Unemployment Report: February 5, 2010

I think that most of the labor statistics do not really disclose the true economic state of the country–even perhaps misleading.

LD,

Always the pessimist. I suppose you will hang on to the end claiming the sky is falling when we are clearly out of this recession. Whatever, you can do to keep bashing Obama.

The numbers are all going in the right direction. Growth and unemployment. It may take a while, but we are heading in the right direction.

I give Obama full credit for that. We are a far cry from where we were one year ago when we were losing over 700,000 jobs a month and 4Q09 GDP was down 6%.

You are just going to look like an ass, when by the end of the year we are at say 9% unemployment and the economy grows at +3% this year, which is about what most private economist are thinking.

The stimulus, as was suggested by almost all economists on the right and the left, has been a success and was money well spent.

For the three month period which ended in June, the Economic Policy Institute announced the Obama stimulus measures overall added “up to 3 full percentage points of annualized growth in the quarter.” For its part, the Wall Street Journal in September agreed with that assessment:

“Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter — something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus.”

A USA Today panel of economists concurred.

“Unemployment would have hit 10.8% — higher than December’s 10% rate — without Obama’s $787 billion stimulus program, according to the economists’ median estimate. The difference would translate into another 1.2 million lost jobs.

But almost two-thirds of the economists said the government should do more to spur job growth. Suggestions included suspending payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, increasing spending on infrastructure, enacting a flat tax on income and extending jobless benefits.”

Importantly, as ProPublica documented in its recovery tracking project, only a fraction of the stimulus pot has been spent to date. As of January 25, 2010, only $172 billion of the program budget had spent so far with another $157 billion in process, leaving $251 billion in remaining funding. Meanwhile, by ProPublica’s accounting, $93 billion in ARRA tax cuts have been paid out, with another $119 billion still to come.

LD,

Always the pessimist. I suppose you will hang on to the end claiming the sky is falling when we are clearly out of this recession. Whatever, you can do to keep bashing Obama.

The numbers are all going in the right direction. Growth and unemployment. It may take a while, but we are heading in the right direction.

I give Obama full credit for that. We are a far cry from where we were one year ago when we were losing over 700,000 jobs a month and 4Q09 GDP was down 6%.

You are just going to look like an ass, when by the end of the year we are at say 9% unemployment and the economy grows at +3% this year, which is about what most private economist are thinking.

The stimulus, as was suggested by almost all economists on the right and the left, has been a success and was money well spent.

For the three month period which ended in June, the Economic Policy Institute announced the Obama stimulus measures overall added “up to 3 full percentage points of annualized growth in the quarter.” For its part, the Wall Street Journal in September agreed with that assessment:

“Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter — something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus.”

A USA Today panel of economists concurred.

“Unemployment would have hit 10.8% — higher than December’s 10% rate — without Obama’s $787 billion stimulus program, according to the economists’ median estimate. The difference would translate into another 1.2 million lost jobs.

But almost two-thirds of the economists said the government should do more to spur job growth. Suggestions included suspending payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, increasing spending on infrastructure, enacting a flat tax on income and extending jobless benefits.”

Importantly, as ProPublica documented in its recovery tracking project, only a fraction of the stimulus pot has been spent to date. As of January 25, 2010, only $172 billion of the program budget had spent so far with another $157 billion in process, leaving $251 billion in remaining funding. Meanwhile, by ProPublica’s accounting, $93 billion in ARRA tax cuts have been paid out, with another $119 billion still to come.

From my perch in a Financial position of several companies that are interviewing, I see wariness. Companies are wary of getting too exposed when the rug could be pulled out any minute (and remember there are no more lines of credit). And employees are warily accepting that they should be grateful for anything, no matter how uncertain.

The economy would fix itself if this administration would just quit changing things. Nobody wants to do anything that takes any commitment because there is no stability, because everything is now up in the air. This administration needs to put the people first over his agenda. Let the economy recover and quit taking advantage of these crises by perpetuating them.

Thanks Lerry. As always you pined it. 


