<a href = "http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=&e=1&u=/ap/20030703/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy_37" target="_about">Jobless Rate Hits 6.4 Pct., 9-Year High </a>
The economy's in the toilet, the unemployment rate is rising, millions have lost health coverage, states can't pay their bills, schools are shutting their doors, countries hate us, American soldiers are dying daily, the federal deficit has never been higher and our rights are being stripped away. Oh, and our "President" lied about why we went to Iraq and what he knew about the Sept. 11 attacks. And this guy's a favorite in 2004 why?
WRONG F*ING FORUM. It's Friday (in all practical sense)...I have no desire to have our happy wasting-time-at-work-while-I-watch-the-clock forum poisoned by this partisan politico bull****. Just my $.02
you can lay the budget shambles, soldiers dying daily, civil rights being taken away and many other examples directly at W's feet. Yes he did do all that by himself
I consider myself pretty liberal, but how the hell is the jobless rate Jr's fault?!!? Oh yeah.... wrong friggin forum too.....
Unemployment is natural to any market economy. The rate fluctuates due to a myriad of factors, the majority of which Bush has no control over. Economic policy enacted by the government usually suffers from lag time before its effects are seen. I imagine we are seeing the results of the Clinton presidency more than anything.
.....and the Dow and Naz are up, why? The markets don't care about this report, because job losses are fewer than expected.
U.S. stocks weaken after sluggish jobs report Thursday July 3, 12:34 pm ET By Julie Rannazzisi NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- U.S. stocks tripped Thursday on surprisingly soft data on the job market, though losses were stemmed by the release of a strong report on the services sector. A total of 30,000 nonfarm jobs were lost last month vs. the milder 3,000 decline that had been the expected by economists. Adding to the weak tone, May's payroll loss was revised to 70,000 from the 17,000 that had first been reported. "[This is] clearly going to be viewed badly by the market, which is looking for economic data to support its performance gains of the first half of the year. Payrolls are not, and are unlikely to be for a while, the source of strength the market is looking for," maintained Mat Johnson, economist at Quantit Economic Group.
If the economy is in recovery, it is a jobless recovery, just like during his father's administration. By the way JH, the Dow ended today down 57.
As much as I question Bush's stances on the war in Iraq equating the unemployment rate to his strategies is foolhardy. Currently the unemployment rate is at allegedly 6.4% ( I say allegedly because the official rate is usually skewed up ), whereas optimum efficient unemployment rates are around 4.5% to 6%. THough most would think an unemployment rate like 1% to 2% would be great like it was a few years ago, it is a negative on the economy. With unemployment rates very low, corporations spend more than the worth of employees to keep them and turnover is higher. This is also a cause of wage-cost inflation which has a much higher cost. One of the main reasons Greenspan and the FED didn't lower rates earlier than they did was because they were worried about inflation based on the very low unemployment rate. Today's unemployment rate spikes might also reflect the enormous amount corporations spent in the late 90's on technological innovation to significantly increase worker productivity. Most changes in corporate spending, fiscal or monetary policy take years to actually effect the economy on a level that we can view in productivity or unemployment. It can even be presumed that most Presidents affect the next President's economy more than their own.
Yeah, the Naz was down a bit too. Even still, job loss is less than expected, and that is why the markets disregard this information. Reasonable people can agree that Congress, both Democrat and Republican, created the stock market bubble by giving accountants the leeway to become "creative". Add 9/11 to the equation, and who is surprised that we are having economic problems? To blame this on Bush is ridiculous. This downturn was a foregone conclusion, no matter who won the last election. The test for Bush economic is how quickly and effectively they can get us back on the right track. So far, they are passing the test. By the way, we are only 1.4% away from "full employment". We have been spoiled by the prosperity of the 90s, and need to put the 6.4% number into perspective.
Sorry, my initial reaction was wrong. I had the last jobs report and reaction on my mind, along with 100 work items, and spoke before I thought. *doing 20 pushup penalty*
Might wanna read the article again... A total of 30,000 nonfarm jobs were lost last month vs. the milder 3,000 decline that had been the expected by economists. edit: Damn heath you are quick to reply! Doing obligatory crunches as my pennace for reposting the article parts.
Isn't it amazing how Republicans can, with a straight face, continue to blame Clinton after he has been out of office for 3 years. The other thing I want to know is, why is this the wrong forum for this discussion? Isn't this a political forum? Don't the unemployment rate and the economy qualify as political issues?
