posted on January 28, 2004 07:53:27 PM new
Bush Jr is going down like his old man.
The financial media and Bush would have you believe that all the "ducks" have lined up for the economic recovery, except one - the weak job market. Yet at today's meeting, the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at 1% (a 40-year low).
The go-go cheerleading on Wall Street and the White House seems to fly in the face of the central bank's position. In other words, if this "recovery" is for real, why is the Fed Funds rate not at 3% or higher?
Let’s see if we can find an answer in a couple of economic reports.
This week's release of data showing assets and liabilities of the U.S. commercial banks reveals that commercial and industrial lending has been steadily decreasing: from $964 billion in December 2002, to $892 billion this past December.
And this morning's figure for December durable goods orders (orders for manufactured items expected to last at least three years) was flat to boot! None of the "experts" expected a flat line for December after November's 2.3% dive.
It seems that despite the rock-bottom interest rates, U.S. manufacturers are neither borrowing, nor spending much on new equipment. Nor are they doing much hiring (in the U.S., at least), keeping the job growth slow.
Clearly, the manufacturing sector lacks a "firm grip on their own recovery." And the Fed cannot raise rates because that would slow down commercial borrowing -- and hiring -- even more.
Consider what well-known economist Dr. Kurt Richebächer, a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal and Barron's, wrote recently in the Daily Reckoning newsletter (italics added):
"In the consensus view, the U.S. economy is breaking out of its anemic growth pattern... We strongly disagree with this assessment. The growth spurt in the third quarter was exceptional, due to a one-off splurge in tax rebates and a burst in the mortgage refinancing wave. As to investment spending, what essentially matters is the change in total nonresidential investment, and that continues to show virtual stagnation... All the economic growth of the past two years, anemic as it was, is traceable to a seemingly endless array of asset and borrowing bubbles... first the stock market bubble; then the bond bubble; then the housing bubble and the associated mortgage refinancing bubble."
posted on January 28, 2004 08:25:56 PM new
Yes but I will say something and then the usual posters can tell me how I have no training in economics.
Well I have seen no economic theories that are not regarded as a joke by the next generation of economists.
Anyway - we are not facing a typical cyclic downswing. That is a component. But every cycle is getting closer to unstability. The very nature of our economy is changing. Once people got good enough at producing food that a large number of them could make other material goods.
In time the market for non-food goods came to be the dominant market.
Now we have gotten so good at producing material goods that we don't need the people to do so.
But what will the idle move on to? Sevice work is limited. There is no market that sees intellectual products or art as a neccesity.
Somehow we are going to have to find a balance between the concept that if you don't work you do not deserve to eat or have goods and the fact that when work is not needed you still need to eat. Saying well starve then will not work.
There has to be a way to reward those that do work enough to satisfy them and yet distribute enough to those that are not needed to stop civil unrest.
Socialism failed by making the one contributing according to his ability subordinate to the one consuming according to his need.
In a society tha is rich beyond need if a young person wants to travel and see other countries and cultures why not?
And if we don't need his back behind a shovel why shouldn't a man study butterflies or handbuild aircraft or do paintings? Why begrudge that use of time?
But how to distribute wealth without robbing the creator? And how to bestow it without contempt or robbing initiative?
Perhaps if instead of letting the banks create a larger money supply to lend as the economy grows the government could distribute the increased money supply to individuals.
There would still be a place for banks but their function would be slightly different.
And the central bank would more directly administer the economy because the money they issued would go into circulation more readily than in the present system.
Any ideas you have of what COULD be please put forth. But one thing for sure is there will be change. The present system is not stable.
posted on January 28, 2004 09:01:54 PM new
Gravid, and others, you're going to think me nuts for saying so, but, start growing your own food, start raising your own livestock (if you like to eat meat) ; produce enough cotton to weave your clothes; tap a well...
Nope, I'm not a "survivalist" -- I expect to go in the "first wave" due to my proximity to San Francisco -- but as more and more governmental control has taken hold in my neck of the woods, I've sought to circumvent it. Tomatoes -- nasty-tasting, limpid rose-colored tomatoes -- are $1,50 each in the grocery store. Heck, I can grow heirloom Beefsteak 'maters in my back yard! I've congregated with a handful of neighbors who all enjoy gardening to grow specific things. At harvest time, so-and-so swaps some of his corn for some of so-and-so's peppers; someone else trades tomatoes for squash. Probably, this is the only form of "communism" to which I'd ever subscribe -- because it works, and builds strong community ties, and, independence...
posted on January 29, 2004 03:09:27 AM new"There is no market that sees intellectual products or art as a neccesity".
