Friday, November 06, 2009

BARACK OBAMA

Feel That Stimulus!

A moment ago, I heard, via XM, some talking head on CNBC insisting that the overall economic picture was "much better than it was six months ago" and repeating "lagging indicator" like he'd been struck with OCD.

This was all in response to a monthly jobs report that indicates the environment for those looking for work has gone from awful to really awful:

The number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7 million. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2 percent, the highest rate since April 1983. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points.

The unemployment rate for the construction field keeps mocking those "shovel-ready" promises: Another 62,000 jobs in construction lost last month, with the average at 67,000 jobs lost per month for the last six months. It was worse in the preceding months, but that's not much comfort; the numbers were supposed to be going in the other direction. (That isn't preventing some ninny on Twitter insisting this is a sign of success for the administration.)

11/06 09:20 AMShare