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Snow Jobs

By John Batchelor on March 4, 2010 at 3:45 PM in Current Affairs


 

Vague Jobless.  

Team Obama Spinmeister Larry Summers is making the rounds on cable and with the newsprint types to prepare the public and especially the headline writers for a Shrek-ugly jobless number come Friday March 5. The spin is, “Blame the blizzards of 2010.” This is both careful and cynical Summers.  Summers knows that the jobless figures are distortions of the scale of the problem, since the monthly figure is based upon people looking for work across sixty thousand households and does not take into account people who have stopped looking for work.  Set aside the fact that we all know the unemployment rate on the first Friday of each month is a vague reference.

Still, this March 5 number looks to be a bleary horror, especially in the non-farm payroll jobs lost detail.  There is a small possibility that we are being set up for a surprise.

Never too cynical with a 24-hr news cycle in the hands of the Obamanation.

Jobless.

The driving theme for the jobless rate is that companies are reluctant to hire or rehire because of uncertainty.

The last weeks, Simon Constable and I have been pursuing what we call regime uncertainty caused by the four horsemen of the Obama administration: healthcare, cap and trade, financial reform and tax increases (Bush tax expirations).  We have spoken with  Charlie Dent of 15 PA, Shelley Capito of 2 WV, John Shimkus of 19 IL, and Adrian Smith of 2 NE, and each has told us a different version of uncertainty.  Healthcare and cap and trade are the major risks for hiring in their districts — with the cap and trade bill getting the most mentions.

The weather is not mentioned.

The expectation in the market is that the Shrek-ugly number on Friday March 5 will make the market go up and the White House gloomy.

The disconnect continues between POTUS push on a healthcare monstrosity (abridged?) and the dread of the jobless.  Storm continues.

Jobs market clouded by storms in February Economic Preview – MarketWatch

Payrolls have declined in 24 of the past 25 months. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch are forecasting that payrolls will fall by 85,000 in February, with much of the decline due to the weather. The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 9.8% from 9.7%  

blizzard.jpg

  • Diana L. C.

    I’ll just give one snark response to your interesting post:

    At least they’re not blaming it on global warming.

  • lightacandle

    This is off-topic (and please forgive me) but could everyone here please go and vote AGAINST putting Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill while removing the GREAT Civil War general (and, later, president) Ulysses S. Grant.

    Please vote  “NO“  at:  http://tinyurl.com/ykph7xn     (scroll down)

    Please do it now ! (the rightwingers, who would make Reagan a saint, are taking over the poll)

    Spread the word.

    Vote here:  http://tinyurl.com/ykph7xn

    P.S. Reagan was pretty active at snow-jobbing us, wasn’t he?

  • creeper

    John wrote:  “The expectation in the market is that the Shrek-ugly number on Friday March 5 will make the market go up and the White House gloomy.”

    I can’t reconcile this.  Why would rotten employment numbers make the market go up?

  • Hokma

    That’s the next shoe (boot) to fall.

  • mortuus lark

    I don’t know no Grant. Regan I know. He should be on the Fifty dollar bills since they are 50/50 of a 100. Regan was to me about a 50 from 100. The worse president we have had since he dared Gorbichev to war. Thanks be to God, Gorbichev had a brain in his head.

  • mortuus lark

    You are the ones that love science – for the science of it.

  • sowsear

    Where was that picture taken? OMG

  • mortuus lark

    I love this J Batchelor. You are clueless, but please remain clueless. There is no loss in you remaining clueless.

    On the other hand, since I take pity on the clueless, I will give you this much.

    1. There were places in many cities, where undocumented illegal aliens waited for jobs – a high uncertainty situation – and most of them get to work that day.

    2. Those who cross the border into the country are faced with uncertainy of the highest kind. Not long after they find themselves employed and sending lots of money home – lots of money – including paying for the money transmittals very high fees – which they don’t care because they love their family.

  • creeper
  • sowsear

    Thanks Creeper. We had snow like that her in NYS that year (early Feb.). I just wasn’t expecting that picture to be from the olden days.

  • sowsear

    Thanks Creeper. We had snow like that here in NYS that year (early Feb.) I just wasn’t expecting the picture to be from the “olden days”.
    How did you track it down?

  • Ferd Berfle

    Dimbulb speaketh:
    =======================
    mortuus lark<img src=”//cdn.js-kit.com/images/icon10-external-url.png”/>
    I don’t know no Grant. Regan I know. He should be on the Fifty dollar bills since they are 50/50 of a 100. Regan was to me about a 50 from 100. The worse president we have had since he dared Gorbichev to war. Thanks be to God, Gorbichev had a brain in his head.
    =======================
    Administrator:

    Can we get a reprieve from this illiterate bot? The least the weenies at botcentral could do is dig us up a troll with hafl a brain. This garbage doesn’t even qualify as entertainment.

  • mortuus lark

    You posted at the very same time I got bored with my posting.

  • mortuus lark

    Congratulations Ferd, You posted at the very same time I got bored with my posting.

