Unexpected: Unemployment Rises to 9.8%

Gee, we never saw this coming.

The nation's unemployment rate climbed to 9.8 percent in November, a seven-month high, as hiring slowed.

Employers added only 39,000 jobs last month, a sharp decline from the 172,000 created in October, the Labor Department reported Friday. The weakness was widespread. Retailers, factories, construction companies, financial firms and the government all cut jobs last month.

Many economists were predicting the addition of nearly 150,000 jobs. The economy has recently flashed signs of gaining momentum with busier factories, rising auto sales and a good start to the holiday shopping season. But that didn't translate into mass hiring in November.

In fact, private companies -- the backbone of the economy -- created 50,000 jobs. That was down significantly from the 160,000 private-sector jobs created in October and was the smallest gain since January.

With hiring so weak, the unemployment rate rose from 9.6 percent to 9.8 percent. The jobless rate has now topped 9 percent for 19 straight months, the longest stretch on record.

Can we still blame Bush for this?

This would really be a good time for the Obama tax hikes to kick in.

Dreadful Obama Economy Grows at Anemic 2% Rate; Consumer Index 'Unexpectedly' Falls

Let's look at the bright side: At least they're not saying it's unexpected. Still, the NY Times laments how it affects the man and party who've driven the economy into the ground. Forget about the millions of people out of work due to our rush toward socialism, it's all about the fortunes of the Democrats.

The United States economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday, as it struggles to gain any momentum for a sustained recovery.

That estimate matched the consensus forecasts for the gross domestic product, and is a slight uptick from the second quarter.

An economy growing at a sluggish, 2 percent, nearly all economists agree, cannot produce nearly the demand needed to bring down the nation’s painfully high 9.6 percent unemployment rate. And the trade gap remains wide, as imports outpaced exports.

These numbers are unlikely to provide much of a morale boost for President Obama and Democrats, who are just days away from crucial midterm elections. High unemployment and soaring foreclosure numbers in the Midwest and Western states already made this a particularly tough election season for Democrats. Friday’s numbers will probably produce little relief.

“It’s the expected G.D.P. number, which is mostly bad news for the economy,” said Josh Bivens, an economist with the liberal leaning Economic Policy Institute. “The growth rate is just nowhere near enough to put downward pressure on unemployment.”

Still, there is some unexpected news.

With a downward revision to consumer expectations more than offsetting an upward revision to their assessment of current conditions, Reuters and the University of Michigan released a report on Friday showing an unexpected downward revision to their consumer sentiment index for October.

The report showed that the consumer sentiment index for October was downwardly revised to a reading of 67.7 from the previous estimate of 67.9 and is down from 68.2 in September. Economists had expected the index to be upwardly revised to a reading of 68.0.

As a result of the downward revision, the consumer sentiment index is now at its lowest level since November of 2009.

The Left's War on Small Business

Investor's Business Daily has a great comment on the left wing's war on small business in their ongoing effort to trash the U.S. economy and install socialism.

We try not to comment on opinions expressed on our own op-ed page, but Wednesday's On The Left column asserting that small businesses are not major job-creators mustn't go unanswered.

'The myth of small business as the engine of job creation is largely that — a myth," Ruth Marcus wrote in support of higher taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year. "Small businesses create new jobs when they start and take off; they also lose jobs when they crash and burn.

With all due respect to Marcus, who is syndicated through the Washington Post Writers Group, we're in deeper trouble than we thought if this is what passes for conventional wisdom in our nation's capital.

It's bad enough that President Obama, and even the U.S. Small Business Administration, low-ball the number of new jobs created by small businesses. Both put it at around two-thirds, when the real number, we believe, is around 85%.

Our work — and we maintain a huge database on all public companies — shows that big businesses created no net new jobs over the last 25 years. Zero. Zip. When big businesses buy other companies, thereby padding their payrolls, they don't create new jobs. In fact, they usually consolidate and lay off people in duplicative positions. Many also downsize over time.

It is smaller businesses, and especially new entrepreneurial businesses, that drive each new business cycle. And the government — including the politicians who set tax policy — should recognize what these innovative companies do in their first 10 or 15 years.

The SBA defines a small business as one with fewer than 500 people. And yes, when Sam Walton started Wal-Mart and Bill Gates started Microsoft, each had maybe 30 or 40 employees. A year later they had maybe 75, the next year 120, then 320, then 501.

From that point on, they were no longer considered small businesses. But over the next 10 to 15 years, one of them created more than 1 million jobs and the other 500,000.