Here’s my question. Obama’s policy of job creation is by giving speeches about jobs.

How does the Federal government create jobs by talking about jobs..??

Statistics were tabulated by the same mindset of people that cooked the global warming books. If the statistics don’t show what you want, ignore some of the data and massage the numbers until it does. They announced (again, on a Friday) that due to a “statistical error” they had to add 600,000 to the total number of unemployed. Whoops! They must have been hiding under someone’s desk. Friend of mine in DC told me last week to expect the number to be closer to 850,000. What happened to the 1/4 million that mysteriously dropped off the list?

Cite, please?

There is none so blind as he who will not see…or  he who has his head stuck up obama’s rectum.

Guest, 

Not sure when we met but I am an eternal optimist. I am also a huge believer in revealing the full and total truth as to what is really going on in the world so people can totally understand.

If you care to read all of my work across all topics feel free to visit my site and receive a healthy dose of total truth, transparency, and integrity.

Your comments here reveal how little you truly know and understand as to what is going on and given the fact that you care to take an ad hominem personal shot, you can rest assured I am not going to waste my time explaining it to you. That said, there is an enormous body of evidence at my site across all the points you raise.

If and when you care to take your head of the sand for an HONEST perspective, come on over….until then, good luck, you’ll need it!!   

You really might want to learn how to use the keypad. You only have to hit the ENTER key once. See my comment above…..and good luck, you’ll need it.   

Ooh, Guest just mad ’cause Obama hasn’t been made Grand Caliph 12th Imam Farrakhan messiah yet.  Don’t pay no attention to Guest.

i’ll believe that the employment situation is improving when the the number of help wanted ads in my local paper is anything remotely resembling what it was a few years ago.  right now, it’s not even close.

Here’s your “recovery,” Guest: 

Stunning Visual of Our Crisis: In 10 Seconds, Watch Unemployment Grow Across the Nation:
http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

===

20 Reasons Why the Economy is Dying and is Simply Not Going to Recover:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/economic-black-hole-20-reasons-why-the-u-s-economy-is-dying-and-is-simply-not-going-to-recover
http://www.businessinsider.com/20-reasons-why-the-us-economy-is-dying-and-is-simply-not-going-to-recover-2010-2

Guest – This should have been a recession that we recovered from quicker despite the convenient campaign rhetoric by Obama et al.

Recessions come and go and Presidents don’t start them or end them – it’s just a natural free market occurence. They do expose systemic problems which in this case was the credit problem – a problem that had its roots int he late 1970′s and no one dealt with effectively since.

As a result banks almost (or did) collapse. What saved the bigger banks was the TARP program in the late days of the Bush Administration – not Obama. It was money that was supposed to be leant and put back into the treasury.

Instead of doing that, Obama et al committed to the biggest and most reckless spending bill thet tried selling to Americans as a stimulus. Obama came in with I think about a 7.0% unemployment rate. He said the bill would keep that rate from going to 8.5%. So much for those economists you spoke of.

There is a difference between economic modeling and speaking to CEOs, CFOs, owners of businesses, venture capitalists, and owners of exec recruiting companies. It’s the difference between theory and reality.

With the outrageous spending spree Democrats went on and Obama’s reckless healthcare debacle, the people I spoke of were reluctant to investment in anything – particularly new employees. In September, could you guarantee an owner of a business what teh cost of a new employee would be based on what Obama/Pelosi/Reid were trying to do? No.

If you believe that the stock market is a leading indicator of economic forecast then this past week is bad and an indicator of what Obama himself warned about which is a second recession.

In the business I am in I wish I could be as optimistic as you but i have to deal with realilty and Obama’s actions have been nothing short of amatuerish.

Rectum?……..Damn near killed em!!!

LD,

I have read enough of your posts to know that your only real aim on here is to trash the Obama adminstration. I have seen your voodoo economics and math. Mostly standard Republican talking points or your analysis is driven by your trash Obama narrative and not the other way around.

