Unemployment Claims, Food and Energy Costs Going Up

New unemployment claims rose last week unexpectedly to 445,000 from 410,000 last week. The economy hasn’t gotten any better over the last year. Unemployment dipped slightly last month but only because hundreds of thousands of workers stopped looking for jobs and are no longer considered part of the job market. Obama’s stimulus failed miserably.

Meanwhile inflation is being to show itself in several different markets. While the Federal government declared that inflation was just .2%  in December, they conveniently leave out energy and food costs in their inflation determination. Food prices are up substantially over the past year. Butter and milk are up substantially. Sugar has nearly doubled in price in the last two years. Corn is up 52%, which means meat prices are on the rise. Overall, food prices are up 25% in 2010. Energy costs are also on the rise as we saw gas prices over $3 in December, which is highly unusual. Gas prices usually drop during the winter as demand weakens, this year gas prices increased.

The economy hasn’t gotten any better under Obama and the Democrats leadership. In fact the economy has gotten worse. Wasting $800 billion on Obama’s Stimulus did nothing but stimulate the national debt. Having the Federal government post yearly deficits over $1 trillion the last two years has done little more than discourage investment and job creation. The national debt has made the dollar a risk.

It is clear that Obama and the Democrats failed to fix the economy with all of their spending and regulation. The Republicans unfortunately are unable to right the ship with less spending and regulation across the board. They can throw a wrench into Obama’s spending plans, albeit from all accounts a small wrench, but they can do little to curb the administration’s thirst for more market controls. The end result is that the economy is going to move very along very slowly. With food and energy prices going up, the middle class is going to feel the pinch of inflation over the next year or two. We can only hope and pray that the Republicans pick a conservative capable of winning in 2012. The country can’t afford four more years of Obama’s malaise.