Yes, many small companies "crash and burn," as Marcus puts it (though we fail to see how raising taxes on them makes that less the case). But those that do succeed turn out to be America's real "engines of job creation.

Creating the conditions that allow them to prosper should be the nation's top domestic priority. Instead, this White House and Congress seem hell-bent on increasing their costs and weighing them down with all sorts of new mandates.

You see, the far left has always assumed that economic growth comes from government spending and not from private commerce. In fact, the left tends to see business as an evil entity that needs to be controlled and punished, not encouraged.

As the commentary points out, large businesses create little actual job growth over time. They tend more to buy out existing businesses and then combine duplicate functions and eliminate redundant positions by layoffs and retirement buyouts.

The future hope for economic growth in the U.S. is not from government or big business, but rather the growth of small businesses. With over 15 million unemployed, there is no way that existing businesses will be able to create that many jobs for the foreseeable future even if the economy were healthy.

No, many of these unemployed will have to make their own jobs by starting up small home businesses and becoming entrepreneurs in their own right. Some will fail, but some will succeed and become thriving businesses providing rapid job growth in years to come.

And yet the far left MSM types like Ruth Marcus demean small business at the very time we need them to be growing. Again, it goes back to their assumption that economic growth comes from government spending.

The left understands very little about business and economics. All they seem to know is "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."

Unexpected! 131,000 More Jobless in July

The experts are baffled and the media does their best to spin the bad news. The headline says payrolls rose by 71,000 but overall employment fell by 131,000, so the headline is only misleading you by 202,000. No big deal.

Companies in the U.S. added workers in July for a seventh straight month at a pace that suggests the labor-market recovery will be slow to take hold.

Private payrolls that exclude government agencies rose by 71,000, less than forecast, after a gain of 31,000 in June that was smaller than previously reported, Labor Department figures in Washington showed today. Economists projected a 90,000 rise in private jobs, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Overall employment fell 131,000 and the jobless rate held at 9.5 percent.

Retail Sales Down, CNBC Blames the Weather

July retails sales numbers are coming out and they are disappointing, to say the least. In the ongoing effort by the lamestream media to whore for the Obama Administration and the socialist polices of the Democrats, they are ... wait for it ... blaming the hot weather as a contributing factor.

With few exceptions, retailers reported weak sales for the month of July, as consumers continue to rein in spending amid an uncertain employment outlook and continuing fears that the economic recovery is slowing.

Although there were some standout results, the poor performance was most pronounced among teen retailers.

July traditionally kicks off the back-to-school shopping season, which is the second busiest shopping time of the year behind the Christmas holidays. Parents appear to be procrastinating, holding off purchases until sales hit later in the summer.

Also, with teen unemployment still high, many teenagers don't have extra money to spend on clothing.

Retailers reported that shoppers headed to the malls, but most made purchases
cautiously.

Hot weather may have also made shoppers less interested in buying fall clothing.

Hot weather?!? You'd think this was the first time ever it hit 100 degrees on the east coast in the summer. I can tell you from growing up in Chicago that we had hot weather there when I was a kid. My gosh, it was just a few months ago the media and Obama hacks were blaming the poor economic numbers on the harshly cold weather and snow storms of this past winter. Which way is it? This assumes that weather was perfect just a few years ago, like when the Democrats took over Congress and unemployment was 4.7% with the Dow at about 14,000 and rising.

The cold, hard reality is that the socialist/Marxist policies of this
administration are poison to economic growth. The media has so sold their souls to shilling for the left that they can't bring themselves to admit to the reality of a failing socialist government in the Obama Administration. I notice that lately Obama has done interviews with supportive far left "journalists" trying to mock the idea that he is a socialist, and the supposed "journalist" just smirks. Heaven forbid they point out the resounding failures of this administration and put the President on the spot about it.

Of course, when you have the likes of a Bob Shieffer trying to claim that they did not know about the New Black Panther fiasco because they were on vacation (as if he does not have a staff) it's to the point of outright laughter.

No, retail sales are down cause unemployment is staying very high and the average consumer is scared to death of losing their job (if they have one) and are buying only essentials and then when they're on sale.

You know, when I was in college studying economics I focused on the Great Depression Era and always wondered what it was like to live through that. Now I'm finding out first hand in real time.

Jobless Giving Up on Obama Economy

The unemployment numbers are improving slightly, but mainly due to the fact that folks are giving up hope and not looking for work anymore.

Most states across the country saw an improvement in employment in June as jobless rates dropped from the previous month, according to government data released on Tuesday. But that's mostly because many people gave up on their work searches and were no longer counted.