Just to deal with one of your comments above that the lower unemployment number means the labor market is shrinking because less people are looking for work. How do you get that?

I think you need a better understanding of where both the payroll number and the unemployment numbers come from. They do not come from the same place, so what happens to one does not 100% get reflected in the other, especially when we are dealing with such small payroll numbers. Again it seems you are interpreting the numbers to fit your trash the adminstration narrative. This is your consistent them. Are you sure you do not work for FOX, as you very much use their same techniques?

Payroll numbers come from a survey of firms; unemployment (and employment-population) numbers come from a survey of households. Both surveys are subject to error, both strict statistical sampling error and things like incomplete coverage, uncertain seasonal adjustments, and so on. When employment growth is near zero, on either side, it’s not that surprising that the surveys should point in opposite directions.

So it could very well be either the unemployment number was too high to start with or there actually was an improvement in January, but it is not showing up in the payroll number, as the payroll number comes from a completely different place.

The reality is that this adminstration inherited about the worst economy and debt and deficit of any president and they have been fighting both tooth and nail for the last year trying to fix things. They appear to have saved a huge part of the industrial base by making critical and key investments in Detroit, which they may actually make some money on. Regrettably, they have had to continue on the financial institution bail-outs of AIG, Fannie and Freddie and the general bank bailout that Paulson and Bush started. It was ugly, but at least they have brought stability back to the financial markets. You can blame ex-bankers like yourself for making the bail-out necessary in the first place. You and your ilk pushed for a total unregulated gambling market place where the risks were taken and the public and tax payer lost.

The stimulus has largely been working with much more to come in 2010 (see my comments above). That has helped to kick start the economy or at least stop it falling. They gave us the single biggest tax cut in U.S. history in the stimulus. All of this with only two Republican votes.

We have come a long way and have a long way to go in terms of jobs. Give Obama full credit for making the tough choices and improving a very bad situation. It is amazing how 8 years of Bush destroyed the economy and how quickly Obama has brought it back from the brink.

You try and read a lot into the stock market move in January, but the reality is that the stock market is up huge in the last 9 months. That is a pretty strong indicator that the economy is heading in the right direction and Obama has made a lot of good progressive. I know the history of stock markets in January, but we have largely been in uncharted waters, so I think you can throw most conventional wisdom out the window.

You would be a terrible investor on wall street if all you saw stuff was through a political glass.

LD,

It is your stupid system. I hit the key once and it posts it three times unless I cut it off in the middle. Fix your website. Amateur hour at NQ.

An indication to me about how well people are doing at finding jobs is the number of people collecting food stamps, TANF, Section 8 housing assistance and Medicaid benefits. Since those programs are not experiencing decreased membership, it proves in my mind that the people who need decent paying full time jobs the most (lower and middle classes) are not finding them.

Keep believing the economy is on a roll upwards. I wouldn’t take a 3/10ths of a point down while jobs are still being lost as an indicator that good times are definately here again.

Thanks for the post Larry- I have read many or your articles here and always find clear explanations of sometimes complicated numbers.
I have a question about this-
“this number surprises me. Are we truly seeing the increased demand drive the hours worked this much higher? Overall, this is a positive in the midst of otherwise mixed to negative news.”

Having been in the restaurant industry most of my life, I know mid-winter often sees restaurant managers doling out an hour or two more to long term employees to keep them while decreasing hours for slackers that may have been hired to cover the Christmas rush. Many resataurants do without dishwashers – and give those hours to the wait staff-(and yes, the waitresses are then expected to do the dishes- think about that next time you eat at a quick service or family restaurant)
I know many industries are doing more with less employees- how much does that effect these numbers?
Thanks!

Oh, yeah, my local paper is really sad. We’re a mid-sized city; on weekdays, you might find 15-20 help wanted ads–in total–now. It’s shocking. On Sunday, it’s better; but still far short of where it was only a few years ago. Scary for people who are looking for jobs around here. You have to expand your job search through networking, self-employment, and other opportunities, including taking a lower-paying job you don’t want. 

