Employers added fewer jobs than forecast in November and the unemployment rate unexpectedly increased, vindicating the Federal Reserve’s decision to pump more money into the economy to spur growth.
Payrolls increased 39,000, less than the most pessimistic projection of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, after a revised 172,000 increase the prior month, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The jobless rate rose to 9.8 percent, the highest since April, while hours worked and earnings stagnated.
More jobs are needed to sustain the holiday-season gains in consumer spending, the biggest part of the economy, into the new year. Payrolls aren’t growing fast enough to lower the jobless rate, one reason why Fed policy makers announced a new round of monetary stimulus.
According to one economist just I heard we need 13M jobs to get back to 6% unemployment. At 39K per month that would be approxmitely April of 2017 (assuming zero population growth). Thank goodness for hope and change.
“Employers added fewer jobs than forecast in November and the unemployment rate unexpectedly increased, vindicating the Federal Reserve’s decision to pump more money into the economy to spur growth.”
Vindicated? What about the other $1.5 trillion already “invested” by the Fed? How’s that worked so far?
#1 My sentiments exactly. He’s bought the conservative view generally, hook, line and sinker. He’s been a fine legislator, but has listened only to the most conservative members of his staff.
#2 A couple things happened. Federal stimulus is fine. But then the states lost income. They ended up firing lots of people and deflating demand. So whatever the feds did wasn’t enough to make up for the states lack of spending.
Obama could have done a better job of getting money into the hands of the people rather than help the banks have more capital. If he had listened to Keynes, he would have understood that shoring up the banks equity won’t improve confidence: only demand will, and banks are under no obligation to spend.
Too bad.
John Wilkins:
You and I are poster children for the possibility that two people can look at the same data, and draw diametrically opposed conclusions!!
Have a great weekend.
unexpectedly!! and remember it’s George Bush’s fault.
RE: “You and I are poster children for the possibility that two people can look at the same data, and draw diametrically opposed conclusions!!”
But he didn’t draw diametrically opposed conclusions. He drew the collectivist conclusion in keeping with his ideology and then lied by calling it “conservative.”
SOP.
Sarah, perhaps our friend John realizes the “its Bush’s fault” mantra has worn thin so he has to explain our President’s incompetence by saying he is “too conservative.”
In a different thread on this page John castigates another poster for use of the conservative/liberal labels and queries whether definitionally liberal means wrong and conservative means right.
In any case I was taught in school that collectivism/socialism/communism’s core definition is public ownership of the means of production.
Although the President and his supporters avoid the socialist label for political reasons, Obamacare (ironic title) and the present government/union ownership of GM and Chrysler are collectivist policies to use Sarah’s term.
Our President is likeable and smart, but largely incompetent due to lack of life experience and wisdom. He is more worried about jews building apartments in Jerusalem than he is muslims constructing nuclear weapons in Iran.
He can’t figure out how to create jobs with 3 trillion in cash. So he is reduced to stating the unprovable as fact: that he saved the world from depression.
If the vast amounts of cash being redirected to gold are indeed “smart money,” we’ll see what he saved us from.
William #2, why do you think Obama is smart or likeable? I don’t see where he has done anything to demonstrate either, I think he’s a product of the affirmative action movement and white guilt (and yes, the latter caused the former).
for a chronicling of the word “unexpected” re: the unemployment figures click here: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=unexpected
Chris, I distinguish between wisdom and intelligence. President Obama was Editor of the Harvard Law Review which requires significant brainpower. I do not admire intelligence like many though because you are born with it. Wisdom is the ability to make good decisions, which is not always based on IQ.
President Obama seems to be a good husband and father from what I can see.
Personally I am willing to like and even respect people with whom I profoundly disagree. We do not need to “demonize” those with whom we disagree and when we do, we usually lose the argument because people quit listening.