In all, 39 states and the District of Columbia saw their rates decrease in April from the previous month. Only five states saw increases and six states had no change in their unemployment, according to the Labor Department.

But only 21 states saw net job gains in June, the government said. That compared to 41 the previous month and it was the fewest for the year.

The decline in job gains reflects the layoff of thousands of temporary census workers, who inflated total payrolls in May and then reduced them in June.

It's also a sign that businesses aren't hiring many new workers. Nationwide, private employers added a net gain of only 83,000 jobs last month.

The cold hard reality is that job prospects are so bad that many folks have just flat out given up looking and have no hope of finding a job. Therefore, they fall out of the numbers.

You know, when Obama and Biden promised to lower the unemployment numbers, I don't think Joe Sixpack thought they were going to do it this way. But such is the reality of living under a socialist government.

One thing though: If they keep extending the unemployment benefits, we will have a permanent class of people on the dole, much like the socialist countries in Europe that the left loves so much. Of course, those countries generally have chronically high unemployment and little economic growth. Who knows, maybe we can become like Cuba and have an average annual per capita income of $20.

In any event, just understand that as the MSM touts the dropping unemployment numbers in their ongoing whoring out for the Obama administration, it's because of folks giving up hope and not even trying to find a job anymore.

That's the hope and change you can believe in.

Double Dip and MSM Negligence

More and more economists are starting to talk about the almost certainly of a double dip recession. Here's just another example.

It has been said that if one laid all the world's economists end to end, they wouldn't reach a conclusion. Even so, a surprisingly large number of economists now agree that then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made a tragic mistake. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Greenspan opened the monetary floodgates.

Specifically, Greenspan allowed the "monetary base" to increase 22% from June 2000 through June 2003. The monetary base, also called "high-powered money," is the base upon which bank loans are pyramided, expanding the total amount of money held by the public.

During the same three-year period, Greenspan cut the federal funds rate -- the interest rate commercial banks charge each other for overnight loans -- from 6.5% down to 1%, the lowest federal funds rate in more than 40 years.

The rationale for Greenspan's easy-credit policy was to provide a "soft landing" for the economy in the wake of the dot-com crash and Sept. 11 attacks. And for a while, it seemed he had succeeded. People marveled that housing prices continued to rise, even amidst the recession of 2001. Indeed, people referred to Greenspan as "the Maestro."

In retrospect, economists across the political spectrum recognize the role Greenspan's Fed played in fueling the housing bubble. The more cynical analysts argue that Greenspan's policies weren't "easy" at all and merely postponed the inevitable day of reckoning for the economy. Rather than gritting its teeth and suffering through the necessary adjustments in the early 2000s, the nation got an injection of artificial credit that masked the underlying problems with a euphoric boom.

The housing market eventually collapsed, as all bubbles do. At this point, Ben Bernanke was at the helm of the Fed. Unfortunately, he got his policies out of Greenspan's playbook, except Bernanke doubled down.

Rather than pushing short-term interest rates down to 1% as Greenspan did, Bernanke has pushed them down to almost zero percent. And in contrast to Greenspan's 22% increase in the monetary base during a three-year period, Bernanke increased it by 94% in one year.

The unprecedented monetary stimulus from the Fed, in conjunction with the massive deficits of the federal government, did succeed in partially re-flating the stock market and stabilizing home prices. Time magazine named Bernanke its 2009 Person of the Year, and Obama administration officials are taking credit for nipping the Great Recession in the bud. Yet the parallels with the Greenspan episode are clear.

Only a socialist, or a member of the MSM (but I repeat myself), could take a look at the economic mess we are in and see a recovery happening. Fifteen-plus million unemployed, foreclosures at a record pace, businesses afraid to hire with this punishing regulatory environment all make it clear that we are not in a solid recovery. Normal recoveries from recessions show economic growth of 7% or more and we have seen nothing like that. But the MSM keeps shilling for the Democrats and spinning away.

Remember when they Obama administration said the economy would recover around the second half of 2009? Then they said early 2010? And that the stimulus bill worked? Now they are saying things like the stimulus bill was too small and blaming the opposition for their own decisions. And the MSM never questions them about this.

Remember, when the Democrats took control of Congress the unemployment rate was at about 4.7% and the Dow was nearing 14,000. But after four years of Democrat rule we are in a downturn that rivals the Great Depression. And the MSM still covers for the left and their socialist agenda.