Hokma,
 
I think you need to get a better understanding of the numbers.
 
First of all recessions don’t come and go as a natural occurance. This recession was clearly caused by borrowing excesses during the Bush years (some of them Bush’s fault and some not), largely in the housing market, which was driven by many many factors. The recession was largely triggered by a collapse in financial markets or credit markets and then a pulling back by the banks of credit which resulted in a massive drop in consumer demand and business investment and expansion. Although there are many causes of how we got here the reality is that if Wall Street was doing its job properly in terms of allocating capital and risk, we would likely not be in this mess. Lack of banking regulation in terms of bank risk taking, too big to fail and derivatives, in my opinion, were a very very big part of the problem. No bank would have given anyone a loan they could not afford if they were properly supervised and were allocating risk and capital efficiently (you only have to look at a country like Canada where there are better banking regulations and there was no collapse). 8 years of Bush and his destruction of the regulatory environment in this country, his house for everyone attitude, his driving up the debt and deficit, his lack of an eye on the ball, creating zero job growth despite a huge increase in the defense budget made things far far worse than they had to be. No President has created fewer jobs and saw a stock market stay flat like George Bush. He had the worse economic record in history. Far worse than Jimmy Carter, who at least tamed the worst inflation in modern history.
 
So you expected that on day one Obama would have been able to stop the unemployment rate from increasing. You live in a fantasy world. The stimulus that was put in place in Februrary and really did not start to kick in till mid-2009 with most of the money to come in 2010. Many economist believe the stimulus has actually done a lot of good for the U.S. economy (see comments in my post above). It was money well spent. It saved or helped to create a lot of jobs and did exactly what it was suppose to do, which is to stop the falling and kick start the economy. See my comments above. Without the stimulus we would be in far worse shape.
 

Guest: If you’re reading USA Today for your economic information, you’re in big trouble.

This is laughable; it’s ludicrous if you know the numbers at all:

A USA Today panel of economists concurred.  
 
“Unemployment would have hit 10.8% — higher than December’s 10% rate — without Obama’s $787 billion stimulus program, according to the economists’ median estimate. The difference would translate into another 1.2 million lost jobs.  

Clearly, Guest, you do not understand how they calculate the unemployment number, since they aren’t even counting those who have just given up looking for jobs. Moreover, most of that stimulus money hasn’t been spent, so are these “USA Today Economists” fantasizing about what life could be like under our Lightbringer Obama, or what? You can’t count jobs that don’t exist. In fact, unemployment IS 10.8%; they’re just not telling you the truth about how many people they aren’t even counting–you know, that LABOR FORCE THAT KEEPS SHRINKING?! Those people are still there you know; they just are invisible to USA TODAY ECONOMISTS, so they don’t “exist” in their little heads. 

Bwahahaha, Guest you’re good for a laugh, anyway. 

Hokma,

Obama spending spree? Sorry I do not see it? If you are talking about the $787 billion stimulus, it was money well spent and actual about 40% was in the form of tax cuts, with far less than $200 billion of the $400 billion of actually spending having been spent in 2009 with the rest to come into 2010 and 2011.
See: http://projects.nytimes.com/44th_president/stimulus
If when you talk about an “outrageous spending spree” you are talking about the deficit, then I think you need to understand that the massive deficits were expected for 2009 and beyond well before Obama became President. The CBO predicted in January 2009 (before Obama’s inauguration and him revealing any new plans including the stimulus) that the 2009 deficit would be $1.2 trillion. From the January 2009 CBO report before Obama: “CBO projects that the deficit this year will total  $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP.”    http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9957/01-07-Outlook.pdf   
It actually came in at $1.4 trillion. So you can at most blame Obama for adding $200 billion to the deficit or about 15% and the rest can be blamed on Bush, particularly from the Bush recession which accounted for 40% of the 2009 deficit, given the lower tax receipts (bush wars, bush prescription drug bill and bush tax cuts all still not paid for and still in the deficit). The CBO is expecting a record high deficit this year, but most of that is a continuation of what Bush left us and then the deficit should fall after that. Obama has admitted that when all is said and done he will have added about $1 trillion to the deficit in an effort to fix the economy and financial system. I believe that is money well spent and he would not even have had to do that if it was not for the Bush recession. Bush took the debt from $4 trillion to $8 trillion over his 8 years. Obama has also said that he will work to lower the deficit and debt in the second half of his first term, so we will see what he does once we are fully out of this recession.
I will leave the healthcare debate for another time, but I will say that if a bill does not pass, I hope you never loss your health insurance, as your Republican buddies will do nothing for you.
The stock market may have been down in the last week, there are many reasons for that including concern of European economies, but it has had a huge rebound in the last 9 months, which says the country has rebounded and heading in the right direction.

