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By Gregory Taggart, June 6, 2011 1:05 pm

In October last year, Obama granted McDonald’s and 28 other firms waivers from having to comply with his Affordable Care Act. With that in mind, consider the following.

Prior to the release of the May jobs report, Morgan Stanley, according to MarketWatch, estimated that McDonald’s would account for roughly half the jobs created in May 2011.

Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000. The Labor Department won’t detail an exact McDonald’s figure — they won’t identify any company they survey — but there will be data in the report to give a rough estimate.

In fact, total private-sector employment grew by 83,000 in May. Thus IF Morgan Stanley was right, Mickey D’s was responsible for as much as 36% of the private sector jobs created last week. (If you use the total non-farm payroll, which includes government jobs, job growth was even weaker at just 54,000; thus, Mickey D’s could have accounted for up to 55% of new jobs.)

In any case, job growth was weak in May, and McDonald’s probably created a large number of those jobs; thus, logic compels the following question: Should Obama grant waivers to all businesses?

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By Gregory Taggart, November 4, 2010 5:06 pm

Mumbai Mirror columnist Cyrus Dastur reports that his city is putting on the shine for President Obama’s visit.

And now, as India gets ready for Obama’s visit, we’re once again scrambling around to make our cities look good even when they’re a far cry from being liveable. Certain roads will be hastily repaired, areas will be cleaned, and security will be completely in shape, et al. Basically, everything that makes us cast a good impression will be done. So what if all this crumbles down like a pack of cards the moment Obama’s flight leaves India.

Seems like wherever he goes, the President is a job-creating machine. Except here.

(Courtesy of Bureau of Labor Statistics)

And if that graph isn’t disappointing enough, try this one, which shows the median duration of unemployment year-by-year over the last 50 years: