McDonald's Jobs Recovery: 1 Million Job Applications, 62,000 Hired, Unemployment Rate 9%

Kurt Nimmo - The Federal Reserve designed 2008 economic takedown is now claiming millions of victims. It is eroding the middle class and slowly turning the United States into a second rank country working its way toward third world status.
In June of 2009, the government announced the economy had entered a recovery after a historical looting by a cartel of international banksters led by the Fed and the Treasury.
It’s turns out to be a McRecovery.
The Labor Department announced today the private sector has created jobs at the fastest pace since 2006. “Nonfarm payrolls rose 244,000 last month, the most in 11 months, the Labor Department said on Friday. The private sector accounted for all of the job gains last month, with payrolls rising 268,000, the largest rise since February 2006,” reports CNBC.
According to the data, McDonald’s was responsible for the modest gain. “McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the United States after receiving more than 1 million applications,” the Star Tribune reports.
Employment at service-providers rose 200,000 in April after a 184,000 gain the prior month, according to Bloomberg.
Service providers like McDonald’s, not decent paying factory or even office jobs. Factory jobs were long ago exported to slave labor gulags in China and Asia. India now absorbs everything from programming and engineering jobs to telemarketing and customer service.
Burger flipping represents economic growth for Bernanke and the Federal Reserve. “The labor market is improving gradually,” Bernanke told reporters during the first-ever press conference following a Federal Open Market Committee meeting. “We would like to make sure that that is sustainable. The longer it goes on, the more confident we are.”
From The Daily Ticker:

– There are 8.5 million people receiving unemployment insurance and over 40 million receiving food stamps.
– At the current pace of job creation, the economy won’t return to full employment until 2018.
– Middle-income jobs are disappearing from the economy. The share of middle-income jobs in the United States has fallen from 52% in 1980 to 42% in 2010.
– Middle-income jobs have been replaced by low-income jobs, which now make up 41% of total employment.
– 17 million Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree.
– Over the past year, nominal wages grew only 1.7% while all consumer prices, including food and energy, increased by 2.7%.
– Wages and salaries have fallen from 60% of personal income in 1980 to 51% in 2010. Government transfers have risen from 11.7% of personal income in 1980 to 18.4% in 2010, a post-war high.

High unemployment and the restructuring of the labor market under corporatist globalism have eroded middle-class incomes after decades of stagnation, explains the New America Foundation. Meanwhile, the cost of health care, education, and other essential middle-class goods have increased, consuming a larger share of household income and driving millions to the poor house.
None of this is a mistake or the result of government incompetence. Since its inception in 1913, the Federal Reserve has slowly but methodically destroyed the American middle class by printing money and deliberately creating inflation.

“Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, middle and working-class Americans have been victimized by a boom-and-bust monetary policy. In addition, most Americans have suffered a steadily eroding purchasing power because of the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies. This represents a real, if hidden, tax imposed on the American people,” Ron Paul notes. “The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial ‘boom’ followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts.”
Despite the addition of McJobs reported today, the economy continued its slow decline. “The Labor Department reported the jobless rate climbed to 9.0 percent in April from 8.8 percent in March and 244,000 nonfarm jobs were added to the world’s largest economy,” reports AFP.


9.0 percent, of course, is way off the mark. According to the SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate based on alternate data, the real unemployment rate is well over 20 percent and closing in on Great Depression era levels.

Herman Cain Wins South Carolina 2012 GOP Debate

Brian Montopoli - To get an idea of the strangeness of the first debate of the 2012 presidential cycle - the unofficial kickoff to the 2012 GOP race - consider this: Based on the Fox News focus group conducted immediately following the event, Herman Cain is about to run away with the GOP nomination.
If you're wondering who that is, you're not alone: The former Godfather's Pizza CEO, who barely registers in national polls, has never held elected office. And he is seen as having virtually no chance to win the GOP nomination.
But the vast majority of the people sitting in with Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Cain had won the debate with his directness and straightforward delivery. (This despite the fact that when asked about what he would do in Afghanistan, he replied that he would rely on "the experts and their advice and their input." The Fox News debate moderators seemed incredulous that he did not offer a position.) Luntz appeared blown away by the response to Cain, which he cast as unprecedented. "Something very special happened this evening," he said.
Perhaps. But the debate was seen as such a non-event inside the beltway that House Speaker John Boehner spent his evening not watching it, opting instead to have a few drinks at a Washington steakhouse. "I'll read about it tomorrow," he told Hotsheet.
The absence of the biggest-name potential candidates - Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, even Donald Trump - meant the event it generated little attention despite its status as the first debate of the cycle. Among the five men onstage - Cain, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum - only Pawlenty is seen by Washington insiders as having a legitimate shot at the GOP nomination.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at the first debate for potential 2012 GOP presidential candidates

