NYC Letter: Joe On The Job XXIII -- The 2020 Manufacturing Recovery

Day 1,163 of CHOPE

No Foolin' Edition

People can be fooled about what the future holds because there are no established facts about the future. People can be fooled about a counterfactual world (and here) because no facts can be established for such a world. Team Barry, however, keeps trying to fool people about a sunny prosperous present that can be tested against the facts. To wit, Mr. Biden last Wednesday:

Ladies and gentlemen, I come here today with a very, very simple message: Manufacturing is back. Manufacturing is back.

FACT CHECK: BIDEN'S
MANUFACTURED JOBS CLAIMS

DAVENPORT, Iowa March 29, 2012 (USA Today) - Declaring "manufacturing is back," Vice President Biden gave a rosy — but not entirely accurate or complete — picture of U.S. manufacturing at a March 28 campaign stop in Iowa.

• Biden overstated — by 1.1 million — the number of manufacturing jobs lost before President Obama took office. He said the U.S. lost 5.8 million manufacturing jobs "during the 2000s, before we came in." But that figure includes 2009 — Obama's first year in office. The U.S. lost 4.7 million such jobs "before we came in."
  
• Biden also cherry-picked his job figures when he declared the U.S. has added "430,000 new manufacturing jobs just since 2010." That's true. But since the start of the Obama administration in January 2009, the U.S. has 661,000 fewer manufacturing jobs — despite the recent job gains.
  
• In fact, manufacturing jobs represent a disproportionate share of job losses since Obama took office. In all, the U.S. has lost a net 864,000 non-farm jobs since January 2009 — a decline of one half of 1%. But manufacturing jobs are down 5% since then. One recent study found that at the current pace, it will take until 2020 for the U.S. to recover the manufacturing jobs lost since 2007.

The only thing separating you from the fabulous Obama-Biden recovery are the FACTS.

FACTS just muck up the story-line. Let's stick to the approved story-lines where things are good, people are happy, and Mr. Obama rolls along to re-election.

"MANUFACTURING IS BACK. MANUFACTURING IS BACK."
Obama-Biden 2012 Recovery & Prosperity Tour

CHOPE.

Say anything pollyannaism.