In his address he stated that the economy is moving in the right direction but more programs must be put in place to increase the number of jobs created. When reporters began to question him about the higher job loss numbers he reiterated his stance that the economy is improving and then quickly left.

This comes after his own economic adviser was forced to leave her position earlier this week and in her final address announced a plan for a third round of stimulus projects.

Many in Congress believe that this third round of trillion dollar spending will come prior to the elections and that no improvement in jobs will be seen from the spending. Unfortunately with control of both houses and the Presidency there is little to stop what can only be said to be throwing good money after bad.

Many point to the wasteful spending that provided increases in salaries for government union members while no new permanent jobs were created.

In August the Government jobs were cut by 127,000 many were temporary Federal jobs however the losses were felt at all levels. In addition reports that came out in July showed that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was inappropriately counting Federal Jobs up to ten times for the same person who would be laid off weekly and rehired to perform census reporting.

In the Private Sector businesses grew jobs and provided 41,000 new hires bringing the total lost jobs across all sectors to 54,000.

This caused unemployment to rise to 9.6% but industry annalists say this number is much higher due to the fact many have exhausted their unemployment benefits. Real unemployment is said to be approximately 16% with up to 30% of the workforce having hours cut, placed on part-time status or no overtime.

In related news home sales for the past two months have been down with existing home sales reaching a three decade low.

Over 100 banks have been seized by the FDIC this year alone and 2010 will most likely hold the record for all time failures of banks. In the previous thirty years the average number of banks seized by the Feds averaged under ten a year.

Some market strategists are predicting another major failure in the stock market however the timing of this event will most likely not come until after the third quarter when companies report end of the year profits.

Retailers have been reporting that they will hold back on sales this holiday season because of the effect it had on general merchandise last year. It seems that sales of discounted items did not foster related items and profits were at a loss.

Many companies are reporting a 30% to 50% lower gross for the first half of the year and unless things turn around they expect to reduce seasonal hiring which can be a make or break situation in many families.

Overall things are not getting better and our debts have increased placing almost every family at risk either directly or indirectly when our jobs are effected because our neighbors lose theirs.

Carl Greene age 53 earns a base salary of $350,000 and despite being single with no dependents it seems he can’t pay his bills. For this reason he has decided to take an extended leave to deal with the added “Mental Stress”.

Greene’s home was purchased for $615,000 with a $400,000 mortgage which seems more then reasonable considering he lives in one of the best homes in the City. Many city workers are forced to live within the City limits to work in higher ranking government jobs.

A July Lawsuit says that Greene has failed to pay $7,500 which is chump change considering his income. The only reasonable inference being that he is allowing his mortgage to fall into the hands of his bank in hopes that someone “meaning the President” will bail him out.

Greene has led the Philadelphia Housing Authority, the nation’s fourth-largest, since 1998. The agency has a $347 million annual budget and oversees 80,000 renters. He previously worked for housing authorities in Detroit, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

This year alone well over 100 banks have failed this number is ten times higher then normal with records showing an average of less then 10 banks per year failing even in recent past catastrophes such as the market failure right after 911, the Reagan depression or Carter high interest rate years.

In addition to almost 10% unemployment it has been reported that another 20% of Americans are making less, working part time hours or finding work in low paying retail jobs rather then providing professional services.

What some might call insane last week the Congress passed and the President signed into law a 26 Billion dollar bailout for Teachers and Teacher Unions with over 90 million in payments going directly to Unions.

The money for the 26 Billion Dollar Teacher Bailout came from the Food Stamps program and reports yesterday that a special project of the First Lady will take even more money from the Food Stamps program to fund improving school lunches.

How this helps families trying to feed themselves at home is hard to understand. Should Grandma go hungry so Shakeeka can have a Kiwi with her lunch instead of an Apple?

This is a continued mismanagement of tax money to feed the coffers of friends of the administration.

The scariest part is we have at least 2 more years of this ahead.