Guest – the stimulus was just a massive untargeted spending bill that created nothing except across the board fear in the market. Obama never ran anything from a company to a government entity and yet has the audacity to blame everyone but himself for acts he committed.

There is difference between reality and hyperbole – Obama practices only the latter.

“First of all recessions don’t come and go as a natural occurance”

Let’s just send the discussion here.

“If you are talking about the $787 billion stimulus, it was money well spent and actual about 40% was in the form of tax cuts, with far less than $200 billion of the $400 billion of actually spending having been spent in 2009 with the rest to come into 2010 and 2011.”  

Unless you are in Obama’s administration, a left wing economist, or a supporter of Obama (less of them now), this is not true at all – not even close – and too many articles that dispute what Obama claims. Clearly you support Obama.

Guest: The stock market as an indicator of the economy? There are only two groups investing in the stock market anymore: The administration’s “working group” and the speculators like Goldman Sachs. Everyone else has gotten out and are sitting on the sidelines. 

So, if you think the people in the administration manipulating the market, and Goldman Sachs constitute “the US economy”, you’re right on the money!!  

I do agree here.  This is what those posts about why people don’t believe Obama’s number crunchers (tweakers). 

For as long as I remember, I’ve been reading help wanted ads on a daily basis, just for fun.  I always wonder at the kinds of jobs available.  When I am on vacation or happen to be in a different city or town, I look at the help wanted ads and say to myself, “What if I were stranded here–could I find a job?” 

Our local paper and every paper I’ve checked this last year have provided me little in the way of reading material when it comes to the help wanted section.  Sometimes there are NO help wanted ads, even on the days most commonly known for having the most.

No body needs to trash the Obama administration they’re doing it all by themselves.  Any requests to be buried in an Obama t-shirt???  No sense letting the t-shirts going to waste.

Stimulus was a “change” slush fund. It wasn’t meant to stimulate the economy or to save jobs. This is what I was saying above, there was no effort to actually help things, but on the contrary… to use peoples fear from the bad economy to push a change agenda. There was no impetus to right the economy, only to drive that agenda. WHat we have seen though is since the Brown miracle, people feel renewed that this “change” will slow. With the change slowing, the economy is righting itself with faith of the people that we are still “America” after all. We can thank Brown and the people of Massachusetts for any green shoots we may see in the coming months. Change was driving us down a deep cliff. We can recover, America is still America. But we need to actually act like America and not like a third world banana republic.

This is what i think as well. Employers are expecting the people who still have jobs to do more for no more instead of hiring any new help. It has become an employers job market, which will further lower wages for middle class America. “Change” so far has been the enemy of middle class America. I think it is by design. But that is just me.

The “Unemployment Numbers” do not accurately reflect the unemployed.  They are only counting those who are registered with the government. I am looking fore work but I am not getting unemployment nor and I looking for work with the help of the state. I am getting more interviews on my own than my friends who are using the state help.

If your unemployment payments are exhausted and you are not working you still drop out of the numbers as well.  We are in more trouble than the gov’t wants to admit.

The real unemployment rate may b e as high as 25%. They totally cook these numbers. I decided to go back to school to get a nursing degree rather than look for a job.