But that subscribes to the very system you'd deride. There wuld have to be an accepted redefinition of such terms as contribution, worth, build, and value amongst many more which will be impossible before the deaths of generations of backward thinking republican dinosaurs and the prevention of their progeneration. Just by using the phrase "there is no market" you exhibit the symptomology of all that ails us.
posted on January 29, 2004 04:26:03 AM new
slavien - You are right. What has to happen is that those things have to be valued but not as a market commodity that gives you income. They can not be sustained as a product in a cash economy.
smith -I wish I could be more independant like you are saying but I have gone the other way living in a condo and having other people cut my grass and clean my pool because I have arthritis so bad I can't do those things.
All those people who want to go up in the hills and return to nature to some degree had better be very healthy. That sort of independance requires a lot of physical ability. A back up plan is in order in case they do get to sick for that sort of life.
posted on January 29, 2004 07:23:19 AM new "At harvest time, so-and-so swaps some of his corn for some of so-and-so's peppers; someone else trades tomatoes for squash. Probably, this is the only form of "communism" to which I'd ever subscribe -- because it works, and builds strong community ties, and, independence..."
The system is not *ideal*, Pat .
I grow enough tomatoes to feed the neighbors but they reciprocate with booze.
posted on January 29, 2004 05:36:42 PM new
ARTIST: Guy Clark
TITLE: Homegrown Tomatoes
Lyrics and Chords
There's nothin' in the world that I like better than
Bacon, lettuce and home grown tomatoes
Up in the morning and out in the garden
Pick you a ripe one, don't get a hard 'un
Plant 'em in the springtime eat 'em in the summer
All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin and the diggin
Every time I go out and pick me a big'un
/ C - / F - / G7 - / C - / :
{Refrain}
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What'd life be without home grown tomatoes
There's only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes
You can go out and eat 'em that's for sure
But there's nothin' a home grown tomato won't cure
You can put 'em in a salad, put 'em in a stew
You can make your own, very own tomato juice
You can eat 'em with eggs, you can eat 'em with gravy
You can eat 'em with beans, pinto or navy
Put em on the side, put em on the middle
Home grown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle
{Refrain}
If I could change this life I lead
You could call me Johnny Tomato Seed
I know what this country needs
It's home grown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cold dark cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
Where I could be pushin' up home grown tomatoes
posted on January 29, 2004 05:49:13 PM new
Great song, KC!
A very dear friend of mine, who grew up in extreme poverty, has mentioned, with great fondness, dining on 'mater gravy more than once as a child...
There truly is no excuse for the sorry washed-out tomatoes in our grocery stores. And they cost a bloody fortune, while tasting not at all like tomatoes! If nothing else, anyone, anywhere, can tend a potted tomato plant. It will easily yield enough for two throughout the summer while requiring nothing more than water, sunshine, and a little fertilizer. That "real tomato taste" is one of life's pleasures.
posted on January 29, 2004 06:07:59 PM new
Yes, I lov'em too, so delicious and nutritious. I consumed many growing-up and you can't forget the fried green one's!
posted on January 30, 2004 03:33:03 PM new
Here's an excellent opinion in the recent US News and World Report by Mort Zuckerman...hardly someone you would characterize as a "liberal" . He has supported the current administration in most things, but as an actual conservative, sees the danger in this government's obscene spending.
posted on January 31, 2004 10:26:15 AM new"Inflation is dead. Deflation is here, now."
Perhaps this is why Bush is spending so much money.
The Q4 GDP came in at 4%, a full point below the consensus estimate of 5%, and far below the dizzying 8.2% Q3 jump.
Besides the GDP report, a host of other economic data was released today. Buried among it was a report about inflation that, not surprisingly, did not get much attention from the media. The Wall Street Journal mentioned it only briefly:
"Inflation slipped during the period (4th quarter of 2003). The government's price index for personal consumption, an important gauge for Federal Reserve policy makers, slowed to a 0.6% rate from 1.8% in the third quarter. When that indicator comes in below 1%, the Fed begins to worry about 'excessive disinflation.'"
