Still hemorrhaging jobs:
The number of people filing initial claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, while the number of people filing claims on an ongoing basis rose to a record high for the 15th straight week, according to a government report released Thursday.
A total of 637,000 people filed new claims for jobless benefits in the week ended May 9, the Labor Department said. That’s an increase of 32,000 from an upwardly revised 605,000 in the previous week.
I guess we can throw “Sure, we are losing jobs but at least the rate of job losses slowed” out the window. Anyone who uses the phrase “green shoots” should be viewed as a lunatic.
Walker
Two words: Sucker’s Rally
The next few years are going to be like the ups-and-downs after ’29. I only pray that Obama gets a clue before his term is up. Waking the automobile investors with 363 was a good start, but he needs to do the same thing with the banks.
bago
I’m not asking for unemployment benefits, but yeah, it’s starting to be that time. The snow melted in the northern hemisphere and flying south is expensive when you are unemployed.
sparky
Maybe we can also stop paying attention to whether “banks” report “profits” and “pass” “stress tests.” I understand the value of talking things up, but this country has gotten itself into a blind drunk in an alleyway by drinking 25 years’ worth of “Morning in America” koolaid. More sauce is not the answer, this time.
sparky
@Walker: na ga hap en. that would require Obama to do a 180, and that only happens when Cheney sez to do so.
/commence flame war!
zzyzx
…or we could be overreacting due to one bad week…
It’s not like movements are always smooth and go in one direction only.
WyldPirate
I’d say they need a new talking point. That’s quite an impressive rate given that the “work force” consists of ~65 million, it works out to be about 1% of employed people losing their job every week.
That alone should let the numerically literate know that the 8.&% U3 unemployment rate is BS. Will the media point that out? Not likely. Why? HEads up their backsides….
demimondian
@zzyzx: This week’s numbers weren’t actually the significant ones. Last week’s numbers, though — they were. Remember how big a deal it was that they were lower than expected? Guess what? The BLS restated them higher, and now they’re right in line with previous expectations.
That’s the real bad news in this release.
demimondian
@WyldPirate: Not really. A certain number of people are idled every week in most industries, but many of those are quickly rehired. That’s less true in unionized or highly skilled shops, but it’s the norm in non-union, medium- or low-skill positions.
Labor unions: they aren’t *just* for health insurance.
The Moar You Know
@zzyzx: Please, cite me one fundamental that would indicate that this economy is on the mend. Anything. Are we borrowing less from China? Has the US dollar grown stronger? American job creation on the upswing? Has someone found a magic wand that will fix the Alt-A and CRE mortgages that are hanging out there waiting to destroy what’s left of America’s net worth?
Fuck, please give me the good news. From where I’m sitting we haven’t even hit bottom yet.
Jon
So, Steigliz and Dr Doom are lunatics? This jobs report is no real surprise.
Walker
@demimondian:
This is exactly the game that NAR played with housing all throughout late 2007 and 2008. They would latch on to month-to-month when that data was noisy and never stabilized until three months later. So they would shout up a gain, which would get revised away the next month.
This is also why this second derivative fixation that everyone had last week is ridiculous.
Morgan Bird
Unemployment is a lagging indicator. I don’t know that the economy is getting better – I’ll leave that to the economists – but if it were, employment numbers are the last place you’d see it. I’ve seen charts and whatnot elsewhere that show unemployment generally continues to increase even after a recession has technically ended.
WyldPirate
@demimondium:
The labor participation rate is falling off a cliff. Most of those people you refer to are not getting hired back.
If what you refer to is diminishing the impact, it’s “breaking effect” has dramatically lessened. Otherwise, the unemployment rate wouldn’t be going up.
El Cid
I’m so glad all the good centrists fought off the liberal extremist fringe types who thought the ‘stimulus’ bill should be much larger and incorporate much more direct job creation, because, shut up, that’s why.
Dennis-SGMM
California’s unemployment rate is around 11.5% right now and it’s not getting any better despite having a diverse economy. When unemployment gets this high even “good” mortgages start going into foreclosure at higher than normal rates. State revenues are dropping so fast that next year’s state budget deficit is looking to be $20Bn and that’s if all of the ballot props pass.
We have not begun to see the bottom of the recession. Anyone who says that things are looking up is just whistling past the graveyard.
