The job market continued its long, steep decline in August, with the jobless rate soaring to 9.7 percent and employers continuing to shed jobs, albeit at a slower rate than expected.
Analysts generally believe that economic output began rising by late summer. But new Labor Department data released Friday morning shows that that improvement isn’t yet flowing through to the job market, as employers remain highly reluctant to add staff.
Don’t be glum, wingnuts…this is a sign of [url=http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/57335-white-house-defends-stimulus-despite-job-figures]recovery and the wonders of porkulus![/url] But funny how Europe managed to climb out of recession, despite not spending anything like $800b.
Their recovery may have to do with the fact they did not fall as far. Their capital markets are far more regulated than ours. As I recall the Reps tore down all of the walls between banks, investment banks and insurance companies which were set up after the Depression to prevent things like the economic collapse of 2008 from happening. Had Glass-Stegall and the other laws enacted back then not been repealed, the collapse would not have occurred. In fact this very collapse was predicted by many at the time Glass-Stegall was repealed.
Also, not all agree on the stimulas results.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125185379218478087.html
Obama’s administration menaced us with the specter of 9% unemployment if the porkulus bill wasn’t passed, with the post-porkulus rate topping out at 8%, then going down. By the administration’s own measure, their $800 billion spending spree has made things worse.
That is nutty. While not defending Obama, the information used to project the unemployment rate was developed during the Bush Administration and was way to low in the first place. An effort no doubt to play down the seriousness of the situation. While those who call themselves conservative will continue to try to tar Obama with the economic collapse it falls squarely in the laps of Republicans in general; not George Bush. Republican zeal to deregulate, so that Wall Street investment bankers could get their hands into everything resulted in the exact collapse that was predicted from day one. To say they forgot the lessons of the last stock market crash was be extremely generous. They did not forget, they simply ignored those lessons, because, short term profits for friends and contributors was more important than the well being of the country.