  • oowawa

    But Ferd, you’re dealing with a minimalist post-modern who is a work-of-art in progress–here one moment, gone the next, dazzling all with his elusive radiance, which would be apt to spoil like hour-old asparagus or day-old quiche if left undeleted. 

  • Ferd Berfle

    mortuus lark<img src=”//cdn.js-kit.com/images/icon10-external-url.png”/>
    Congratulations Ferd, You posted at the very same time I got bored with my posting.
    =========================

    Welcome to the club, twerp. We’ve been bored with your posting from get-go.

  • Ferd Berfle

    “But Ferd, you’re dealing with a minimalist post-modern who is a work-of-art in progress”

    Indeed. Perhaps it can progress elsewhere. I know some vacant lots down by the tracks where it can set up minimalist shop.

  • Ferd Berfle

    But wait, there’s less:

    <img style=”margin-top: 2px; width: 48px; height: 44px; margin-left: 0px;” src=”//js-kit.com/avatar/w3oit8_wIrQrZaA1HSjHn3-48×44.jpg”/><img src=”//cdn.js-kit.com/images/stars/admin-comment.png” title=”This user is an administrator”/> mortuus lark<img src=”//cdn.js-kit.com/images/icon10-external-url.png”/>
    I love this J Batchelor. You are clueless, but please remain clueless. There is no loss in you remaining clueless. 
     
    On the other hand, since I take pity on the clueless, I will give you this much. 
     
    1. There were places in many cities, where undocumented illegal aliens waited for jobs – a high uncertainty situation – and most of them get to work that day. 
     
    2. Those who cross the border into the country are faced with uncertainy of the highest kind. Not long after they find themselves employed and sending lots of money home – lots of money – including paying for the money transmittals very high fees – which they don’t care because they love their family.=========================M. Lurk: The Voices echoing around your empty cranial cavity do not constitute sources of valid, verifiable information.

  • Ferd Berfle

    But wait, there’s less:  
    =========================
    mortuus lark<img src=”//cdn.js-kit.com/images/icon10-external-url.png”/>  
    I love this J Batchelor. You are clueless, but please remain clueless. There is no loss in you remaining clueless.   
       
    On the other hand, since I take pity on the clueless, I will give you this much.   
       
    1. There were places in many cities, where undocumented illegal aliens waited for jobs – a high uncertainty situation – and most of them get to work that day.   
       
    2. Those who cross the border into the country are faced with uncertainy of the highest kind. Not long after they find themselves employed and sending lots of money home – lots of money – including paying for the money transmittals very high fees – which they don’t care because they love their family.
    =========================
    M. Lurk: The Voices echoing around your empty cranial cavity do not constitute sources of valid, verifiable information.

  • sybilll

    Someone in another forum was saying that some contract union workers do in fact get to draw unemployment if they miss 1 week’s work due to snow.  If that is true, that makes me sad.  Just like the parents that wanted the schools to reopen so the school could feed their children.  So, no one plans for anything, whatsoever, and wants Father Government to fix everything.  Pathetic. 

  • sybilll

    Thanks for the link so I could proudly vote Yes. 

  • Pingback: Snow Jobs : NO QUARTER

  • sowsear

    I thought that was about to go into a Steven Wright joke line.. Something like,”I came home and found my apartment had been robbed and someone had replaced all of my stuff with exact duplicates”.

  • sowsear

    Every summer at the elementary school near here, lunch is served to all children attending the recreation program. Some children just come for lunch.

  • Diana L. C.

    creeper,

    That puzzled me, but I’m thinking Wall Street is doing better and trying to cover the fact that working people are not.

  • candymarl

    Voted No. Thank you.

  • candymarl

    Higher unemployment figures are due to snow – in the winter no less. It snows during the winter months? Who knew?

  • Docelder

    Maybe Bush made it snow? That way it could still be Bush’s fault. We all know Obama “inherited a mess”. Bless his little pointed head.

  • Pingback: Snow Jobs : NO QUARTER | Bootstrap Recession Kit

  • creeper

    You’re welcome, sowsear.  I hear you on the snow.  I have a sister in Pittsburgh.  She sends me pictures of her house.  I’ve been to visit her three times but there’s nothing recognizable in those pics.

    To find info on the picture I googled “blizzard+’telephone pole’”.  Then went to “Images”.  Poof!  First one up.

  • creeper

    Thank you, light.  I proudly voted “No”.  After what Ronald Reagan did to unions I wouldn’t vote to put his picture on a nickel slug.

    Grant’s special in this neck of the woods.  He lived upstream in Galena, Illinois before and after the Civil War. 

    Grant was placed in charge of the Union Army when Lincoln did an end run around McClellan.  McClellan was a great organizer but he couldn’t make up his mind to go to war, so Lincoln promoted Grant.  Whenever someone mentions Grant I think of Lincoln’s words when he was pressured to remove Grant after disastrous losses at Shiloh:  “I cannot spare this man.  He fights.” 

    While members of his administration were tainted by scandal, Grant himself was a scrupulously honest man.  He never got rich and I imagine that $50 bill his picture is on would’ve been a lot of money to him.

    Sorry for the history lesson and for derailing John’s diary.  You hit a soft spot.