So when does this worrying begin? Despite the fact that the broadest measure of the money supply (M3) has declined 2% since August of 2003 (the largest contraction since 1944!), Alan Greenspan has dismissed deflation as a non-issue on several occasions. Now that the growth of the personal consumption price index, this "important inflation gauge," has slowed by two-thirds in the 4th quarter, can we expect Mr. Greenspan to stop acting like his fellow economists and face the facts?
We've warned about the danger of deflation for years. Here's what Bob Prechter wrote on January 9 in The Elliott Wave Theorist. Long quote, yet well worth reading:
"Virtually everyone believes that inflation will accelerate. Stock-market bulls think that the economy is going to boom, bringing inflation. Bears expect an inflationary, if not hyperinflationary, monetary crisis. Economists believe that the Fed can inflate at will and is committed to an inflationary policy. The only articles mentioning deflation in recent months have declared the prospect for it “dead.” This consensus is not merely overwhelming but reflects a belief as vast and deeply held as a religion. Against this backdrop of conviction, M3 since September has undergone its largest decline in 60 years (see graph, December issue), which is real, actual, deflation. What’s more, it has declined despite the strongest quarter of economic growth in decades, the lowest interest rates in half a century and a central bank committed verbally and by action to facilitating the expansion of credit! There is no interest rate spike or recession to explain away the decline in the money supply. The PPI has been flat for three years, and now even the CPI has had a down quarter.
"The dichotomy between what is happening and what people think will happen is colossal. Inflation is dead. Deflation is here, now. The money supply might rebound for a quarter or two as the stock market and economy top out, but at the largest degree of trend, the new deflationary trend will persist, and it will accelerate. The monetary trend is no longer close to the edge of the cliff; it is beginning to slide down its face. Participants are so drunk with inflationary certainty that they don’t even know that deflation is happening. They will remain oblivious until well after stocks reverse and turn down, signaling a change in social psychology."
Indeed, consumer sentiment reached its highest reading since 2000. The public is totally unprepared for what's coming. The arrival of deflation has immediate implications for the trends in the U.S. dollar, the stock market, and the U.S. economy as a whole.
If this situation of deflation is true, then it would be prudent to stop all personal spending that isn't absolutely necessary. Your saved money will be worth more as prices drop. I would also keep some "under the bed" so to speak and not in a bank.
Stocks should be unloaded too, as deflation will wreak havoc on companies that have large capital investments and will then cause a ripple efect in all companies.
posted on February 2, 2004 11:29:31 PM new
slavien: There wuld have to be an accepted redefinition of such terms as contribution, worth, build, and value amongst many more which will be impossible before the deaths of generations of backward thinking republican dinosaurs and the prevention of their progeneration. Just by using the phrase "there is no market" you exhibit the symptomology of all that ails us.
Well, it looks like we got ourselves a modern day Stalinist here! You'll fit right in here with all of the unAmerican liberals!
posted on February 3, 2004 06:44:24 AM new
There is an interesting discussion of deflation here
Excerpt....
The Debt Trap
By this point, you're probably be wondering: What does debt -- and America's love affair with the stuff -- have to do with deflation? Well, if the current disinflation does turn into genuine deflation, Americans may find out what they have to do with each other, in which case they will probably wish they hadn't.
If deflation raises the purchasing power of each dollar in wages, it unfortunately has an identical effect on each dollar of debt. As prices fall, the "real" value of existing debt increases, even as the incomes available to pay that debt tends to shrink. Debt burdens can soar out of control, triggering a cascading wave of defaults. This, in turn, destroys the balance sheets of lenders, particularly the banks, which can cause the money supply to shrink and prices to deflate even faster.
It was just this kind of "debt-deflation" meltdown that helped turn the 1929 stock market crash into the Great Depression. A milder case turned the 1990s into a lost decade for the Japanese economy. The Southeast Asian economies might have gone the same route following the 1997-98 financial crisis if not for the stimulus provided by their soaring trade surpluses with the United States.
The traditional weapons against deflation are monetary easing (lower interest rates) and fiscal stimulus (bigger budget deficits.) But these already have been applied in massive quantities over the past few years -- without, at least so far, reversing the underlying disinflationary trend, even if they have taken some of the sting out of it.