Rick Taylor
Atrios agrees with you:
People want to be optimistic, partly because they think it will help (Geitner using the word ‘confident’ umpteen million times in Charlie Rose’s interview annoyed me), and partly because they want to. Look at how conservatives tried to spin any reduction in the violence as great progress, and have declared the whole thing worthwhile simply because the situations isn’t nearly as bad as it was at its nadir.
Comrade Jake
And most of you ignored me when I pointed out that Jim Cramer was on The Today show a week ago claiming that things are really turning around and people should start buying stocks. As soon as he said that I knew we were really screwed.
Michael D.
@John Cole:
Geez. Give the president a break. He’s only been in office for 114 days!! Good lord!
Al Davis has more patience. :-)
itsbenj
yeah, for now anyone talking about how the economy has turned the corner has to be viewed as just plain nuts. I don’t care what other indicators are maybe pointing in the right direction if you look at every single thing from a best-case scenario.
employment is a lagging indicator, and won’t improve overall until a year or so after the recession is over. they’re really trying to convince people that a slightly less bad than expected jobs report ONE month meant that they economy was better now? that is just freakin’ pathetic.
in fact, any high officials trying to milk such a report for good press indicate that things are probably still worse than we think. because if anyone really believed we were on the mend for good reason, you wouldn’t have to seize on these fluctuating numbers and declare them necessarily ‘good’.
when we have a trend where unemployment moves solidly back in the other direction for, say, six consecutive months, I’ll be happy to break out the bubbly. in the mean time, it seems like we’re watching in slo-mo as our government, collectively, just stands there saying ‘duuhhhhhh’ while picking its nose.
zzyzx
@Dennis-SGMM: “We have not begun to see the bottom of the recession. Anyone who says that things are looking up is just whistling past the graveyard.”
Perhaps, but I like whistling. And there’s the reverse trend of trying to make the situation sound as bad as possible, so someone has to fight that off.
The fact is that we have all of this data but no narrative. Our minds like to form stories and we’ll do whatever it takes to make one even if we really don’t have enough information to do so.
Max
I work in the retail real estate industry and from that perspective, the screaming has stopped and we’re in less of a free-fall, but we haven’t stabilized just yet. My retail tenants are hoping for a better than LY holiday season and I think by then, consumers will be more optimistic and ready to do some shopping. I sure hope so.
I do think we will stop falling by the end of this year and will see a turnaround by Q2 2010.
Fulcanelli
As long as it’s easier and far more profitable for investors to lend and shuffle money around both in the US and globally than it is to startup, run and manage new businesses here in the US this will continue. And get used to it, because this problem will not be solved from the top of the business world down, but from the ground up.
I wouldn’t recommend hyperventilating over your support of Obama every time the job report comes out, unless of course you like that sort of thing. Until Geithner, Summers and Volker wake up with a horse’s head in their bed and get serious about banging heads on Wall St. this will continue. You can’t un-spoil the rich with out consequence.
Joshua Norton
It’s OK, Glenn Beck is doing his bit. From Craig’s List:
Full-Time Staff Writer (Midtown)
Reply to: [email protected]
Date: 2009-05-13, 9:01PM EDT
Mercury Radio Arts is the New York based production company owned by Radio and TV host Glenn Beck.
Mercury seeks a writer for contributions to Glenn’s radio program, magazine, and web site. The ideal candidate will have a strong interest in news, current events, and politics.
Key responsibilities will include contributing original content to GlennBeck.com and to Glenn’s radio program and magazine. Writing will include a mix of short pieces and long articles, fact-based commentary on the news of the day, etc.
Requirements:
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Research skills
• At least 2 years of journalism experience
Get those resume’s polished up.
Still, judging from his show, there’s no way Beck needs someone with research skills or journalism experience, and I’m kind of doubtful about the written and verbal communication skills as well. He should just hire from among the postings on his “blog”. Surely the genius who came up with: “The recession is sexist. It’s targeting men.” has all the necessary qualities.
Fulcanelli
@Joshua Norton: Wanna bet that’s a decoy to flush out rabid wingers?
Douche Baggins
Silly people — of COURSE you can infer a trend from two lines, if it suits your narrative. You want evidence? Watch CNN whenever they’re using their 1.5 hectare plasma displays to discuss economics. The innumeracy, it burns.
I used to work for a precision optics company. Yielding good parts was a combination of clever manufacturing, artistry, and luck. My boss, the VP of sales, would tell me to manage my customers’ expectations, because in their minds, “If you can do it once, you can’t do it — but do it twice, you can always do it.”