My husband and I are really struggling, but we think we’re lucky. We own our home, have no debt, no kids, and always thought we lived frugally. Well, now we’ve found even more ways to squeeze every nickle out of a dollar.

It gets worse and worse every day. More stores closing, less traffic in the streets, people having to move back in with their parents. Yet the newscasters continue to act all chirpy and happy.

The reality is very very grim and it will get much worse. At first i thought we were headed into a serious recession that would last five years. Thanks to Obama, I now think we are in a depression that might last twelve years or longer.

Nobody will admit the truth.

I don’t know what to make out of this, “It is now mathematically impossible to pay off the U.S. national debt” http://newsblaze.com/story/201002056061403zzz.nb/topstory.hrml

I must be the worst of the worst at posting hot links. Just hit my own & didn’t get the story I mentioned. Sorry. If you just type in the title it’ll take you right to it.

Oh, please! People who are lucky enough to HAVE jobs are being expected to do more. It’s like the legendary “American Productivity” myth. Work. Work harder! Less vacation. Work! No more sick days. “Work! harder!”

I am usually optimistic, but not now. We are going down the chute fast. I am glad I don’t have kids, because I’d be in despair for them. I just hope I can manage to live out the rest of my days with a minimum of suffering.

tango,

Employment is a lagging indicator. It follows growth. No one is saying the good times are here. Given how deep the economy dove, it will take time before the jobs return. But, it is clearly by almost all “leading” indicators that the economy has turned a major corner and is potential coming back strong. How strong is debated by economist, with some saying it is coming back stronger than they initial thought. And we have not even had half the stimulus money spend, which will really kick in in 2010. +5% growth as we saw in the fourth quarter is about average for growth in a rebound after a recession. Jobs growth will lag a year or two, but many economists are saying unemployment could be back down in the 6% if area in 2011. Obama is getting it done.

Hokma,

Complete BS. The stimulus was not a massive untargeted spending bill. 40% of it was tax cuts. alot went to the states the kept teachers, firemen, police, etc. in their jobs. A lot went to the unemployed and infrastructure projects, etc.. The only examples that Republicans were complaining about made up like 2% of the spending. Go look at the break down of the spending yourself at these links. Where exactly is your proof that is was all untargeted and a waste? Simply untrue and complete BS. A Republican talking point.

See:

http://www.propublica.org/special/the-stimulus-plan-a-detailed-list-of-spending

or

http://enr.construction.com/business_management/finance/2009/0116-StimulusBillBreakdown.asp

or

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-02-12-stimulus-package-effects_N.htm

or

http://accounting.smartpros.com/x65480.xml

or

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/STIMULUS_FINAL_0217.html

Hmm, I doubt there will be continuous 5% quaterly growth the rest of the year.  I think that growth end of last year was due to cash for clunkers, rebates for refrigerators and government credits for new buyers to buy homes.  Also, businesses let their inventories get really low and had to restock which accounted for some growth but doubtful it’s going to be sustained for the rest of the year.  But maybe if Obama the Magic job Creator and all around Economy Savior is able to spin it as such.

So how do you explain the CDO report in January of 2009, before Obama’s inauguration, that they were expecting the 2009 deficit to be $1.2 trillion? Please explain that to me. If you read the report at the link I provide you can see that it was put out before Obama became President and their analysis does not include any of Obama’s proposals.

Yeah a lot of media reports on FOX or NQ suggesting the somehow Obama is responsible for a ton of deficit spending, but is simply BS. He almost 100% inherited the deficit, which was largely cause by both the Bush recession (ie. the decline in tax receipts to the government), the bail-out of the financial system which were initiated by Bush and Paulson before Obama even took office and all the deficit spending (wars, prescription drug bill, tax cuts that were not paid for) that Bush was doing and continued on into 2009.

Read the link. See the 2009 CDO budget deficit forecast of $1.2 billion that came out before Obama. What is not to believe? I know the facts do get in the way of your narrative or the narritive you have been spoon fed.

Here is the link again:

 ”CBO projects that the deficit this year will total  $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP.”    http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9957/01-07-Outlook.pdf     

Lot of conspiracy theories up in those mountains… you write entertaining posts.