A particularly worrisome sign is the fact that despite falling interest rates, the mortgage refinancing boom and the Bush tax cuts, household debt service burdens -- the shares of disposable income that must be devoted to repaying principal and interest on outstanding loans -- have remained near the peak they hit in the last recession:
~
Also, Brad DeLong has good commentary published bi-daily about the economy.
Brad DeLong
Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley
Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research
Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives
Columnist, Wired
Columnist, Project Syndicate
posted on February 3, 2004 09:49:47 AM newThe traditional weapons against deflation are monetary easing (lower interest rates) and fiscal stimulus (bigger budget deficits.) But these already have been applied in massive quantities over the past few years -- without, at least so far, reversing the underlying disinflationary trend, even if they have taken some of the sting out of it
Interest rates must be reduced more and the debt government deficit spending must get much bigger. We are importing deflation from a Chinese work force that makes 60 cents a day and there are billions of them.
I would argue that as large as our economy is, we can not consume the deflationary pressures from China.
China is the sea which all rivers that flow into it are salted
posted on February 4, 2004 10:40:44 AM new
Companies Limit Health Coverage of Many Retirees
Employers have unleashed a new wave of cutbacks in company-paid health benefits for retirees, with a growing number of companies saying that retirees can retain coverage only if they are willing to bear the full cost themselves.
Scores of companies in the last two years, including the telecommunications equipment giants Lucent Technologies and Alcatel and a big electric utility, TXU, have ended medical benefits for some or all of their retirees and instead offered to let them buy coverage through a group plan. This coverage is often more expensive than many retirees can afford.
Experts expect that the trend, driven by the fast-rising cost of health care, will continue, despite the billions of dollars that the government will distribute to companies that maintain retiree health coverage when the new Medicare drug benefit begins in two years. In contrast to pension financing, companies are not obligated to set aside funds to pay for retirees' health benefits, and the health plans can usually be changed or terminated at the company's choosing, with no appeal available to the retirees.
The costs can be a shock. According to surveys by benefits consultants, companies that offer health benefits to retirees typically have subsidized about 60 percent of the premium. Losing that support all at once can mean hundreds of dollars a month in unexpected costs.
Moreover, in dropping their subsidies, many companies push retirees into insurance pools that are separate from those of younger, healthier workers, executives said. That lowers the company's costs for insuring its current workers, while raising the premiums charged to retirees even further.
James Norby, president of the National Retiree Legislative Network, an advocacy group that is urging Congress to strengthen legal protections for retired workers, said companies that charged for formerly covered benefits had found "a clever way of getting out of the contract they made to people who had been retired for 15 or 20 years."
Employers that are shifting costs to their retirees often present the change as a benefit: although the company is no longer subsidizing coverage, premiums are usually lower than for individual policies, and the retirees do not have to worry about being rejected by insurers because of their age or prior health problems.
The emergence of these plans "is a very significant trend," said Frank McArdle, a health policy expert with the Hewitt Associates benefits consulting firm in Washington. "Even though it's not subsidized health coverage, retirees, particularly early retirees under age 65, still have access to a group product that they could not readily duplicate on their own." Those with medical problems are often rejected by commercial insurers, he noted.
But those considerations are little comfort to some early retirees. Eloise Bolt, 56, who took early retirement in October 2002 from her job as an information technology project manager at TXU in Dallas, said that she was "really hurt and really angry" when her monthly insurance premium which also covers her self-employed husband soared from the $100 she had paid when she was working.
According to Ms. Bolt, TXU said that the $100 represented 20 percent of the total premium, and that on retirement after 24 years with the company, she would be paying 60 percent. But instead of rising to $300 or so, as she had expected, her monthly premium jumped to $659, and rose to $725 this month, with a higher deductible.
"The math does not work out," said Ms. Bolt, who abandoned her retirement plans and took a $9-an-hour job as a secretary to pay for the insurance.
Debbie Dennis, a TXU vice president, said that retirees' premiums were figured separately from those of active employees and then "segmented" within the retiree group according to age, length of service, medical history and actuaries' estimates of a person's future use of health services.
When TXU trimmed its retiree benefits at the start of 2002, the company announced that all employees hired since Jan. 1 of that year would have to pay the full cost of health benefits when they retired. Like other companies, TXU which has 12,000 employees and 8,000 retirees is encouraging younger workers to save for their future health costs. TXU is promoting participation in the company's 401(k) retirement plan. It matches employee contributions up to 6 percent of their salary.
