Sort Of Good News On The Jobs Front

Pretty snappy response, though, given it's only 120 days into the Obama administration.

Guess which "news" network will report only the additional job losses, as evidence of a "failed approach."

Swampland is apparently at 28 top political blogs. WTF? Plus I don't like their stupid rating system.
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http://www.wikio.com/blogs/top/politics?start=20

Fifty - Repeat after me: the recession is bad, and is likely to get much worse before it gets better. Obama's policies have not yet had time to take effect. It's going to be a long process.
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Now, I don't necessarily believe all of those things, but if you start sounding too celebratory and things don't improve that quickly, Dems are going to be accused of a "Mission Accomplished" situation.
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In other words, DON'T count your chickens before their hatched. But once they're hatched, scream to the rooftops "look at all those d*mn chickens!" And make sure to point out that the Republicans have no chickens . . . no chickens at all.

vastwastelander:
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I understand your caution. However, I'm not "starry eyed" about this. There are steadily increasing indications that the economic situation is improving. Among them is that this is the fourth month in which there has been a slowing of the growth of unemployment.
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I think you make an excellent point though, and in the future, I will make sure to add caveats until I'm sure it is a "mission accomplished".

Thank you. My husband and I keep noticing full parking lots, busy stores, lines at the gas station and were wondering what gives? Commercial and residential developments are halted until further notice, but when stimulus grant construction begins I believe those will resume as well (previously too many were being built too fast anyway IMO.) I'd venture to guess that the "lucky" ones who are employed are severely overloaded as business owners cut expenses any place they can. Eventually they'll figure out their product / service is suffering and start hiring.

And still no one is counting the under-employed and the ones who have flat out given up. Count them and the unemployment number goes much higher.

Amen, queencersei. Wouldn't that be a number to look at how well Obama's programs, policies and decision making abilities are working?

Let's retire the whole "Mission Accomplished" thing. It's going to be compared to the infamous banner for many, many years.

sacredh - Agreed, for the most part . . . just want to avoid history repeating and all . . .
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I think liberals have been persona non grata for so long that we're likely to start running victory laps prematurely, just to prove that we're good enough, smart enough, etc. Ya know?

vastwastelander: I'm hoping we can get some concrete results before we start blowing our own horns. Promising indicators are all well and good, but until the turnaround is unmistakeable, I'd just as soon see us err on the side of caution. Even waiting until the critics have admitted that things are improving is fine by me. When it's time to gloat, I'll gloat.

It might be helpful to note what Obama's promises were with respect to the "stimulus" and job losses. Has the "stimulus" really done a whole lot? A lot of money is going to be borrowed and spent--did we get a bang for our buck?
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Isn't that the question journos should be focusing on?

spob:
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If my statement at the lead indeed portends the reality that follows, you and your filthy brood will be gone as you will be totally, and completely irrelevant in the process of rebuilding our country.
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And unlike you, and your "party", diversity will be a fixture in this country, as it has always really been, despite the years of GOP bs.
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At that point I will wish you simply this:
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Good riddance, and take your act to hades...

"A lot of money is going to be borrowed and spent--did we get a bang for our buck? Isn't that the question journos should be focusing on?"
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Only on the micro level where cause and effect can actually be measured and analyzed. On the macro level the "bang" is what didn't happen - a complete global financial collapse (or something not quite as bad but still much worse than we are experiencing - and we'll never know what that was or how bad, comparatively, it would have been. And there are still a number of economic land mines yet to be exploded that are not of Obama's making nor necessarily under his control.
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Some are known, like the recasting of tens of $billions of ARMS starting next Spring and the "toxic assets" that still sit on the books of the big banks, though we don't know how much they will cost in the end. Some day we'll be able to know whether certain policies like the Obama/Geithner bank plan made sense but probably not for a very long time.