Comrade Dread
Since I’m still in the running to be a new Republican thinktank pundit, I’d like to suggest that the way out of this economic malaise is for the United States to amend accounting rules with the Golf law: the higher your negative numbers, the better your overall economic health and credit scores.
And you get two mulligans per economic cycle where if you completely fuck up your business, you can revert your accounting books back to the point just prior to going off the rails and start over.
Also, rich people need more tax cuts.
Joshua Norton
@Fulcanelli: There’s something strange about it. The “requirements” would make the person way more qualified than Beck. Proper apostrophe usage and the equal-opportunity disclaimer make this suspect. Also.
wasabi gasp
The days of having two Frenchmen in every ass are over. Think twice before pulling one out.
someguy
Nobody wants to talk about the rules for unemployment reporting. Once you’ve been jobless for 6 months, you are no longer reported as “unemployed.” You go into a category called “long term unemployed.” There are statistics for that but it isn’t reported much. When you account for the nearly constant 6-8% unemployment we’ve had for a year and a half now, and the fact that we’re losing jobs at a rate of 1% per month over the last two years or so, actual unemployment – 6 month plus long term – is probably closer to 15-18%. What that means, is we’re approaching a no shit depression.
The definition of unemployment seems like a pretty grievous lie but I’m cool with it because the 6 month rule makes everybody happy. People who don’t have a job for a long time no longer have to define themselves as “unemployed.” What could possibly be better than no longer being unemployed? Plus politicians have a tough life and shouldn’t be forced to deal with the fact that we may have breadlines soon. So everybody wins.
Thanks President Bush and Capitalism!
Ash Can
And in the meantime, the House GOP featured a WaPo article on the front page of their website (h/t GOS) a couple of days ago that discusses state governments having to lay workers off despite receiving stimulus funds. These fine Republicans claim that this article is vindication for their opposing the stimulus bill and proof that in fact the stimulus caused layoffs.
…Except that the whole point of this WaPo article was that the cuts in the stimulus that (mainly GOP) members of Congress demanded and won resulted in stimulus funds to the states that were inadequate to prevent layoffs.
House GOP: dishonest or simply stupid?
Well, OK, that was a trick question. In light of the fact that Cantor and Company are using taxpayer money to fund their GOP rebranding effort, I’ll admit that the answer is pretty obvious.
Fulcanelli
Progessives should start and hammer relentlessly at a meme questioning the patriotism of Wall Street facilitated by Congresscritters who’ve been putting Americans out of work by shipping jobs and industry overseas for the last 25 years while Wall St. enjoys record profits gambling with the 401k’s of the middle class only to hand us the bill when they screw up. There’s so much devastating low hanging fruit evidence of this and it would be great fun watching Limbaugh and the other propaganda artists wiggle out from under this one with “teh base”
Comrade Kevin
@Morgan Bird:
I’ll take that under advisement when I’m filling out my unemployment request in a couple of weeks.
Robertdsc-iphone
What king of government jobs program could cover all these people? With the wide array of skills in the workforce, surely anything the President could come up with would have to be titanic in scope. Not sure that could pass in Congress.
Of course, i think every centrist who fought for cuts should have all their fingers broken and their hands stapled to their desks, but that’s me.
Mr. Stuck
Obama is just catapulting the propaganda (Or, how many Unicorns does it take to screw in a light bulb at the end of the tunnel?)
HyperIon
Calls for confidence are no different from suggestions that we all clap harder for Tinker Bell. Now I don’t know much about econ but I’m thinking that clapping harder is NOT going to improve the enconomy. But the interweb and 24 hour news cycle have to be fed…
WyldPirate, re: demimondium
good one.
i like it even better than demi-god.
HyperIon
@zzyzx:
IMO there are already 35 narratives here.
maybe you are trying to say: we don’t really know WTF is going on.
Elie
While clapping harder may not improve the economy, calling it a total disaster with no end in sight isn’t going to help much either. I don’t see how banging and banging on how bad things are or are going to continue to be provides anything but depression.
As for assumptions that if the stimulus had been bigger, if Obama had done x with the Banks, etc — none of this would be happening and 130 days into the new administration, all would be fixed — c’mon – get a grip..
