Jobless claims rose again and the media is flapping it's jaws and claiming to be surprised or saying the rise was "unexpected".How many readers are surprised? How many people truly find the news unexpected?
For those living under a rock let us point out the latest unemployment rate rose to 9.1.
There has been a very public battle between Democrats and Republicans in Washington to change the course of the last two-in-a-half years where Democrats want to throw more good money after bad to "stimulate" the economy (after the first stimulus package failed so spectacularly) as well as their stock-in-trade solution of raising taxes, and Republicans trying to pass a package that would Empower Small Business Owners and Reduce Regulatory Burdens, Fix the Tax Code to Help Job Creators, Increase Competitiveness for American Manufacturers, Encourage Entrepreneurship and Growth, Maximize Domestic Energy Production to Ensure An Energy Policy for the Twenty-First Century and Pay Down America’s Unsustainable Debt Burden and Start Living Within Our Means.
Media outlets are not supposed to be living under those rocks though, they are supposed to be caught up with the latest news and events, so when you see something like bloomberg's headline screaming "Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Climb in the U.S.", or Reuters with their first paragraph stating "The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid unexpectedly edged higher last week," you have to wonder why these people are still in business.
Initial claims for state jobless benefits increased 1,000 to 427,000, the Labor Department said. However, economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims dropping to 415,000 from a previously reported count of 422,000.
The rise kept first-time claims perched above the 400,000 mark for the ninth week in a row. Analysts normally associate a level below that with steady job growth.
"It's the same dismal trend continuing. It's not getting worse, but it's not getting better either," said Keith Hembre, chief economist at Nuveen Asset Management in Minneapolis.
Unexpectedly?
I am no economist, just a lowly blogger, yet I expected it.
In fact, yesterday I provided three graphs where people could see, at a glance, just how badly Obama's incompetence and policies have failed to stimulate the economy, failed brilliantly to create conditions for job growth. and has done more damage in just 2 1/2 years than any president has ever done.
Yes, that includes Jimmy Carter.
I am not the only non-economist that is not surprised and finds the recent bad news about the economy and jobless claims totally "expected".
Rasmussen shows consumer confidence is done, The Hill reports that one in three likely voters expect to be worse off when they go to the polls a year from this November, Wall Street Journal reports that the average job seeker gives up after five months, and remember the official 9.1 percent unemployment rate does not include the over two million workers that are able and want to work but didn't seek a job in the 4 weeks prior to the government unemployment survey. Last but not least 65 percent of likely voters believe the country is on the wrong track.
It was reported by CBS News recently that chronic unemployment is worse than that in the Great Depression with 45.1 percent of all unemployed workers in this country being jobless for more than six months. Then we have the news that 1.7 million graduating college students in the 2011 class are facing the greatest unemployment numbers among their demographic in U.S. history.
All of that and more and the mainstream media keeps trying to convince their readers that the bad news coming out a mile a minute is "unexpected".
No wonder Sarah Palin calls them the "lame-stream media".
They are either lying to their readers, completely clueless and biased or too busy carrying Obama's water to bother with reporting the actual news without spin and then expecting their readers to buy their crap hook, line and sinker.
Either way I am sick of seeing the word "unexpected" in headlines and stories when the majority of the country damn well does expect the bad news because they are keeping up as the polling shows.
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