(Credit: Fox News)

Pawlenty's goal was to look presidential - despite his relatively unheralded company - and he largely pulled it off. The toughest moment for the former governor was when he was asked to defend his past support for a cap-and-trade energy policy, which got a smattering of boos. Pawlenty explained himself in part by saying, literally, "nobody's perfect."
In perhaps his most interesting response of the night, he notably declined to take a shot at likely rival Mitt Romney over Romney's Massachusetts health care law.
"Governor Romney's not here to defend himself so I'm not going to pick on him or the position he took in Massachusetts," Pawlenty said. The intraparty sparring, it appears, will have to wait.
Pawlenty did find a way to go after President Obama on foreign policy -- despite the boost Mr. Obama got from the killing of Osama bin Laden. He said that while the president "did a good job and I tip my cap to him in that moment," the raid on bin Laden is "not the sum total" of Mr. Obama's foreign policy record. In other areas, Pawlenty insisted, the president has been "weak."
"The issues that have come up while he's been president, he's gotten them wrong strategically every single time," Pawlenty said. At one point, he referred to the United Nations as "pathetic."
Santorum, who was relatively combative much of the evening, complained that Mr. Obama "sided with the mullahs" during the protests in Iran.
"If you look at what President Obama has done right in foreign policy, it has always been a continuation of the Bush policies," said Santorum, who said Mr. Obama has "gotten it wrong" every other time.
The 90-minute debate took place at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina, a key early voting state. The candidates were not asked to engage with one another, limiting the fireworks.

Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum

(Credit: CBS/AP)

The first applause of the evening came for Paul, who said the killing of bin Laden was a good opportunity to end the war in Afghanistan. Johnson, a fellow Libertarian, echoed that sentiment, saying the troops should come home "tomorrow."
Asked if they would support waterboarding terror suspects under certain circumstances - an issue rekindled by the killing of bin Laden, Paul, Pawlenty and Santorum raised their hands. Paul and Johnson did not. Both Paul and Johnson also discussed their support for barring the federal government from making drugs illegal. (Moderators pressed Paul on heroin specifically.) Paul drew another distinction with most of the men onstage when he said all foreign aid to the Middle East should be cut and that America should not be running secret CIA prisons.
Johnson, who supports abortion rights, became frustrated with debate moderators at one point, complaining he was not being asked enough questions. He also received the most frivolous question of the night, asked what his reality show would be about if he were offered one.
Santorum was pressed all night on being an extremist - he denied being "anti-Islam" or too socially conservative to win a general election - and pointed to his past electoral successes to cast himself as electable when debate moderators asked if Mr. Obama is unbeatable. (Unsurprisingly, he left out the 18 percentage point drubbing he took in losing his Senate seat in 2006.)
The also-ran nature of the debate was reflected in the fact that moderators asked a cluster of questions focused on the potential candidates who were not present. Paul was asked if Rep. Michele Bachmann had taken his mantle of Tea Party leader; Pawlenty was asked his thoughts on Huckabee. ("I love the Huck," he replied, awkwardly.)
The economy is the most important issue for a plurality of Americans, and the candidates certainly seized on it. Pawlenty, for one, called the National Labor Relations Board's bid to keep Boeing from building Dreamliner 787s at a nonunion plant in South Carolina "preposterous."
It was a good issue for Pawlenty (and Cain, too, who also cited it), because it allowed them to rail against big government, cast themselves as job creators, and spotlight an issue important to South Carolina voters. That's an opportunity they weren't going to pass up. (Indeed, Pawlenty focused on the same issue in a CBS News interview before the debate.) 
Polls show a wide-open Republican race led by Romney, Huckabee and Trump, and Thursday night's likely-little-watched festivities were unlikely to move the numbers all that much. For the unknown candidates it was a chance to make a splash - and from that perspective, Cain certainly seems to have acquitted himself nicely. But with most eyes focused elsewhere, Thursday night is likely to be remembered -- if it's remembered at all -- as a footnote in the march to the nomination.