“dived” not “dove”

And just how far will the lag be? I’ll tell you – over 4 years. That is, as soon as we get rid of Obama. You sound like a Hitler loyalist in the bunker.

Obama is getting it done – TRUE.

He is destroying the country.

USA Today is just a newspaper. If you read the article they are quoting a large group of economists. It is not USA Today analysis.. it is the analysis of the economists that count.

Yeah, I understand the different measures of unemployment.

But the unemployment rate itself is still one of the valid measures of the economy, as are all the others. So what is your point?

I’d rather be entertained than bored to death by guest’s propaganda. What do you do for a living, guest?

guest, what do you do for a living?

Mountainass,

Read the USAToday article yourself. It is based on a quarterly survey of 50 economists. Most of these economists are from the private sector where it does not pay to be partisan, as you cannot make money beinig partisan. Sorry if the response by these economists gets in the way of your carefully scripted narrative of Obama and the success of the stimuls.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-01-25-usa-today-economic-survey-obama-stimulus_N.htm

No doubt the economy faces a lot of long term challenges, particularly after 8 years of Bush were he gave us zero job growth, no real economic growth and huge deficits and debts. There is a lot of work to do. Some of those problems are valid and pointed out in the blog posts you reference.

Micheal Snyder who you quote is a bit of a nutcase. However, he does make good points about the debt and deficit. Although I would argue that the public debt, although never great, is still manageable. The U.S. and other countries have gotten to these levels before and we have been able to manage out of it.

I will say that may of the problems that Snyder points out have nothing to do with Obama and were created over a much longer time, certainly much longer than the one year that Obama has been here. In fact, every single one of the points of the 20 points Snyder points out were there and created before Obama. As I have argued above the current and expected deficits were predicted by the CBO well before Obama became president.

There’s no need to call people names, guest. Try to restrain yourself, as a good guest ought to do.

What do you do for a living, guest?

Periodically, when Obama feels blue he finds somebody to blame for the bad economy. Like, let’s see? Bush?

So you and Obama are back to blaming Bush? My, my that is clutching at straws. Why did Obama run for president if he did not understand the economy he was inheriting? Maybe is not the right man for the job.

Adults don’t blame others for their own shotcomings and weaknesses. What exactly are Obama’s plans to help the economy? Aside from the usual nonsense about green jobs, green sprouts, etc? Cash for clunkers, now that was a great idea. What other ideas is Obama holding back from us?

And by the way, what do you do for a living, guest?

arabella — I think you scared him/her off. “Dodge and weave” is the main occupation of Obots.

Dear guest,

It is the height of good manners to avoid “wearing out your welcome” when visiting. Perhaps you have absorbed this lesson and have moved on to other places.

Just as a point of interest, what do you do for a living?

Guest -
“No doubt the economy faces a lot of long term challenges”
Please elaborate what you see specifically as “challenges.”

“after 8 years of Bush were he gave us zero job growth, no real economic growth and huge deficits and debts”
Since you brought this up please provide specific facts to support your charges.

“the public debt, although never great, is still manageable”
What would you consider to be too much debt? And how do you see it as “manageable?”

“20 points Snyder points out were there and created before Obama”
Do you mean that you knew that unemployment was going to go as high as 10.0%? Then why didn’t you call the White House and tell them so that they would not have promised nothing more than 8.5%.

Your facts are directly from the Obama smoke-and-mirrors playbook used by the media to create a false reality that Obama did anything successul in the past year.

The fact is that Obama and Democrats have wrecked this economy and are blatantly lying about the so-called progress they created. Unfortunately for Obama Americans are not as stpuid as he expected them to be because a majority of them don’t trust him when it comes to the economy. According to the latest NBC/WSJ poll 65% have either little or no confidence in Obama’s economic policy. And according to Rasmussen only 21% of Americans believe Obama has cut taxes, only 35% believe his assertion that the economy is growing, and only 27% believe his assertion that he put 2 million people back to work.