I mean, the other day CBS's Bob Schieffer tried to excuse his neglect of the New Black Panther voter intimidation story to his not knowing about it due to being on vacation. Oh please, Bob. You have no staff to stay on top of things? Do you really expect us to believe you do your own research and writing? That they had no internet link where you went on vacation? I went to Ireland for a month a couple years ago and every day was able to keep in touch with what was going on around the world. Please Bob, you are embarrassing yourself. No, the point is, you did not report on it because you have no problem with that story, being that you are a hard left shill. If it had been a group of skinheads out in front of that polling place you would have reported it 24/7, as you should have in either case.

Explaining Unemployment

I think hell just froze over. First the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, and now the New York Times actually had a fairly decent, unbiased article explaining the recent unemployment rate's confusing results.

The tea leaves are getting harder to read.

The stock market responded strongly to weekly jobless data that showed that those filing for continuing unemployment benefits had dropped to their lowest level since December 2008.

But many economists and labor advocates say the numbers are painting a decidedly bleaker picture.

The Labor Department could provide no explanation as to why the number of people claiming continuing regular state unemployment benefits had dropped by 255,000, to 4.46 million, on a seasonally adjusted basis in the week ended May 29.

It was unlikely, as some analysts speculated, that those claimants had found jobs. The combined number of people on extended and emergency benefits — 5.39 million in the week ended May 22 — was actually higher than the 5.32 million a week earlier.

“Increasingly, those who are unemployed have been unemployed for six months or more,” said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project. “If you’re out for more than six months, you’re not on regular benefits. Long-term unemployment is now the norm.”

Indeed, in last Friday’s complicated jobs report — indicating weak private sector hiring in May — the number of people who had been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer remained stuck at 6.8 million.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial claims for unemployment benefits in the week ended June 5 were 456,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, down 3,000 from revised figures of a week earlier. The four-week moving average of 463,000 was up 2,500 from the prior week.

Although those initial claims are down from the close to 600,000-a-week level of a year ago, most economists agree that claims of 450,000 or above are too high to suggest a strong recovery in hiring.

Many economists were disappointed by the weaker than expected private sector hiring numbers last Friday, given some stronger numbers in March and April. Joshua Shapiro, chief economist for MFR, said that those earlier numbers might simply have been exaggerated.

Mr. Shapiro thinks that something called the birth/death adjustment, which the Labor Department uses to estimate the number of jobs added or subtracted because of new business formations or collapses, may be skewed too high.

“With credit very tight and conditions being what they’ve been,” said Mr. Shapiro, “new business formation is probably weaker than what it has historically been.”

He added: “I think people got themselves a little too excited on the upside about things, and now they’re reassessing a bit. People just didn’t take into account how much of the economic turnaround or whatever you want to call it was just a function of fiscal stimulus and government support, which is now beginning to fade.

This is an interesting article. While the piece didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about how unemployment rates are generated, it showed a hint of actually reporting some facts and news instead of the NYT's usual shamelessly whoring themselves out for Obama. I mean, you can actually see the Times dealing with news in this article instead of their own far left agenda. What a difference. And they also seem to be recognizing that there is a long term problem with employment in this country, and this is troubling. My gosh, next thing you know, they might actually recognize that economic growth is good and people should be allowed to keep most of their own money instead of having it redistributed.

Well, we can at least hope, can't we?

Could it be the Times is moving, albeit glacier-like, back toward being an actual newspaper instead of a bald-faced, shameless PR rag for the socialist agenda?

Now that is some hope and change I can support.

The Great Discouragement

It is becoming clear to the man on the street that the unemployment situation is bad and not getting better any time soon. And a whole lot of people are giving up even trying to find a job.

If you think the jobs situation has become pretty hopeless, you're not alone. Roughly 1.1 million workers have given up hope of finding employment.

The staggering level of "discouraged workers" as the government calls them has swelled to historic proportions in 2010, past the million barrier for the first time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been tracking the number.

Though a bit off its all-time high of 1.2 million recorded in February, the metric stands as perhaps the most daunting statistic of last Friday's gloomy jobs report, which showed that almost all the new employment is coming from temporary government Census jobs and not the kind that will sustain an economy.

"The fact that people are sitting down indicates just how bad the market is for some categories of people," says Peter Morici, professor at the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business and the former chief economist at the US International Trade Commission.

That picture is unlikely to get any better, particularly in terms of the headline unemployment rate number on which most people focus. That figure actually dropped from 9.9 percent to 9.7 percent in May, but was as much a reflection that many people simply dropped out of the jobs market and are no longer counted as unemployed.