And if you are questioning where to place the blame for the economy remember that under the Bush Administration the Stock Market fell almost 50% and then within the same time period as the Obama Administration has had it rose again to 13,000 without 3 trillion dollars of wasteful spending.

We may not have liked what happened in the past but looking back it seems like a Disney Wonderland.

Felecia McGhee, who came in search of her own Section 8 assistance, saw two small children trampled when people rushed the building that held the applications. When a group of people who had been waiting hours in a line were told to move to another line, people started pushing, shoving and cursing, witnesses said.

Approximately 15,000 people in Georgia are currently receiving government Section 8 Housing.

Most of the 16 metro Atlanta offices that administer Section 8 housing have closed their programs.

Kim Lemish, East Point Housing Authority executive director, said the Section 8 housing applications were made available by the city for the first time in eight years.

Eligibility is determined by the public housing agency based on the total annual gross income and family size and is limited to U.S. citizens and specified categories of non-citizens who have eligible immigration status. In general, a family’s income can’t exceed 50 percent of the median income for the county or metro area in which the family chooses to live.

President Obama’s Aunt was highly criticized for receiving government assisted housing and food payments even though she was in the country illegally.

Just yesterday 26 billion dollars was spent by the administration trying to protect the jobs of teachers. However the same bill cut benefits to food stamps recipients and also made payouts of over 90 million dollars to educational unions.

How jobs are saved by paying unions money makes no sense since teachers pay their dues from their salaries and local governments and districts do not.

Overseas we saw markets drop hundreds of points this week while speculators blame the weak American economy and future problems from over spending.  Although spreads of under 1,000 points have been common in the past year profit taking reduces the value of held assets when institutional investors need to adjust holdings in pension plans to make up for the difference.

All in all the future at this time is not bright leading almost every economic adviser to suggest drastic cuts must be made in Government before our debts are recalled and we are for all reasons left technically bankrupt.

States such as California, New York and New Jersey are now trying to make cuts with little progress. The New Jersey Teachers Unions are fighting a proposed 1% teacher paid fee applied to their retirement pensions.

In this day it is hard to believe Government Workers are not forced to transfer pensions to401k’s and other retirement packages that the rest of us have.  Where most of us feel the pinch of a top 4% or 5%  matching investment by our employers in our retirement plans Government Unions complain about paying just 1% of their retirement leaving tax payers to fund 99% or all of their retirements along with salaries that are higher then the average person in their community.

With more people being cut from benefits they are not being counted as unemployed however this does not count the number of self employed contractors and single owner businesses that have fell on hard times.

If you are a sole proprietor or even the only individual in a C Corporation you do not pay unemployment insurance to your State and when your business goes under you have no place to turn for help. This number of people include businesses who may have earned more then some banks in the past year but are on the boarder of profitability.

As the new Health Care legislation comes into effect many single owner businesses will be faced with the decision to shut down when forced to pay for insurance that can not be covered by the gross income of their businesses. A small business owner that is scraping by on a two thousand dollars or less just making it through this hard time can not afford what is in the future.

All of this hard notice has forced the resignation of President Obama’s lead economic adviser Christine Romans along with an announcement of 131,000 more jobs lost in July.

So, what are we left after a year and a half and over two and a half trillion dollars spent? Debts and no way to pay them. Many in the Obama Administration have proposed a variety of taxes and last week a controversial medical plan for military personnel was put on hold after democrats could not get enough votes to enact a tax on Foreign Companies doing business in the USA.

Others in congress and the administration have decided to increase taxes on people with savings and investments starting in January. This will likely cause many to hide investments that could have been distributed by banks as loans thus fostering growth of our economy.

IMF is now recommending that both tax increases and budget cuts to be put in place or the Deficit will reach 95% of US GDP within the next ten years.

Although America’s current year deficit is 1.5 Trillion dollars the country’s total debt liability is almost impossible to calculate. Many economists calculate the figure to be somewhere around 100 trillion dollars or more.