Basically you are trying to support the unsupportable and you are clearly in the minority.

Its becoming really hard to keep my current job.  They have cut labor so dramatically and then still want to hold you accountable for used to e 5 people’s job.  Its insane.  I am so burnt out, i’m not sure how much more of this i can take.

I will repeat, 

Your comments here reveal how little you truly know and understand as to what is going on and given the fact that you care to take an ad hominem personal shot, you can rest assured I am not going to waste my time explaining it to you

ProudMilitaryMom, 

Actually I missed the fact that the manner in which the average hourly workweek was calculated was changed. Under the previous method the workweek would have bumped merely from 33.2 to 33.3 hours. Not a big deal and in line with expectations. 

Just as I thought. You got nothing when challenged and take the easy way out and make up an excuse instead of defending yourself. You almost always do this when I have challenged you in the past. It is only your opinion that I do not know what I am talking about. I give you plenty of facts, direct quotes from the CBO and other sources to support my thinking and analysis.

I will ask you two simple question Mister NQ economics guru.

Do you think Obama is responsible for the 2009 U.S. government deficit?

Do you think the economy is in better or worse shape then it was a year ago?

LD,

Just as I thought. You got nothing when challenged and take the easy way out and make up an excuse instead of defending yourself. You almost always do this when I have challenged you in the past. It is only your opinion that I do not know what I am talking about. I give you plenty of facts, direct quotes from the CBO and other sources to support my thinking and analysis. 
 
I will ask you two simple question Mister NQ economics guru. 
 
Do you think Obama is responsible for the 2009 U.S. government deficit? 
 
Do you think the economy is in better or worse shape then it was a year ago?

LD,

I look forward to reading your future posts, as the economy improves and how you try and spin it to make the adminstration look bad or downplay it. Should be entertaining, just like how your tried to suggest the the Fed is not working because things in 2010 do not cost as much as they did in the 1920s. That was a great one. Must be awesome being on NQ with all these economic geniuses who stroke your ego.

do these numbers capture people who have moved from full employment to part-time employment, subcontract workers who would not qualify for unemployment?

is there any way to get total amount paid out in unemployment benefits each month and compare it to previous months?

i agree with earlier poster, i would like to see the number of people on government assistance and number of new applicants for these programs. they will help shed light on state of economy as seen from perspective of average american.

i don’t understand why these numbers don’t get reported. the networks keep saying the unemployment number doesn’t capture true employment problem, but never cite other data to give us a better picture

Arabella,

And yes would should continue to blame Bush. If people are going to start freaking out about the debt and deficit they should at least put the blame where it deserves to go. You cannot blame Obama for either the debt or the deficit. It was a long time in the making and was put there well before Obama came into office. Obama is just trying to fix the debt and deficit mess that Bush left behind.

It is funny all you people like to now complain about the debt and deficit, but where was your complaining when Bush was running up the debt from about $4-5 trillion to $8-10 trillion? Seems like a double standard. I never read one story on this website from either Larry Doyle (although he was not on this site so he may have been doing it somewhere else) or Larry Johnson complaining about the huge debt and deficits that Bush was running up when he was in power? Why all of a sudden during a huge economic downturn when some government spending makes sense all the complaining about fiscal responsiblity? Seems like a double standard and seems like all politics to me.

Now you can complain that you do not think that the government should spend any money either in the form of tax cuts or fiscal spending to try and get the economy out of the hole. That is a valid conservative, actually very conservative, opinion. One in which most economists would not agree.

But, a question for you Arabella: how would you propose to reduce the deficit and debt? Cut spending? Where would you cut spending? And would that be wise to do during a economic downturn?

Would you favor raising taxes to reduced the deficit and debt? What that be wise to do during a downturn?

What about raising taxes and/or cutting spending to get ride of the deficit when we are out of this economic downturn?

Maybe you would take a conservative supply-side solution of cutting taxes? Would that not increase the deficit? If you cut taxes what spending would you cut to offset the less tax revenue?

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