Republicans, Conservatives And Tea Party: Pres. Obama is Guaranteed Re-Election In 2012

Wayward Herring - The killing of Osama Bin Laden by President Obama has made it almost impossible for the Republicans to recapture the Presidency 2012. The killing of Bin Laden has destroyed the mantra that President Obama is incompetent and weak on national defense which has been a serious problem for Democrats ever since, the failed Carter Presidency. The killing of Bin Laden by President Obama has also, destroyed the myth that a Democrat President could not handle a major national security mission without complete failure.The mission was flawless and without error and the American people will remember this on election day. Therefore, President Obama has transformed himself into a strong Commander In Chief in the eyes on many Americans after the killing of the most wanted man on the planet earth and that will be a hard task for any Republican nominee to overcome in 2012 general election campaign. The American people love a winner and President Obama is the biggest winner in the entire world and they will reward him with a second term in office, even though we have 9% unemployment, gas prices at a near record high and food skyrocketing to it's highest levels in decades. The Republicans don't have a strong enough candidate right now who can beat President Obama with his one billion dollar campaign chest in a potential match up in the race for the White House. There is no way in hell Mitt Romney the father of Obamacare is going to beat President Obama and Gov. Huckabee will be eaten alive by the Obama mainstream media machine. The only hope the Republicans have of making the election campaign even close is by nominating Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Rep. Paul Ryan Wisconsin or Sen. Marco Rubio  Florida will probably wait until 2016 to make a run for the Oval Office. Finally, it does not matter how much we cry about Obamacare, deficit or economy President Obama has found the silver bullet to remain in the White House for a second term and that is killing of Osama Bin Laden.

Bin Laden's Death May Benefit Conservatives

Adam Shaw - After the initial wave of jubilation that followed the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death, the political analysis has begun and the liberal media consensus seems clear: this is an enormous political victory for the President, and it all but guarantees a 2012 election victory for President Obama.

The first part of this is true; it must be conceded that this is an enormous feather in the cap of Mr. Obama, and while there are those of us who will roll our eyes at his failure to acknowledge the contribution of his predecessor to the operation, the feather is deserved.  Consequently, we can expect to see a large boost in the polls for Obama, with BBC News already reporting than the bounce could be as much as 10 points.  Yet how long this will last remains to be seen.

However, while Obama will almost certainly receive a short-term popularity boost, in terms of the 2012 election there are signs that bin Laden's death may benefit the Republicans rather than the Democrats.  There are four main reasons why this may happen:

(1) The War on Terror

After the celebrations at Ground Zero have died down and Americans begin to look at the broader picture, the significance of bin Laden's death will be seen for what it is -- the crowning victory of the War on Terror.  The War on Terror has received a lot of criticism from the left, including Obama himself.  Yet the anti-terror campaign started by Bush, so derided back in 2005, has eventually seen victories in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan/Pakistan.  Additionally, it has been revealed that it was through interrogation techniques (that Obama condemned) at Guantanamo Bay (that Obama wanted to close) from which came the tip that lead to the discovery of bin Laden.  The tactics that the Republicans supported from 2001 -- and were only begrudgingly accepted to an extent by Obama in 2009 -- have proved brutally successful.  In short, Republican tactics have paid off, even if under a Democrat President.

(2) American Strength

The message that booms out of the death of bin Laden is the now fulfilled promise of President Bush back in 2001 to "hunt down and punish those responsible."  The announcement of bin Laden's death shows that this promise did not overestimate American strength.  It shows that America can still be the best in the world, and will track down and destroy those who attack her.  This is in direct contrast to the message from Obama and friends, who have been scaling back America's international presence and denying American exceptionalism.  This display of American greatness will not warm Americans to Obama's other foreign policy aims, which rely on a denial of that very greatness.

(3) Patriotism

Very closely related to point two, a belief in American exceptionalism and the strength of America naturally leads to a stronger patriotism in the nation.  As with all victories in conflicts, there will be many more American flags being flown today than there were last week, and with the exception of a few hardcore Democrats, the chants in the spontaneous celebrations outside the White House and in New York were not chants of "Obama, Obama" but "USA, USA."  A nation high on patriotism will not only reject Obama's normal foreign policy, but also the Democrat view of history; whereby America is responsible for all the evil in the world.  Without this view being diffused amongst the population, the Democrats have a much weaker basis of support for their apologetic affirmative action policies and compensatory welfare schemes, and will find a limited audience for their calls for "change."  An America that is proud of itself does not vote Democrat.

