He issued a press release about the "Year of Progress for Wisconsin's Job Climate." The basis of his statement is some magazines' ratings*, some of them many months old. The doofus had this to say:
“We’ve worked hard this year to create a business environment that encourages job creation,” said Governor Walker. “Business rankings are one way to show the progress we’ve made in moving Wisconsin in the right direction. They also remind us that we must keep working to encourage job creation in our state. Our most important goal remains helping Wisconsin families prosper; these rankings show we are laying the right foundation.”Sadly for Walker, and for the rest of us that actually care about our state, the reality doesn't jive with his fantasy world.
Via Phil Scarr, we find a detailed analysis of Wisconsin's real job climate at Econbrowser. The news is grim indeed as this chart of the leading indices shows:
The analysis shows that both public and private sector jobs will continue to decline, with only Indiana doing worse than Wisconsin in the entire region. Or to paraphrase Art Kumbalek of the Shepherd Express, when it comes to jobs and the overall economy in Wisconsin, it can be best summed up as:
"2011 sucked. 2012 will suck, only worse."Jake has another way of looking at it, with his own set of graphs and charts, which shows Wisconsin is dead last in economic activity, not for just the region, but the entire country!
That's not a surprise though, when one considers the fact that Walker has spent the last eleven and a half months doing everything and anything he could think of to take money out of the economy by concentrating it in the hands of the few already ultra-wealthy campaign contributors.
If you look closely at Walker's press release, there is one thing that is obvious by its absence. And that is the actual jobs numbers for the state. There's no mention of how Wisconsin led the country in jobs lost in October. Not a peep about the tens of thousands of jobs lost since his budget kicked in. And the up to 2,500 people in Central Wisconsin who just got pink slipped or put at risk of getting one don't seem to be even a blip on Walker's myopic radar. (By the way, expect the November jobs numbers* to be coming out this Friday. I'm not holding my breath that the news will be good.)
While Wisconsinites desperately need jobs, Walker gives us the economic/business equivalent of a compatibility test from Cosmo.
It's just a shame that we need to recall him. With his track record of being an absolute failure in creating jobs, his inability to lead without resorting to bullying and thuggery, and the looming shadow of Walkergate, one would have hoped he'd have at least enough integrity to just resign. But of all the things one might call Walker, class act is definitely not of them.
*To distract the public's attention from what is expected to be yet another consecutive month of poor job numbers, Walker is expected to issue a release stating that he has successfully identified seven of the ten hidden objects in the latest edition of Highlights for Children (although Tonette had to help him with four of the seven).
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You know, maybe if that were a stock chart, they'd be better able to interpret it. When a stock price dips below the line of a longer term moving average, that's an indicator to sell, sell, sell. Sometimes, you need to artificially move that trend line upward to reinstill confidence in your target audience.
ReplyDeleteI normally am proud of Wisconsin and make fun of Illinois (silly Flatlanders!), but for once, I do have something to say that is nice about Illinois: good job, FIBs! Your economic growth in October (I think?) was the best in the country, while Wisconsin was the worst--and they have a Democratic statehouse and governor, while we have Scooter and (Nepotistic) Friends.
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