Let's see, over one million people have given up even trying to find a job. We have socialists in the White House who are determined to punish success and destroy capitalism and economic growth. They want to enact Cap and Tax, which will even further hammer the economy and drive more people out of work. Now we know how they are going to get unemployment down to 8%: they're going to make things so bad out there that even more millions of people give up looking and fall out of the statistics.

Guess what is going to happen in a month or two when the temporary Census workers fall out of the numbers? Oh my, it's going to get uglier than a Chicago Cubs five-game road trip.

And where are all those "green" jobs the socialists were trumpeting just a little while ago? Not seeing them much now, are you? And I thought ObamaCare was supposed to be the great masterstroke to make the U.S. more competitive and create all kinds of jobs. At least that's what the Democrats and their whores in the MSM were saying a year ago.

Instead, the U.S. government keeps deficit-spending us into oblivion and borrowing more and more money.

The market just had it's worst two days in 14 months. Yet Joe Biden says that the stimulus package worked perfectly.

Had enough of the hope and change yet?

Unexpected! Private Sector Jobs Added in May Far Less Than Forecast

Of course the headlines you'll see today will all scream out that payrolls increased by 431,000 in May. You'll have to drill down to the small print to see that 411,000 of them are temporary Census workers. So the actual 20,000 jobs added by real employers are less than half those predicted by the "experts" paid to do this stuff.

Maybe once Obama stops watching basketball and pretends he actually cares about the Gulf oil mess some more people can be employed actually cleaning it up. That'll be offset by those who'll be permanently out of work due to the oil spill, but let's not mention that since that might make him look weak and ineffective

Employers in the U.S. hired fewer workers in May than forecast, showing a lack of confidence in the recovery that may lead to slower economic growth.

Payrolls rose by 431,000 last month after a 290,000 increase in April, figures from the Labor Department in Washington showed today. The gain was smaller than the 536,000 median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey and reflected a 411,000 jump in government hiring of temporary help for the 2010 census. Private payrolls rose a less-than-forecast 41,000. The unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent as Americans dropped out of the labor force.

Staff reductions at companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Citigroup Inc. indicate a slowing in the labor market that threatens to restrain consumer spending, the biggest part of the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said yesterday that unemployment was exacting a heavy toll, showing why economists forecast interest rates will remain low.

“It’s going to be a long haul,” Michael Englund, chief economist at Action Economics LLC in Boulder, Colorado, said before the report. “We really aren’t adding many jobs. We’ve lost some momentum in the economy and final sales clearly aren’t enough to generate job growth.”

Payrolls estimates in the Bloomberg survey of 82 economists ranged from 220,000 to 750,000. Economists surveyed also forecast the jobless rate fell to 9.8 percent last month from 9.9 percent in April. Unemployment reached a 26-year high of 10.1 percent in October. The May figures showed the labor force shrank 322,000.

Federal hiring of temporary workers to conduct the decennial population count probably peaked last month, economists said.

The unwinding of census employment may keep distorting the payroll figures for months as the government dismisses workers when the count is completed. For that reason, economists say private payrolls, which exclude government jobs, will be a better gauge of the state of the labor market for much of 2010.

Shhh: GDP Revised Down

Pssst.

Hey, buddy.

Over here.

Let you in on a little secret, pal, something the Obama-worshiping MSM does not want you to know.

Corporate profits grew at a slower pace in the first quarter and overall economic growth was less than originally thought, as the U.S. continues to slog through a bumpy recovery.

U.S. corporations saw profits before tax and with inventory and capital adjustments rise 5.5% in the first quarter, slower than the 8% growth notched in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. First-quarter earnings grew 31% from the same period a year ago, the agency said.

The quarter-on-quarter profit slowdown was mainly due to slower sales growth in the first quarter and the fact that companies' profit margins didn't grow as much as they did in the fourth quarter.

The Commerce Department report also showed that gross domestic product, the sum of goods and services produced in the U.S., expanded at a 3% annual rate in the first quarter, lower than the government's earlier 3.2% estimate. Consumer and business spending were lower than previously estimated, while imports, which subtract from growth, were greater.

At this point we should be seeing growth in the 8% to 10% range if the economy were truly bouncing back in a similar fashion to past recessions.

Instead we are slogging along at 3%. Now, while that is better than no growth or even contraction, it sure is not the healthy growth that we should be seeing at this time, coming out of a deep and sustained recession.

So the next time Obama's eager whores in the MSM try to con you that the economy is growing in a healthy manner, you will know that they are lying to you yet again. The out-of-control spending pattern by the Democrats and their outright socialist agenda is turning the formerly magnificent U.S. economy into a basket case.

