Surprised again – Weekly job loss numbers “unexpectedly” rise
I think I need a special category for this. The “unexpected surprise of the week”. Of course, it would mostly be filled with posts about unemployment numbers – although there’d also be plenty about “disappointment” concerning other economic numbers as well.
Apparently the “Recovery Summer” sunshine show is showing it’s tattered edges fairly obviously.
New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to a nine-month high last week, yet another setback to the frail economic recovery.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 500,000 in the week ended August 14, the highest since mid-November, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
And last week’s loss was revised upwards another 4,000 lost jobs.
The economy grew at a 2.4 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, much slower than the 3.7 percent pace in the first three months of the year.
Which, politically, means:
The economy’s poor health has handed President Barack Obama a tough challenge and put at risk the Democratic Party’s majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in November’s mid-term elections.
Obama’s approval ratings have tumbled to the mid- to lower 40 percent range and Congress’ ratings are hovering at about 20 percent.
Hey, when you’re the loudmouths who stand on the side and blame the other guy for the problem and claim you are the only ones who can “fix” it – elect me – then you by God better fix it when it is handed to you (even if you haven’t a clue of how to do it).
Irony can be a bitch, can’t she?
~McQ
Does the press have a hot-key for “unexpectedly” ??
This poor administration… they do all the right things… Imeme is President… these things just CAN’T be happening! They just can’t!
You conservatives are causing this!
I think looker is right about why the adverb “unexpectedly” keeps showing up: as far as MiniTru is concerned, The Dear Golfer is doing everything right to boost the economy, so any contrary data must be “unexpected”.
O’ course, it could be that the business reporters are all so economically ignorant that their entire understanding of the economy comes from White House press releases, which are pretty uniformly upbeat. “Hey, the president says that the economy is improving! His plans worked! It’s the Summer of Recovery! YAAAY! Wait… Unemployment is UP??? Well, that’s unexpected!”
Reporters of any stripe are AMAZINGLY ignorant…AND STUUUUUUUPID…!!!
Well you can bet they’re never going to come out with THIS headline, despite how glaringly obvious it is to even an economic neophyte like me -
“New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits climbed to a nine-month high last week as expected as a result of market uncertainty over the poor economic policies of the Obama administration, causing yet another setback to the frail economic recovery.”
Exactly Looker. Remember the recent post about media credibility? They’re still all-in with this guy.
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Maybe they should beg George W. to help them with this instead of the ‘mosque issue’.
He could give “The Won” a vote of confidence on his economic plan and alienate all of Obama’s base.
http://hindenblog1.blogspot.com/2010/08/burn-ux-key-on-msm-word-processors.html
This includes a VERY cool graphic from
http://sadhillnews.com/2010/08/18/history-of-us-unemployment-2007-2010
“Hey, when you’re the loudmouths who stand on the side and blame the other guy for the problem and claim you are the only ones who can “fix” it – elect me – then you by God better fix it when it is handed to you (even if you haven’t a clue of how to do it).”
Exactly. Anyone who says “It’s all Bush’s fault!” re: the economy needs to be spayed/neutered to make sure those genes leave the pool. Even if Bush’s policies caused the initial problem (an axiom I do NOT concede), once you’re hired, it’s your job, Your responsibility. And if you were yelling “Yer doin’ it wrong!” from the sidelines all along, you had damn well better perform when you get the chance.
They “expect” that Keynesianism works, in the same way that many believe they can gorge on carbohydrates, be a couch potato, and lose weight with magnetic wrist bands.
Reality is an expensive bitch.
The difference is that the people with the magnetic wrist bands are just stupid and lazy.
The people pushing Keynesianism do so because the alternative undercuts government power, and therefor their power grab. They likely don’t care if it doesn’t work, because a sound economy is at most secondary to their goal.
After all, what good is a sound economy if you can’t control it? That the statist view.
When you are as stupid and biased as the Malfeasant Media is, any bad news concerning BHØ and his 40,000 thieves is “unexpected”.