Vague Jobless.
Team Obama Spinmeister Larry Summers is making the rounds on cable and with the newsprint types to prepare the public and especially the headline writers for a Shrek-ugly jobless number come Friday March 5. The spin is, Blame the blizzards of 2010. This is both careful and cynical Summers. Summers knows that the jobless figures are distortions of the scale of the problem, since the monthly figure is based upon people looking for work across sixty thousand households and does not take into account people who have stopped looking for work. Set aside the fact that we all know the unemployment rate on the first Friday of each month is a vague reference. Still, this March 5 number looks to be a bleary horror, especially in the non-farm payroll jobs lost detail. There is a small possibility that we are being set up for a surprise. Never too cynical with a 24-hr news cycle in the hands of the Obamanation.
Jobless.
The driving theme for the jobless rate is that companies are reluctant to hire or rehire because of uncertainty. The last weeks, Simon Constable and I have been pursuing what we call regime uncertainty caused by the four horsemen of the Obama administration: healthcare, cap and trade, financial reform and tax increases (Bush tax expirations). We have spoken with Charlie Dent of 15 PA, Shelley Capito of 2 WV, John Shimkus of 19 IL, and Adrian Smith of 2 NE, and each has told us a different version of uncertainty. Healthcare and cap and trade are the major risks for hiring in their districts -- with the cap and trade bill getting the most mentions. The weather is not mentioned. The expectation in the market is that the Shrek-ugly number on Friday March 5 will make the market go up and the White House gloomy. The disconnect continues between POTUS push on a healthcare monstrosity (abridged?) and the dread of the jobless. Storm continues.
Jobs market clouded by storms in February Economic Preview - MarketWatch
Payrolls have declined in 24 of the past 25 months. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch are forecasting that payrolls will fall by 85,000 in February, with much of the decline due to the weather. The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 9.8% from 9.7%
There was Snow in each of the 50 states at the same time, never happened before. Yes Hawa'ii has snow on the mountain tops.
Malls were empty, stores were too. Friend told me a letter mailed to Florida from NJ took 10 days!
WSJ did a good job to mention U of Chicago style economics helped Chile survive the great Concepcion earthquate much better than Haiti. Why does the Press ignore such obvious facts?
Wisdom
Don't put it past these people to blame joblessness on 'global warming' (cooling). Or Bush - anything but Obama's own policies. In fact, they will claim that we need to double down on health care, cap and trade, immigration, stimulus and whatever else. Look for Obama, dressed nattily in a fireman's outfit, to show up at a house fire with a can of gasoline, beating his smoke ravaged chest and mightily promising to put it out.
Maybe Obama is stupid. Maybe he doesn't know. None of my kids know, even after having graduated from major colleges. They still believe what Al Gore says. But, I would bet, that there are some in this administration who do know exactly what they're doing. And Friday's job numbers will make them smile.
Maybe Obama is not a Marxist per se. Maybe he is a racialist, as some have suggested. Maybe he seeks reparations for non-whites. Either way, it works out the same. Maybe Ahmadinejad is not crazy either; maybe he's not suicidal. Maybe he's just trying to prove that he's better than the ‘Great Satan' at forcing the region into his own brutal image. If he can convince the world that he's crazy, so much the better. All of us tend to cross over to the opposite sidewalk when we see the town drunk approaching. Obama is proof that dull stupidity is not nearly as effective.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/