(4) The Hard Left

In a situation where Obama is trying to present himself as a centrist, his hard left base could prove his undoing.  Although there have been few peeps of dissatisfaction over bin Laden's death from the American left so far, you can guarantee there will be more.  The American left will be biding their time, waiting for everyone to cool down, but one can bet they are not happy with this show of American military might.  Indeed, Michael Moore has already noted his discontent.  For an indication of what is to come, take a look at the British left, who are more confident in their anti-Americanism.  The British "Stop the War Coalition" has already released a grumpy press statement, The Morning Star has described bin Laden as "a victim of US military operations" and there are a whole range of left-wing writers getting queasy over the way it was handled.

If this left-wing stream of thought picks up and infects the Democrat Party, then swarms of voters will turn away in disgust.  This is a time of joy for America, and if the hard left infect the Democrat Party with their un-American regret for this action, then it could be a death knell for 2012.

It cannot be doubted that things may have become trickier for the Republicans for 2012.  Yet it is also highly possible that the above factors could turn a great deal of independent Americans into conservatives, and the public mood may just turn Republican for 2012.  Now is not the time to give up.

Pakistan: Has some Explaining To Do To America

**Posted by Phineas
Now that the cheering has mostly quieted from last night’s news that we finally nailed Osama bin Laden, serious questions are being asked about Pakistan’s role, if any, in sheltering America’s arch-enemy. Consider this excerpt from Philip Klein’s article on how the mission went down:

Last August, intelligence officials tracked the [two couriers] to their residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a relatively wealthy town 35 miles north of Islamabad where many retired military officers live.
“When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw,” a senior administration official said.
The compound was eight times larger than any other home in the area. It was surrounded by walls measuring 12 feet to 18 feet that were topped with barbed wire. There were additional inner walls that sectioned off parts of the compound and entry was restricted by two security gates. And the residents burned their trash instead of leaving it outside for pickup. There was a three-story house on the site, with a 7-foot privacy wall on the top floor.
While the two brothers, the couriers, had no known source of income, the compound was built in 2005 and valued at $1 million. That led intelligence officials to conclude that it must have been built to hold a high-value member of Al Qaeda.
Further intelligence gathering found that there was another family who lived on the compound which had a size and makeup that matched the bin Laden members who would have most likely been with Osama.
After exploring every angle for months, they concluded that all signs pointed to this being bin Laden’s residence.

Emphases added.
So, here we have the most wanted man in the world, living comfortably with some of his family in a specially built mansion in Abbottabad(1), just a few miles from the Pakistani capital. A town that is a brigade headquarters for a Pakistani Army division and also houses a military academy.
Yet, somehow, no one noticed bin Laden was there?
In The New Yorker, Dexter Filkins asks the question that’s on a lot of people’s minds, right now:

Now that Osama is dead, the most intriguing question is this: Did any Pakistani officials help hide him?
We’re entitled to ask. Ever since 9/11—indeed, even before—Pakistan’s military and intelligence services have played a high-stakes double game. They’ve supported American efforts to kill and capture Al Qaeda fighters, and they have been lavished with billions of American dollars in return. At the same time, elements of those same military and intelligence services, particularly those inside Inter-Service Intelligence, or the I.S.I., have provided support for America’s enemies, namely the Taliban and its lethal off-shoot, the Haqqani network. American officials are fully aware of the double-game, and to say it frustrates them would be an understatement. For a decade, Pakistan’s role has been one of the great unmovable paradoxes of America’s war.

Pakistan’s double-dealing has been a dirty, semi-open secret in this war since it started. Filkins rightly points out that several high-ranking Al Qaeda operatives have been caught in Pakistani cities with Pakistani assitance and that there is no hard evidence that the ISI or other Pakistani agency was sheltering them.
But it is at the same time true that Islamist elements are strong in the ISI and Pakistani military, that Pakistan nurtured the birth of the Taliban –Al Qaeda’s ally– and has a longstanding relationship with them. Pakistan has also fostered and supported jihadist terror groups that have struck India time and again. (And also the attempted bombing of Times Square.)
So it is fair to ask just what Pakistan knew about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, how long they knew it, and why they didn’t tell us. We give them a boatload of money, Al Qaeda and its allies have cost us a lot of blood and treasure, and we have a right to some straight answers — now.
PS: Here are a couple of more questions to chew over: Given Pakistan’s support for numerous murderous terror groups, why are they not on the list of state-sponsors of terrorism? Islamabad seems to be giving Tehran a run for its money in that department. And now that bin Laden has gone to meet his virgin goats, do we even need Pakistan anymore?
LINKS: Diana West already has her answer. Watt’s Up With That has aerial photos of Osama’s hiding place in Abbottabad. Verum Serum has video from inside the mansion after the battle. (Gore warning.)