And every step of the way, the MSM is cheering them on.

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link.

While Obama Panders to Mexico, Stock Market Tanks

Hey, Obama. While you're busy trashing Arizona and the U.S. in general, the market is dropping like a rock and new unemployment claims jumped.

A weeklong rout in stocks deepened, with U.S. benchmark indexes losing the most in more than a year, as reports cast doubts about the strength of the economic recovery and European leaders struggled to contain the region’s debt crisis. Commodities plunged and Treasuries soared.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index plunged 3.9 percent to 1,071.59 at 4 p.m. in New York, its biggest drop since April 2009. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 2.2 percent and the S&P GSCI Index of commodities tumbled to the lowest since October. The losses accelerated even as the euro rallied as much as 1.5 percent to $1.2598 after earlier flirting with a four-year low. Ten-year Treasury yields sank to the lowest level of the year, down 15 basis points at 3.22 percent. The yen rallied against all 16 major counterparts.

Tomorrow’s expiration of U.S. stock options and progress on a financial-reform bill may have added to volatility after U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly increased to 471,000 last week and the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators posted a surprise drop of 0.1 percent. The slide came a day before the German parliament votes on the country’s share of a $1 trillion bailout to halt a worsening sovereign debt crisis.

“Put your helmets on if you are long risk here,” Nicolas Lenoir, chief market strategist at ICAP Futures LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey, said in a note to clients before markets opened today. “A lot of stops have been triggered when the S&P future crossed 1,100 and anybody still long will probably have to bail out and head for cover.”

The market is discounting for a double dip recession in the U.S. and the possible collapse of the EU in the near future.

And all the while, The One is focused on ignoring the illegal immigration problem, trashing Arizona, punishing banks and pushing his socialist agenda.

I see absolutely nothing coming from Washington at this time that would encourage economic growth. Yet one way out of the growing debt crisis is to have rapid economic growth and dwarf the debt with rising incomes and revenue generation.

However, that is beyond the grasp of your modern socialist.

So get ready for nil economic growth, constant high unemployment and a falling standard of living as long as Obama's current polices are being implemented.

That is the new "normal" with Obama in the White House.

Historically Unprecedented! U.S. Has 19 Straight Months of Budget Deficits

Well, the Obama administration is spending money so fast now that it would make a Greek bureaucrat blush. Naturally, the experts never saw this coming and it was unexpected.

The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

"It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.

Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.

The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.

For the first seven months of fiscal 2010, which ends September 30, the cumulative budget deficit totals $799.68 billion, down slightly from $802.3 billion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009.

Outlays during April rose to $327.96 billion from $218.75 billion in March and were up from $287.11 billion in April 2009. It was a record level of outlays for an April.

Department officials noted there were five Fridays in April this year, which helped account for higher outlays since most tax refunds are issued on that day.

But for the first seven months of the fiscal year, outlays fell to $1.99 trillion from $2.06 trillion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009, partly because of repayments by banks of bailout funds they received during the financial crisis.

Receipts in April -- mostly from income taxes -- were $245.27 billion, up from $153.36 billion in March but lower than the $266.21 billion taken in during April 2009.

Let's see. Nineteen consecutive months of budget deficits would cover every month of the Obama administration, right? That means that Obama been in office for 15 full months and parts of two others, and he is 15 for 15 in spending us into the ground.

But yet the MSM shills and socialists will still blame Bush.

The numbers are becoming mind-numbingly outrageous. You know, if Keynesian economics worked as well as the left seems to think it does, given all this spending we should have double-digit GDP growth. Instead, we have double-digit underemployment with over 15 million people out of work.

The socialists in Washington have more and more of your hard-earned money to spend and hand out to their voter base, which I believe is their real goal.

I know many folks have taken a look at the Greece meltdown and shake their heads at the mess the EU is in. Well, the U.S. has a whole bunch of Greeces. They are called California, Illinois, Michigan, New York and New Jersey, just to name a few.

Bottom line is this spending has got to stop, but the socialists have no intent on stopping. So they will have to be stopped by the voters at the ballot box this coming November or else they will be stopped by the international credit market in the not too distant future.

It's like the old Fram oil filter commercial. We can pay them now, or pay them later.

More Jobs 'Unexpectedly' Lost

We're on 14 months of 'unexpected' job losses now since The One took office. You'd think the state-run media would figure out we're on to them with this 'unexpected' nonsense.

Companies in the U.S. unexpectedly cut payrolls in March, according to data from a private report based on payrolls.