53_3, wow is all I can say. I guess I must have struck a nerve. I guess you're tired of getting your butt whipped in here, so you spew forth invective. Invective's fine, but you gotta mix it in with some argument. All I did was ask a question. And who says the GOP isn't for diversity? Hell, in Illinois, GOP pols and big-city Dems collectively keep the corruption in place. And hell, Franklin Raines showed everyone that big-time financial shenanigans aren't just the province of whites.
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sw, but didn't Obama promise certain results on the jobs front as a hammer to get the "stimulus" passed? Certainly that's part of the conversation. And I am not sure that a bunch of borrowing and future spending will have a stimulating effect.

"Guess which 'news' network will report only the additional job losses, as evidence of a 'failed approach.'"
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FO, perhaps, after you explain how the power of states to disenfranchise felons emanates from the Equal Protection Clause or the Due Process Clause, you could explain how Obama shouldn't be asked about how his projections with respect to job losses haven't really panned out. Remember all those "shovel-ready" projects?
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It's amazing to me that I would be called evil for simply point this out. Of course, blasphemy always brings out calumny. Guys, "Obama said it; I believe it; that settles it." makes you look pretty silly when he flip-flops or when his magic wand doesnt work (and by the way, when you tout your selection to be the Democratic nominee for president as the day the planet started to cool and oceans reversed their rise, i get to call him your saint).
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By the way, gas prices continue to creep up. I can't wait to see what cap and trade does to energy prices. How's the economy gonna take that gigantic regressive tax?

queencersei said:

And still no one is counting the under-employed and the ones who have flat out given up. Count them and the unemployment number goes much higher.

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Well, actually... those are major parts of the numbers. Just not the numbers most people quote. And it only takes having taken a close look at employment numbers one time in your life to know that all those things are closely counted.
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And if you include a few economist's blogs in your reading list, if you've included any liberals you'll also see those issues discussed on a day to day basis.
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Just because you're not paying attention, doesn't mean that nobody else is.
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And no I'm not going to spoon feed you links. If you care at all about jobs, or the economy generally, or even just politics, you should research this at least once to have a general idea of what is tracked, and what people are choosing to talk about, and choosing not to talk about, when they cite the "unemployment rate."
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The difference between the numbers is quite striking compared to the historical proportion.

spob,
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The amazing thing about the stimulus was that they were claiming that we would actually see substantial job gains from it in 2009! It is only June, dude.
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Look, I know this is hard to comprehend, but "shovel ready" is not a "Just Add Water!" jobs kit that springs forth armies of workers with nerf shovels.
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What it actually means, regardless of the mental image you get when you hear that combination of words, is projects that are far enough along in the planning process to start spending money on them right away. It does not mean that construction starts tomorrow. There are still always some steps you have to take once the project "is go" that you can't take during the planning. On large projects, you start now, and most of the hiring happens a few months or even years later. And that's going on on a massive scale right now, and is expected to create large numbers of jobs in Q4 2009 and many more in 2010.
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I hope this can help you make your trolling more topical. It's way funnier when you're close but too stupid than when you're just going moonbat and asserting the liberals are Marvin the Martian trying to blow up Earth.

hey ruby, perhaps you should learn how to read. First of all, "it's only June, dude" really doesn't address my criticism. Remember, Obama made specific comments about what the unemployment rate would be with and without passage of stimulus--those predictions haven't panned out. Second of all, moron, he's the one who touted "shovel ready" projects. Certainly, moron, now that things haven't panned out so well (as compared to what he said), it's certainly fair to mention that. Finally, genius, "creating jobs" in Q4 2009 may happen, but you also have to take into account the lost opportunity costs from taking all of the capital out of the private sector.
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Once again, an idiot clowns herself on the thread.

I forgot to ask you, ruby, you dummy, whether Obama's WAGs with respect to jobs should be part of the coverage of the unemployment figures. Of course, that was the thrust of the post you responded to. But I guess you're too dumb to figure that out.
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By the way, moron, "moobat" is not a term for the right wing--"wingnut" or "winger" are the proper terms. Funny how Joe Klein loves to use that Kossian term, "wingnut". What a clown.