American Unemployment Rate Approaches 10%

[DGuller]

Beacuse it means we are bottoming out. Hopefully.

What about summer employment distortion? I'm sure it is not as noticeable over there, but in Spain tourism reduces drives up employment during the summer significantly.

All employment figures are normally seasonally adjusted.

[Hansmeister]

oh yeah, I forgot.  Fannie mae and Freddy Mac are the type of institutions supported by Reagan. And so are laws like the Community Reinvestment Act that force lending to unqualified people. 

As usual, good job on pounding on the factors that are least responsible for the current meltdown.  Fannie and Freddy were an abomination, but they were much more of a victim of the meltdown rather than the root cause.  CRA was also ill-conceived in theory, but in practice greedy lenders issued far more garbage loans than CRA required.

Also, CRA does have a good function.  The moment someone mentions CRA as the reason for the meltdown, you can safely assume that they're blowhards with no critical thinking or interesting insights on the matter.

[Hansmeister]

Beacuse it means we are bottoming out. Hopefully.

What about summer employment distortion? I'm sure it is not as noticeable over there, but in Spain tourism reduces drives up employment during the summer significantly.

All employment figures are normally seasonally adjusted.

We also don't have a large seasonal summer tourism industry, compared to many southern european countries.  Unemployment is more likely to rise during the summer as new graduates enter the workforce.   Acual unemployment plus underemployment in the US is currently actually at around 16%.

[Neil]

When Obama was arguing in favor of the stimulus he claimed that without the stimulus the unemployment rate would rise to 8.9 percent by this summer and with it it would top out at 7.9%.

Would be nice if we actually had a news media in this country pointing out the utter failure of the plan.  Alas, we merely have a cheerleading section.

This was sort of one of my points, but I'm not sure what you're saying.

"Obama was wrong! Recession was worse than people thought it would be at the time!"

that Obama's stimulus bill was a fraud.  It did nothing to stimulate the economy, indeed, that was never the purpose of the bill.  It was a vehicle to expand the reach of the state.

It didn't do a good enough job of that.

[Sheilbh]

Beacuse it means we are bottoming out. Hopefully.

Things are getting worse more slowly which is a good thing.  People aren't afraid any more which is why consumer confidence numbers are doing well  and some businesses are beginning to expand again.

But, I'm aware that a number of the big retailers in this country think things will still get worse and retail tends to be an early indicator.

[Berkut]

Also, Reagan does have a good function.  The moment someone mentions Reagan as the reason for the meltdown, you can safely assume that they're blowhards with no critical thinking or interesting insights on the matter.

Indeed.

[Razgovory]

Not our precious Reagan!!!!1

[Razgovory]

So it's Obama's fault for scaring America with with the specter of high unemployment and it's also his fault that there was high unemployment.

[citizen k]

...and retail tends to be an early indicator.

Really? I thought it was more of a lag indicator.

[Sheilbh]

...and retail tends to be an early indicator.

Really? I thought it was more of a lag indicator.

Yeah.  If you exclude certain sections (effectively car sales) then I think retailers tend to suffer and recover early in recessions.

[Martinus]

...and retail tends to be an early indicator.

Really? I thought it was more of a lag indicator.

Yeah.  If you exclude certain sections (effectively car sales) then I think retailers tend to suffer and recover early in recessions.

Makes sense. They are most vulnerable to consumer confidence fluctuations, but also have some of the lowest fixed costs, percentage-wise, of all industries.

[The Brain]

Is America done for?

[HisMajestyBOB]

So it's Obama's fault for scaring America with with the specter of high unemployment and it's also his fault that there was high unemployment.

He should have made the unemployment numbers a state secret. Then American consumers wouldn't be frightened and could resume spending us out of this mess.

However, the pace of job loss is slowing and was much lower than expected. Which I think is a lot more interesting.

Why so?

Beacuse it means we are bottoming out. Hopefully.

It's always darkest before things go pitch black.

[Admiral Yi]

As usual, good job on pounding on the factors that are least responsible for the current meltdown.  Fannie and Freddy were an abomination, but they were much more of a victim of the meltdown rather than the root cause.

How so?

[Ed Anger]

Is America done for?

Yes.