The 23,000 decline was the smallest in two years and followed a revised 24,000 drop the prior month, data from ADP Employer Services showed today. Over the previous six months, ADP’s initial figures have overstated the Labor Department’s first estimate of private payroll losses by as little as 2,000 in February to as much as 151,000 in November.

Companies are still hesitant to add workers until they see sustained sales gains and are convinced the economic recovery has taken hold. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News anticipate the government’s report April 2 will show payrolls increased by 184,000, in part due to temporary hiring by the federal government to conduct the 2010 census and because of better weather compared with February.

Of course last month they blamed the snow for job losses. This month they attribute betetr weather to job gains. At least the spin is consistent. As summer approaches then the job market should be booming, right?

A Solid B+: Economy 'Unexpectedly' Sheds 85,000 Jobs

How's that change working out? Oh, sorry. I shouldn't use the word working. Naturally all this was "unexpected" by the experts.

U.S. employers unexpectedly cut 85,000 jobs in December, government data showed on Friday, cooling optimism on the labor market's recovery and keeping pressure on President Barack Obama.

The Labor Department said November payrolls were revised to show the economy actually added 4,000 jobs in that month rather than losing 11,000 as initially reported. With revisions to October, however, the economy lost 1,000 more jobs than previously estimated over the two months.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 10 percent in December.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected nonfarm payrolls to be unchanged last month and the unemployment rate to edge up to 10.1 percent.

High unemployment is one of the toughest domestic challenges facing Obama. The administration's success in getting people back to work will shape prospects for Obama's own political future.

Unemployment remains the Achilles heel of the economic recovery that started in the third quarter of 2009 following the worst recession in 70 years. Creating jobs is critical to sustaining the economic recovery when government stimulus fades.

For the whole of 2009, the economy shed 4.2 million jobs, the department said.

That's 4.2 million jobs not saved or created. Still, Reuters desperately tries to prop up Obama.

Still the job market continued to show broad improvements last month, with a number of sectors showing gains.

Broad improvements that resulted in the loss of 85,000 jobs?

Say what?

Oh, the media has such hopes.

A U.S. government report on Friday is expected to show the economy stopped shedding jobs last month for the first time since it fell into recession two years ago, easing a political weight on President Barack Obama.

A Reuters survey of 84 economists on Thursday forecast nonfarm payrolls would be flat in December after dropping by 11,000 in November, far fewer than in previous months.

Sigh. The experts had it wrong again.

I'm sure by the end of the day this will be spun as a "victory" for Obama.

Home Sales Plunge 'Unexpectedly'

It was "unexpected" since by now all Americans were supposed to be safely ensconced in the home of their dreams with Barack Obama paying their mortgages and utility bills, health care was going to be "free" for all, the world was going to love us again, Club Gitmo was to be shuttered, thereby improving our "image" around the world, Obama would have reduced the sea levels while eliminating mythical global warming and shiny magic unicorns would be delivering toys for all the kids. Or was that Santa Obama?

Whatever, you have to laugh at these clowns from AP. Whenever it's depressing economic news somehow it's unexpected. Seriously, what alternate reality are they living in?

Sales of new homes plunged unexpectedly last month to the lowest level since April, a sign the housing market recovery will be rocky.

The 11 percent slump from October's pace shows that consumers are taking their time following an extension of a deadline for first-time buyers to qualify for a tax credit. The incentive was set to expire at the end of November, but Congress pushed back the date to April 30 and expanded the program to include current homeowners who relocate.

"They don't have to act today," said David Crowe, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, who called the results "pretty awful."

Of course for those living here on Planet Earth, none of this was unexpected.

Builders clearly saw the drop coming: the National Association of Home Builders said last week its index of industry confidence fell to the lowest level since June. The trade group blamed high unemployment and a slow economic recovery that are stifling demand.

Those who produce know the reality. Those who take, take, take and produce nothing (read: Washington and the media), for them reality is what they want to believe on any given day.

H/T Jed.

Hope, Change and 10.2% Unemployment

Here we go again: Another 190,000 jobs not saved or created. Naturally, according to the "experts" it's more than expected. Let's just consider them new members of the funemployed.

U.S. employers cut a deeper-than-expected 190,000 jobs in October, government data showed on Friday, driving the unemployment rate to 10.2 percent, the highest in 26-1/2 years.

The Labor Department said the unemployment rate was the highest since April 1983 and October's non-farm payrolls loss was the smallest since August last year. It revised job losses for August and September to show 91,000 fewer jobs lost than previously reported.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected payrolls to drop by 175,000 and the jobless rate to edge up to 9.9 percent from 9.8 percent in September.

