For the first time in my working career I laid of three people in one day. Over the last year we have laid off about 20% of our whole work force.  We have ceased matching the workers 401k plans for the time being, frozen wages and constantly seek cost reductions.

There is no private construction. Our only customers who are surviving have managed to get their share of government contract work. Nobody is hiring or buying new equipment.

The sum total of this administration’s disastrous polices (Card check, Cap and Trade, health care and deficits) is such total uncertainty that no one is growing their business.  This is the effect of trying to push too many radical policies at one time.

I see auctions and liquidations of metal fabricators weekly. 25% of businesses have instituted across the board pay reductions. Many have furloughed workers or work short weeks. Many have done both.

Businesses or owners who have cash are hoarding it. The only reason people would sit with cash at such low interest rates is because they see no opportunity for a return; the risk of investing in an economy being strangled by radical policies is just too great.

I blogged in July  that unless we quickly and radically change directions unemployment would grow.  It has now hit 10.2%.  I see nothing to change this direction and I contend that it will grow further.

This president and his Congress are absolutely clueless about creating jobs. While they argue about how many jobs they have created, they miss the obvious truth.

The government, regardless of party, has never created a single job.  Every job ‘created’ in the public sector has been at the expense of at least one job, probably more,  in the private sector.

Every new staff member hired by Michelle Obama is paid for by money extracted from the private sector, costing a private sector job.

Believing that the government can create jobs is like believing that a hall of mirrors can create people.

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