appointments to such prominent and powerful roles in a White House bent on change and disrupting the status quo. Unfortunately these two men have a "direct line":http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/08/romer_to_leave.php to the president. And they have failed him miserably as other advisors with a different point of view were left out in the cold. **WATCH VIDEO ON THE IRAQ WITHDRAWAL HERE** Taking bad advice from people who should have been tossed out long ago, public perception began to associate Obama with the wrong side of the economic fence, as _Newsweek_ "reported":http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/29/how-obama-got-rolled-by-wall-street.html this week. The president could have been tougher on Wall Street bankers, some of whom now received bonuses in the tens of millions, larger than before the financial meltdown and the subsequent bank bailout. He ignored part-time adviser and former Fed chair Paul Volcker, who is skeptical of deregulation and the risky derivatives markets that added little to the economy. Under the advice of the Geithner-Summers faction, the administration opted for a relatively modest and paltry $800 billion economic stimulus package, as opposed to a $1.2 trillion suggested by Christina Romer, then-chair of the Council of Economic Advisers who recently resigned over frustration over being left out of the decision-making process. Financial reform was watered down and defanged to keep Wall Street lobbyists happy and calm the nerves of conservative Democrats and Republicans who never stood with this president. And in the middle of the worst recession in modern times, the president has taken the ill-advised step of convening a sham of a deficit reduction commission stacked with "insensitive conservatives":http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/08/24/obama-appointed-deficit-commission-co-chair-alan-simpson-social-security-is-like-a-milk-cow-with-310-million-tits/ intent on getting rid of Social Security. The body has been nicknamed the "cat food commission" because cat food is what seniors will be eating if the commission members have their way. At a time when state coffers are depleted and more money is needed to invigorate the economy, such a move is irresponsible. Besides, if the so-called deficit hawks were so concerned about the deficit, they would attack its "primary sources":http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-bush-policies-deficits-2010-6--the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Bush tax cuts. America is spending as much as the rest of the world combined on defense, with "1,000 military bases":http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2010/July/27%20o/1,000%20US%20Military%20Bases%20Around%20the%20World%20The%20Arrogance%20of%20American%20Power%20%20By%20Paul%20J.htm around the world. Certainly the U.S. cannot afford to protect Europe and Japan against imaginary enemies when multitudes are unemployed and descending into poverty, and "40 million":http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-08-30-1Asafetynet30_ST_N.htm are dependent upon food stamps. The White House also forecasted that unemployment would not exceed 8 percent following passage of the stimulus, but the jobless rate was over 10 percent at one point, and now hovers at a 9.5 percent. Word on the street is that this figure is kept artificially low. The real or effective unemployment rate-- which includes those who just gave up hope or are working part-time but want full-time job-- is more like somewhere between "16.5":http://www.pri.org/business/economic-security/the-real-unemployment-rate2118.html and "22 percent":http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/careers/what-is-the-real-unemployment-rate/19556146/, depending on who you ask.