Truly In Over His Head -- Poverty Rate Highest Since the 1960s

I posted this earlier; linked the story earlier. By tomorrow, it will be just another story forgotten (or ignored by mainstream media -- it is interesting to note that it was a British paper that posted the story, not CBS News.) If the link is broken:

The number of Americans living in poverty has spiked to levels not seen since the mid 1960s, classing 20 per cent of the country’s children as poor. It comes at a time when government spending cuts of $85 billion have kicked in after feuding Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on a better plan for addressing the national deficit. The cuts will directly affect 50 million Americans living below the poverty income line and reduce their chances of finding work and a better life.

I just don't get it. Certainly reasonable folks could see this: unemployment at record levels and yet, at every opportunity to increase jobs, the administration put up obstacles or flat out killed them (President Obama killed Keystone XL not once, but twice). He came into office clearly in over his head, and relied on listening to ideologues for advice, and that will be his legacy.

However, with one exception (actually two exceptions), presidents are not remembered for their economic failures; their other legacies are in "big ideas" or scandals. Obama's "big idea" was ObamaCare -- and that is yet to play out. Ms Pelosi was correct: no one knows what is in ObamaCare. But the bad news is starting to trickle out: $3,000/year for employee. 30-hour work weeks. Loss of minimum wage jobs. Health insurance premiums will skyrocket. Not enough physicians as gatekeepers/primary care physicians where one must start when accessing ObamaCare.

There was one other two-term president who was an exception to the general rule regarding legacies. That was Ike: his legacy -- golfing. 

With regard to the Keystone, folks think only about the pipeline and the tens of thousands of jobs that would have developed directly. But in addition, this oil would have gone to US refineries in the south and would have produced petroleum products that would have been sold overseas, improving the US export-import numbers.

I just don't get it.

The more I think about it, the crazier it gets: the US would have been paid to ship raw material into the country; US workers would have been paid to convert that raw material into refined products; and, the US would have sold the refined products back to foreign countries. Even the Brits had this figured out in the 17th and 18th centuries: sending cotton from the colonies back to England where textile mills converted it into cloth, and then sold the finished product back to the colonies. 

Whatever. What a presidency.

Maybe a Korean war would take my mind off this craziness.

I see the price of oil is down significantly today: it points to a softening global economy, and possibly talk of a recession (again). My hunch: we will see talk of recession at CNBC sometime in the next five business days.