I can't believe this politicized 24-hour news cycle. The "miscue", as Chris Matthews put it, of Obama's today is actually the TRUTH. The private sector IS doing fine, and the President doesn't need to walk the comment back. He's very IN-touch, not out-of-touch as Mitt Romney claims. Let's see why, after the jump...
To see why the private sector is doing fine, one only needs to look at the earnings of the top 500 companies in America, the S&P 500. All the facts are clear on the S&P 500 earnings spreadsheet, which you can get to by clicking on the dropdown box for index data, then clicking the "index earnings" link on this S&P 500 page.
The spreadsheet has several headlines...
Q1 OPERATING EPS PRELIMINARY 3RD BEST IN HISTORY; MARGINS REMAIN HIGH (9.06% average 7.19%)
Q1 AS REPORTED EPS PRELIMINARY THE BEST IN INDEX HISTORY
As Reported margins also very high, 8.58%, with histroical average 6.11%
Q2,12 OPERATING ESTIMATED TO SET A NEW RECORD HIGH
Yes, the largest 500 companies in America are making record profits, and the profit margins are much higher than historical norms, 9.1% compared to an average of 7.2%. The investor class and capitalists are doing just fine. Bonuses have been at record levels. CEO pay is hundreds of times the workers' pay.
What I think President Obama meant to say is that the private sector OWNERS are doing fine, while the private sector workforce, while growing slowly, is seeing stagnant wages and outsourcing of jobs to low-cost labor markets like China. This is the primary reason why profit margins and overall operating profits are near a record high.
In the eternal struggle between capital and labor, CAPITAL is winning and LABOR is losing. This means that the INVESTOR class is reaping the dividends (literally) at the expense of average American workers. I fervently hope that President Obama's advisors make sure that he drives these points home.
One last point.....To equate Obama's comment to John McCain's in the fall of 2008, saying "the fundamentals of the economy are strong", is just plain dishonest. Obama didn't say the ECONOMY is strong, and in fact said the opposite. I've heard several talking heads saying Obama's "gaffe" is on the same level as McCain's, and that it will stick to him in this campaign. This is a ridiculous notion, simply because what Obama said about the private sector is totally accurate. He just needs to elaborate as to why it is the truth.