Unfortunately the IMF’s concerns are most likely self serving as the US is the first and largest contributor to bailouts through the World Bank and other international organizations. Maybe the US should start by canceling all funding to outside sources. This would reduce our debt by billions and it is not covered under our constitution to pay or provide multibillion dollar charity payments to other countries.

The extension of benefits for long term unemployed workers is a hotly debated topic. On the one hand if a person honestly can not find work they and their family will need assistance to bridge the time until they can. However for many the time that they have been on unemployment has extended years placing a burden on the rest of us.

The question many ask is are jobs available and if so why are people not taking them.

Just recently a large farming syndicate in Washington State went through some accusations for hiring people outside of the country to work on their farms. After being forced to advertise for 6 months for workers they were not able to find enough people to fill their $14.50 an hour starting pay jobs.

Although it is true that jobs like this are out there and many people feel that taking such work is beneath them I can tell you from personal experience finding a job that pays that much for full time permanent work can be very difficult.

Moving across the country to take a double minimum wage job that lasts only a few months is probably not reasonable for most people but even if your employer is an hour or two away the cost of gasoline alone means after taxes you will be working a few hours a day just to get to work.

Minimum wage jobs at most retail establishments can be found in normal times but such low skilled jobs often come with no job security. Walmart for example has a more then 110% job turn over meaning every employee in a selected store will have their position refilled at least once a year.  Even if you are one of the few who lasts through the situations that make people leave or get fired you are likely to be working in an environment that places your personal safety at risk. Not to mention the fact there is no possible way that you can support yourself let alone a family on $7.50 an hour.

With those factors in mind there are many people who make more on unemployment then they would working. This makes it attractive to live off of layoff pay especially in industries that are prone to seasonal layoffs or where no comparable work can be found.

When people can make two to three times the amount on unemployment that they could working locally a total cut off of unemployment benefits may not be the right strategy.

At this time it is possible to collect almost 100 weeks of unemployment close to two years and 4.6 million people have been collecting unemployment for this extended time.

If congress is to extend the number of weeks that you can claim then maybe they should reduce payments for the long term unemployed. This can be harsh for some people but it is a reasonable solution to reduce benefits to a minimal payment at the end of the cycle to preserve the system for those in need.

Editors note: To this date I have never taken Unemployment and this is probably due to watching some of my friends growing up make use of the system while they were too young to even be out on their own.  I find it demeaning to ask for these payments but I understand there are times when people must take care of their family so a temporary program is a must.

There really seems to be no good solution to this problem.  As long as the system is available people will abuse it.

People will start families when they are not in the position to care for themselves let alone others and expect the government (all of us) to pay for their lives while we have to sacrifice.

This happens in all areas of our society and it is offensive that people who are responsible are having their emergency fund depleted by people who are just out for themselves. If starting a family or moving out on your own comes with the knowledge that there is a strong likelihood that you will have to apply for assistance how can that be a reasonable thing to do?

Unfortunately there is not much we can do about it.

Family, honor and community is something that we read about in books or watch in old movies. Our society is no longer proud but more like a UN Food Air Drop where the criminals come in and take the food and the starving go unfed.

This could be seen as a tax increase but since certain areas of our country are hit worse then others it may endup costing jobs in the private sector in hopes of preserving post office jobs.

The last time there was an increase of postal rates just 18 months ago there were also hopes for reduction in unnecessary personnel of which 40,000 jobs were cut but also streamlining of services to reduce the cost for the taxpayer.

Unfortunately the deficit of 3.8 Billion dollars has doubled and no action has been taken to examine the pensions of employees that have worked multiple government jobs and pull full benefits and retirement incomes from each source. Not to mention having been given preferential treatment at the time of hiring over non-government employees.

So is 2 cents a lot? Maybe not if you only mail a handful of letters each month but if you are a business it can add up quickly and the Post Office has calculated that they will take 2.5 billion dollars out of our pockets. Money that could have been used to hire the unemployed.