Friday, May 20, 2011

The "Recovery in the Job Market"

From Reuters and CNBC;

"New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, but a rise in the four-week moving average to a six-month high indicated the labor market recovery will remain painfully slow."

Don't you love how they force the premise upon you that the labor market is recovering in the first place?

So once again, to show you why you don't need Reuters, you just need the Captain, I shall show you the claims for unemployment in charty-goodness form;


So now it's time to play "intellectual honesty with the left!"

If you look at our current unemployment claims, you'll see they're;

1. NOT going down, but indicating the potential for a double dip recession
2. Are on par with the worst levels of the 2000-2001 recession
3. Oh, wait, have I heard anywhere from the media about this being the "Worst recession in 50 years?" Oh, no, that's right, George Bush isn't president! With BO in office this now makes the "labor market RECOVERY painfully slow."

Filed under "the cancer is spreading less slowly."

1 comment:

Hot Sam said...

Yep, you almost never hear the words "jobless recovery" from the mainsleaze media this time around.

The peaks in the initial claims series is exaggerated because it doesn't remove ineligible claims. It's better to look at the change in continuing claims.

There was never any doubt claims would drop. We all knew the labor market would adjust on its own over time. We all knew that the number of unemployment eligible persons would diminish. We all knew that some people would permanently leave or not enter the labor force.

I expected initial claims to hang high for quite some time, just like the last recession. There is a real chance for a double dip, but not yet. There is a greater chance of prolonged stagnation. The last double-dip was Fed-induced to control inflation. We're seeing signs of rising inflation, but not like the late 70s and early 80s.

The government clearly buoyed up some sectors and now that support is gone. Housing will likely dip another 5% and construction will remain low. The stock market is overpriced in my opinion. Commodity inflation will subside.

Zero will have a lot of "good news" to boast about, none of which was to his credit. His opponents will have a lot to criticize. So it will be an interesting election year in 2012.