Uh, What Happened to Those Jobs You 'Created or Saved'?

One day he pretends his porkulus scam saved or created (make up a number) jobs, but now today Barack Obama warns everyone to brace for more job losses.

Speaking at a White House meeting of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board, Obama said the current pace of job losses was "distressing" and would not improve quickly.

"We anticipate that we are going to continue to see some job losses in the weeks and months to come," Obama said.

But ... but ... but what happened to "creating and saving" jobs, Barry?

In other economic news, a certain motor company that refused government aid shows a huge profit. No doubt they'll soon be a target of Obama and his merry band of anti-capitalists.

Obama's Economic Bridge to Nowhere

Many are starting to doubt the staying power of the GDP growth just announced.

President Barack Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke built a bridge they anticipate will lead to a lasting U.S. economic recovery. It may end up being a bridge to nowhere they want to be.

The economy grew in the third quarter for the first time in more than a year, propelled by emergency programs to boost buying of cars and homes, according to Commerce Department figures released yesterday. Policy makers are betting those temporary measures will pave the way to a self-sustaining expansion as companies hire and consumers increase spending.

The risk is that the biggest government intrusion into the economy since World War II will leave the U.S. saddled with trillions of dollars of debt and not much to show for it. The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression may have shaken companies and consumers so much that their spending won’t be enough to replace federal support.

Third-quarter growth “was boosted by the various fiscal stimulus policies,” Harvard University professor Martin Feldstein said in an e-mail. “The danger remains of a serious slowdown after this and a possible double dip” of the economy in 2010, he said.

Consumer spending on cars and homes helped power the 3.5 percent annual pace of growth. Sales at Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford Motor Co. and Detroit-based General Motors Co. were spurred by the government’s “cash for clunkers” plan, which expired in August. Builders including Miami-based Lennar Corp. benefited from a first-time home-buyers tax credit that may be extended beyond its Nov. 30 expiration date.

Excluding sales, production and inventories of vehicles, the economy grew 1.9 percent last quarter, the Commerce Department said.

As many have pointed out GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government spending.

The problem that you have with the government spending part of it is this comes at the cost of debt and higher taxes. When you take away the impact of the auto industry manipulations, the GDP growth was 1.9% according to the article above. That is pitiful and nothing to get excited about.

By the way, the Obama administration is claiming 650,000 jobs saved or created by the stimulus package so far. I highly doubt the accuracy of those numbers. How do you calculate jobs saved? You make the number up is what you do.

What I do know for a fact is that 3,000,000 jobs have been destroyed since Obama got into the White House. That is reality. I also know that we have about 14.5 million unemployed, and many are losing their unemployment benefits every day.

And this situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

Obama Repeating Mistakes of the Great Depression

The Obama Administration is repeating some of the same policy errors that were made during the Great Depression that served to lengthen the economic doldrums. One of these is setting tariffs on imports in the misguided fantasy that this will save jobs.

President Barack Obama’s decision to place tariffs on tires from China may be the opening move in a campaign for fewer trade barriers, based on the strategy used by his four predecessors.

Obama announced duties Sept. 11 of 35 percent on $1.8 billion of automobile tires from China, acting on a complaint by the United Steelworkers union that surging imports were pushing U.S. factory workers out of their jobs.

Former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush each took action to protect domestic industries early in their terms before making free trade a focus. Obama, like Clinton, has the added challenge of trying to satisfy trade-wary Democratic lawmakers and the unions that helped them win election.

This only works if you are the only country that can set tariffs. But what quickly happens is other countries retaliate, put tariffs on your goods, and trade slows to a crawl, thus shrinking economic production. So why is Obama doing this?

Pure politics.

“It does buy him some credibility with Congress,” said William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents exporters such as Boeing Co. and Microsoft Corp. The decision to impose tariffs may improve the prospects for congressional acceptance of new trade accords sought by the administration, he said.

That's correct. Obama is doing this just to pander to his left-wing base, to heck with the actual impact on the economy.

Now Obama wants to jack up the cost of fossil fuels through Cap and Trade specifically to make such fuel so expensive that we have to go to "green" alternatives. He admits that openly. But now he is trying to also get us to think that doing the same thing to goods like tires will be a good thing.

Amazing.

And yet, you will see economic illiterates everywhere talking about how they think the economy is improving.

Hang on folks, it's going to be a very bumpy ride, and look for the market to pull back.