Like most of you I’m still trying to make sense of yesterday’s jobs report from the BLS — Bureau of Labor Statistics… They’re contradictory, something just doesn’t smell right about them but, I can’t put my finger on what it is. I’m not inclined to believe the conspiracy theories simple because as James Sherk explains […]
Economy
GDP Collapse Shows U.S. Economy in Danger of Slipping Back into Recession
Ouch, the government today released its final estimate of U.S. economic activity in the second quarter, and the news isn’t good, GDP was revised downward to 1.3% from the initial estimate of 1.7%: The fragile state of the US’s economic recovery was thrown into focus once more Thursday as the government announced growth was slowing […]
Awful: U.S. Added 96,000 Jobs in August; Unemployment Rate Fell to 8.1%
From MarketWatch: Nonfarm payrolls grew by a seasonally adjusted 96,000 in August, well below estimates and down from a respectable 141,000 jobs in July. The payrolls growth came in weaker than the 125,000 increase expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The nation’s unemployment rate fell to a seasonally adjusted 8.1%, down from 8.3% in July, […]
Awful: Unemployment Remains At 8.2% in June; Just 80,000 Jobs Added
From MarketWatch: The U.S. created just 80,000 jobs in June as hiring slowed dramatically in the second quarter, confirming that the economy has hit another rough patch. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2%, the Labor Department said Friday. The disappointing employment report adds to fresh worries about the U.S. economy at a time when […]
The President’s Job Council Not So Good at Creating Jobs
President Obama says he’s 100 percent focused on creating jobs these days, so why is taking advice from a bunch of CEOs whose companies have shed thousands of jobs over the last decade? Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com Investor’s Business Daily has the highlights: • GE’s domestic workforce shrank by 25,000 — almost 16% […]
The Fed’s Easy Money Skeptic
Mary Anastasia O’Grady has slightly disturbing interview with Philadelphia Federal Reserve bank president Charles Plosser in today’s Wall Street Journal: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was on Capitol Hill this week to answer critical questions about monetary policy, amid rising bond yields and sharply higher commodity prices. Mr. Bernanke showed no self-doubt, and Friday’s resignation […]
It’s Election Day… Get Out and Vote!
This is one of most important elections in American History, it is not as John Podhoretz claims a referendum on Barack Obama and his party. This election is a referendum on the government itself… Voters essentially fired Republicans in 2006 and 2008 and if all the polls and pundits are right they’re about to do […]
Ouch: Third Quarter GDP Just 2.0%
If Democrats were hoping for good news on the economy leading into Tuesday’s elections they didn’t get. Third GDP came in at an anemic 2.0%: The U.S. economy grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the third quarter as consumer spending climbed the most in almost four years, a sign the expansion is developing […]
Big Spender: Obama Has Now Borrowed $3 Trillion
From CNSNews.com: It’s official: The Obama administration has now borrowed $3 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. It took from 1776, when the United States became an independent country, until 1990, the year after the Berlin Wall fell signaling victory in the Cold War, for the federal government to accumulate a total of $3 […]
Video: The Truth About Our Jobs Crisis
The folks over at Bankrupting America have produced a video and infographic that really puts our current jobs crisis in perspective: I really can’t add anything here other than pointing you to a rather chilling analysis from Investor’s Business Daily: U.S. Won’t Recover Lost Jobs Until March 2020 At Current Pace. This election is probably […]
U.S. Economy Loses 95,000 Jobs in September, Unemployment Remains at 9.6%
Stagnation… That’s really the only way to describe today’s jobs report. The U.S. economy shed 95,000 more jobs last month and the number of underemployed grew by 612,000, and now stands at 9.5 million people: WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. economy lost 95,000 nonfarm jobs in September as local and state governments shed positions at […]
It’s the Spending, Stupid
If a picture really is worth a thousand words… Then this chart from the Heritage Foundation says it all: Bottom line; we’re not under taxed… The government spends to much! H/T: James Pethokoukis.
CNBC: Economy Caught in Depression, Not Recession
I be the first one to admit I’m a pessimist on the economy, but not even I’m this pessimistic: Positive gross domestic product readings and other mildly hopeful signs are masking an ugly truth: The US economy is in a 1930s-style Depression, Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg said Tuesday. Writing in his daily briefing to […]
Initial Jobless Claims Rise… Unexpectedly… Again
Here we go again, another week and another, um, “unexpected” rise in initial jobless claims: The number of new claims for unemployment benefits jumped unexpectedly last week as heavy snows caused layoffs to rise. In addition, many state agencies in the mid-Atlantic and New England regions that process the claims were closed due to the […]
New Jobless Claims Rise… Unexpectedly… Again…
Here we go again… another week, another “unexpected” rise in new jobless claims: The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance unexpectedly surged last week, while producer prices increased sharply in January, raising potential hurdles for the economic recovery. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 31,000 to 473,000, the Labor Department […]