"New employees can plan for these costs with money in their savings plan," Ms. Dennis said. "They will still have access to the lower cost of the company's buying power."
Last year, only 36 percent of companies with 500 or more workers still offered a retiree medical plan to at least some retirees not yet eligible for Medicare, down from 50 percent in 1993, according to a recent survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
Last month, a study for the Kaiser Family Foundation by Hewitt Associates found that among employers that have maintained retiree coverage, about 15 percent have required at least some retirees to assume the full cost of their insurance in the last two years. Another 31 percent said they would probably adopt these so-called access-only health plans within the next three years.
"Twenty years from now, no company will offer retiree health care," Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton University, said.
Mr. McArdle of Hewitt said that the roster of companies offering retiree health benefits had dwindled as medical costs soared and employers encountered new competitors, both overseas and at home, that rarely covered retirees.
According to the Kaiser-Hewitt survey, the average monthly health insurance premium for an employee who took early retirement last year was $845, including coverage for the spouse. So early retirees who lost the typical 60 percent subsidy would face added costs of more than $500 a month.
The impact would be less severe for people 65 or older who are covered by Medicare; retiree benefits for them, when they are offered, are usually the equivalent to so-called Medigap supplements to Medicare. In the Kaiser-Hewitt survey, the average premium for employees who retired at 65 last year was $419, including coverage for a spouse.
Lucent Technologies, whose business went into a free fall with the popping of the telecommunications bubble, adopted an access-only health plan this year, but only for the spouses of 9,000 management retirees who had retired since March 1990 with annual pay of $87,000 or more.
William Price, a company spokesman, said the cutbacks were necessary to keep Lucent which has 22,000 United States employees but provides health benefits to 240,000 retirees and their spouses "viable and competitive."
Many retirees are bitter about such changes. "I took the offer to retire in 2001 mainly because they were protecting health care benefits," said Edward Beltram, 58, a former Lucent human resources manager who lives in Woodland Park, Colo., and must now pay $375 more a month to maintain coverage for himself and his wife.
Mr. Beltram, who worked for Lucent and for units of a predecessor company for 31 years, added, "I feel they have reneged on their promises."
Jerry Martin, who retired in 2002 after 17 years with TXU, planned to pay the full cost of the company's retiree health benefit for himself and his wife. But he dropped the coverage after TXU's actuaries revised their estimates, and his premium jumped from $1,224 a month last year to $2,066 on Jan. 1, 2004, dwarfing his $1,276 monthly pension and leaving him angry.
"They say, `We won't worry about these people that are going to get old,' " said Mr. Martin, a 56-year-old computer technician.
With retiree health costs continuing to spiral, more and more companies are planning to reduce or eliminate retiree health benefits especially prescription drug coverage without waiting for the new Medicare drug benefit to become available in 2006, said Marianne Fazen, executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth Business Group on Health, an employers' group.
One employer in her area, Alcatel, a French-owned telecommunications company whose North American operations are based in Plano, Tex., recently announced that it would reduce subsidies for all retirees immediately, and end them in 2006.
Many companies, especially retailers with high turnover and low-paid work forces, and technology companies with relatively young workers, do not provide retirees any health benefits. Intel, an exception among technology companies, provides an access-only plan for retirees and helps out by providing $1,500 for each year of eligible service, to be used only for premiums in the Intel retiree health plan, said Gail Dundas, an Intel spokeswoman.
People who retire and start their own business or join a small firm may welcome the chance to pay a group rate, said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, a research organization supported by large employers.
"It's an important interim step," said Tricia Neuman, a Medicare policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which sponsors health care research. "This is better than tossing people out into the individual insurance market, and it is a richer benefit than is available under Medigap," the supplementary coverage that Medicare beneficiaries can buy.
Encouraging workers to save for these costs, employers like Deere & Company, the tractor manufacturer, and financial service firms like Fidelity Investments are calling on Congress to establish new retirement medical benefit accounts that would resemble 401(k)'s for health care.
"We're looking for a tax-advantageous way for folks to start saving," said Mert Hornbuckle, vice president for human resources at Deere.
posted on February 4, 2004 10:52:36 AM new
And which democratic presidential candidate is going to reverse this on-going trend in strapped companies? lol
But I understand...IF we put a dem in office he'll be sure to raise our taxes, maybe to as high as the 50% Canadian's are paying, so we can all have some sort of national health insurance.