We are and have always been in for a long haul recovery as well as all the fixes needed in other related areas to fix the numerous things that are wrong with our country after 8 years of Republican crazy. (Sometimes I still get the impression that many here thought that this was going to be easy and follow smoothly and quickly from a couple of good policy decisions — just like that)
The question for me is how do we maintain decent morale to continue to push forward to try to solve these issues without over candy coating either. That said, I am pretty realistic that there is no easy fix ahead and I will be very glad on a personal level to have a job a year from now but can’t take anything for granted. Oh — and that is not Obama’s fault that he can’t fix that for me by now.
HyperIon
@Elie:
But the post was about how people seem to be grasping at straws to claim that things are getting better. Not about how everyone is calling it a total disaster.
There IS a middle ground, however. STFU about predicting where the economy is now and tomorrow.
Micheline
This is so frustrating the solutions are there but we lack the courage to put them in place:
* Implement a WPA style program.
* Reduce the principle in homes
* Limit credit interest
* Put cram-downs into place
* Nationalize the banks they need to be fumigated
Elie
Hyperlon —
In theory I agree about some middle ground. However, in practice, nature abhors a vacuum and how do you message a “middle ground”? I think that the administration tries to do that — saying things are “better” but we still have a ways to go, etc. Not saying anything at all is not an option. That is what is called letting others (Republicans, Wall Street and other self interested parties)do your messaging — and believe me, those other messages would not be good ones.
If YOU had that responsibility, which side would you err on, given that the perfect communication about our probably long drawn out and complicated situation will be in play a long time?
As for those (not you) who have just-like-that solutions that would fix everything and be pain free and politically feasible too — well — talk is always cheap.
If anyone has had the monster task of taking over a big project or role in mid stream, inheriting a bunch of stuff that you did not decide but has to be carried out in the best interests of the organization with as little negative fall out as possible but in an uncertain market or financial environment — YOU should know the drill. No one is your friend in uncertainty and transition…but if you succeed, everyone knew it all the time…
Stefan
What king of government jobs program could cover all these people? With the wide array of skills in the workforce, surely anything the President could come up with would have to be titanic in scope.
Three words:
World. War. Three.
Grisha
Woo hoo! That’s my week!
Without me it’s a mere 636,999.
TenguPhule
Liberal Reeducation Camps.
Chuck Butcher
IIRC the Pres and his crew started out talking about the economy turning the corner in the fall and I don’t recall hearing that prediction changed. I do recall hearing that the plunge was moderating or words to that effect.
Buying stocks; doing a generic buy at this point might make sense, but really the thing to do is look for some solid companies with underperforming stocks that have a firm business basis over the next couple years regardless of whether the economy is good or not and would recover early with an upturn. This is predicated on the assumption that the money invested is of no importance to you for the next couple years. I picked a couple types of energy stocks and they have stayed pretty flat over the last month.
The rationale is that short of an economic implosion their products have to be used and that usage has probably very nearly bottomed out. One is trading at 50% of the 52 week high and the other is at 40% of it and both are returning 3.8% in dividends (over 5x at 2yr certificate of deposit). Putting big money in two stocks is not a diversified portfollio, it is a risk. One company is a large nat gas distributor with gas and oil fields and heavy construction arm (pipelines & road/infrastructure) and the other is a very large independent refiner. My research into both companies shows that they are smart and forward looking, that is an opinion. I won’t name them or recommend them, this is only an example of my thinking on the subject.
I do not work in stock analysis and I am not a trader or otherwise interested in the market other than in general terms. I don’t watch financial channels or any such, but I do think about things – take this for what I’ve charged you for it.
HyperIon
@Elie:
i’m a scientist.
the whole idea of “messaging” controlling anything is off-putting. obviously it would never be MY responsibility. or wouldn’t be for long as i would quickly say “everybody STFU and i’ll let you know when we think things are getting better or worse.” then i would be hounded from office.
Elie
Hyperlon —
Ha,ha,ha — me too…
My husband is tackling a situation like what I described — new Executive Director to a not-for-profit with a lot of stuff going on and a lot of politics. He comes home every night exausted but he knows its the long game. I try to support him best I can but its a lonely role — fund raising, kissing ass for opportunities, endless grant applications with few resources and a Board with incredible expectations…
I just torture myself in middle management in a health care informatics organization — no power but lots of responsibility…
We all know and live this. Its going to take time. Meantime, let us enjoy the spring and have some good times too with our friends and loved ones — You too!
Cheers!