A Half Million Here, A Half Million There
Pretty soon, you’re talking about a real depression:
The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to a seasonally adjusted 551,000 from 534,000 in the previous week. Wall Street economists had expected an increase to 535,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.
The increase comes after three weeks of declines. Weekly claims have been trending down since the spring, but the decline has been painfully slow. The four-week average, which smooths out fluctuations, dropped to 548,000, about 110,000 below its peak in early April.
Okay, so it may not be as bad as April, but isn’t 548,000 a week over four weeks still well over over 2,000,000 a month?
Even the good news is suspect:
Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity, jumped in August by the largest amount in nearly eight years even though personal incomes continued to lag.
…
A 24.1 percent jump in the sales of new motor vehicles — due mainly to the clunkers program — led the overall increase in August. Excluding new auto sales, consumer spending rose 0.9 percent, though economists worry that activity will fade in coming months.
In other words, the battery’s dead, and the attempt to jump start the engine has failed.
Unemployment is likely at 9.8%, on the way to 10+, and Obama struts about, crowing about all the jobs he’s saved.
Let’s remember what we were promised:
Without the recovery plan, we were told, it would be economic armageddon. We should have been so lucky. At least they could find a job in Armageddon. (”Bring out your dead!”)
Joe Biden keeps talking about the fabulous improvement on the economy he’s seen from the stimulus, but thus far, those effects have mostly been limited to the White House.
That’s literally true. Government is the only sector of the economy that’s growing.