We'll pay for this one way or the other....nothing's free.
posted on February 4, 2004 05:17:49 PM new
these days a retiree at 65 is a young man,he could remarry a woman in her 30s and have a child.
would the whole family be covered by his company retiree plan??
-sig file -------the lobster in the boiling pot of water who tries to prevent the others from climbing out.
posted on February 6, 2004 09:48:42 AM new
stopwhining - I'd guess that his insurance would be the one covering the whole family. That is unless the new bride also was employed, then her plan *could* be covering just her, or the whole family.
------------------------
I see the glass as half full - there is improvement, again.
quote from MyWay News:
Feb 6, 11:57 AM (ET)
By LEIGH STROPE
WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's unemployment rate dropped to 5.6 percent in January to the lowest level in more than two years as companies added just 112,000 new jobs - fewer than expected but enough to keep alive hope for a turnaround in the struggling job market.
The jobless rate fell 0.1 percentage point last month to the lowest level since October 2001, when it was 5.4 percent, the Labor Department said Friday. January's rate matched the 5.6 percent posted in January 2002.
Employers added new jobs last month at a pace not seen in three years. The last time payrolls expanded more than 112,000 was in December 2000, when companies added 124,000 positions.
But economists were disappointed, saying they had expected a larger increase of 150,000 new jobs or more.
"It is not disastrous news, but it is definitely disappointing," said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services.
Added Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics: "This economy under normal circumstances should be generating 200,000 to 300,000 a month" in new jobs.
Analysts are looking for monthly payroll gains of 300,000 or more for sustained job growth, and the economy remains far from that mark.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the lower jobless rate means the president's job and growth plan is working.
"Since August of last year, there have been 366,000 new jobs created," McClellan said. "The unemployment rate of 5.6 percent is well below the average of the 70s, 80s and 90s. ... Today's report is another sign that the economy is continuing to grow strong and that jobs are being created."
The report sent stock prices slightly higher on Wall Street in morning trading.
Job growth is expected to be a key issue as November's presidential election nears, and President Bush could be vulnerable. The economy has lost more than 2 million jobs since he took office, giving him the worst job creation record of any president since Herbert Hoover.
Still, January's hiring gains marked the fifth straight month of increases, and followed a revised 16,000 new jobs added in December, better than the 1,000 initially reported.
Friday's report "is good news for workers, and it's yet another sign that the economy has turned the corner and the nation's job market is getting stronger," said Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. "The economy has created jobs in each of the last five months, with hundreds of thousands of Americans finding new jobs."
posted on February 6, 2004 10:24:57 AM new
An accurate comparison to the unemployment rate during the first term of the clinton administration and our unemployment rate now. Pretty close at the same point in time. Important FACT to take into consideration when constantly referring to the job losses.
As in clinton's administration the normal cycle will continue and in BUSH'S SECOND TERM OF OFFICE we'll see the lower unemployment numbers too.
------------------
Data extracted on: February 6, 2004 (1:12:23 PM)
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey
Series Id: LNS14000000Seasonal AdjustedSeries title: (Seas) Unemployment RateLabor force status: Unemployment rateType of data: PercentAge: 16 years and over
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual
posted on February 6, 2004 12:58:14 PM newThe unemployment rate of 5.6 percent is well below the average of the 70s, 80s and 90s. ... Today's report is another sign that the economy is continuing to grow strong and that jobs are being created
It is well below the average because Bush has refused to move towards getting Congress to extend unemployment benefits.
The ONLY reason the unemployment rate went down is because more people ran out of benefits and are no longer counted as unemployed.
I recall first hand the 70s and early 80s. Unemployment benefits were extended 2 or 3 times.
There is no positive spin on this economic situation.
We are teetering on economic disaster because Bush lacks the ability to preside over a modern economy, international relations, or the war on terror.
It's time to give someone else a chance to run things. Bush must go.
posted on February 6, 2004 01:11:23 PM new reamond - The ONLY reason the unemployment rate went down is because more people ran out of benefits and are no longer counted as unemployed. Which was exactly the same way it was when the unemployed fell off the 'count' during the clinton administration....as their unemployment count went down. No different now than it was then.
