Consumer Confidence Continues to Plunge

Americans are growing increasingly frustrated with the direction of the economy, as consumer confidence has hit a near two-year low.

"Consumer confidence fell in early August to the lowest level since October 2008, a month after the collapse of Lehman Bros. sent the economy tumbling into a severe recession and financial crisis, according to the IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index out Tuesday.

The poll of 837 adults was conducted from Monday through Sunday, finishing two days after the Labor Department said private payrolls grew by just 71,000 in July. At that pace, it would take years to absorb the roughly 8.4 million people who lost jobs during the recession."

It should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention that people are growing more and more frustrated with the economic direction of this country.

Handing the keys to the economy to a political party that can do nothing except attempt to redistribute money from one group of people to another does not foster economic growth.

Rumblings of tax hikes (not extending the Bush tax cuts or imposing a VAT), talk of putting "boots on throats" and running massive budget deficits all suggest the Democratic party has absolutely no idea how to create wealth.

They do know how to "reallocate" people's hard-earned money, once it's been earned in the first place.

Hopefully the election results from last night give even more momentum to the more freedom-oriented, Beltway-outsider candidates, so that the country gets constructive "change" following the November elections.

Government Workers are Endangered?

A CNNMONEY.com article laments the fact that even workers for the government are losing their jobs these days.

"Once upon a time, there was job security in a government job.

That's no longer the case. The layoff ax has hit public sector payrolls with force as states wrestle with massive budget shortfalls. Since August 2008, some 231,000 state and local government jobs have disappeared -- 22,000 last month alone," according to federal data.

The majority of the cuts are on the local level, which at 14.4 million workers is nearly three times the size of the state workforce. Plus, unlike at the federal level, most of these cuts come from the ranks of teachers, cops, firefighters and social service workers.

And more pain is coming down the pike. Some 19 states say they plan to implement layoffs to narrow budget gaps, according to a recent survey."

The increasing percentage of workers employed by government has been an increasing drain on the overall economy for years, since the salaries of government workers are generally paid by the taxes of those that work in the private sectors.

Since the payroll of the federal and state governments needs to be dramatically scaled back in order for the economy of this country to recover, headlines such as these suggest that, at least on some levels, the economy may be heading in the right direction.