LINKS re 'exhaustion from defending Obama': This is actually the FASTEST jobs recovery

[ProgressiveEconomist]

in decades, according to reporters from CNN and CNBC.

As usual, Fox 'News', the WSJ, and the rest of the far right's "mighty Wurlitzer" have created an alternate reality for tens of millions of Americans. You've really got to DIG to uncover the truth buried under hundreds of days of continually-repeated outright lies. IMO THAT'S what's really "exhausting" about the politics of economic recovery this year.

Several Sundays ago, Erin Burnett of CNBC stunned an MTP roundtable with her proclamation that we are experiencing "the fastest jobs recovery in decades".

Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke reversed the direction of job growth just SEVEN MONTHS after the December '07 Bush recession ended in June '09, compared to the nearly TWO YEARS it took to reverse the direction of job growth in 2001, after Dubya's FIRST recession. (See the CNN snippet below.)

But Dubya's job destruction is much more severe this time than his first time, affecting 7 percent of all jobs, compared to less than half half that for the 2001 recession.

It's going to take some time to restore all those millions of lost jobs, but Dubya's jobs sinkhole is shrinking now, rather than continuing to grow. How could anyone who knows recent economic history possibly expect any more at this stage?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LINK and CHART: Private sector job growth. Washington Monthly September 3, 2010

From http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_09/025514.php :



All told, the economy has added 763,000 private-sector jobs in 2010. For comparison purposes, note that the economy lost nearly 4.7 million private-sector jobs in 2009, and lost 3.8 million in 2008.

From http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/02/news/economy/jobs_recovery/index.htm :

By Chris Isidore, senior writer; September 2, 2010:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A jobless recovery? Hardly. By historical standards, the labor market is recovering nicely -- job growth has started earlier than in past recessions. ... Excluding the impact of temporary census jobs, the economy has added jobs every month since January. That's a much quicker peak than previous job market recoveries.

After the 1990-91 recession ended, the economy lost nearly 300,000 additional jobs in the 11 months that followed. And the 2001 recession was followed by a so-called jobless recovery that lasted for nearly two more years. "Sustained, positive job formation began earlier in this recovery than in the prior two recoveries," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute."

[MineralMan]

1. Thanks for posting that. Shortly, though, folks will be along

to tell you that those numbers don't mean anything and that it's Obama's fault. They're coming right behind me, I'm sure. K&R!

[MineralMan]

5. See. They're baaaack....

[ProgressiveEconomist]

106. Man were you right! I've never experienced such anti-Obama spam, and I counted

at least 20 "zags" as net recs "zigged" up to 19, went down to 13, and ultimately came back up to settle at 17. The total bounced between 13 1nd 14 so many times it reminded me of ping-pong.

[babylonsister]

2. Rec'd-this must make someone very unhappy. nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. This talking point is not good politics

It's tricky. Tricky isn't necessarily fatal if the argument supports existing prejudgments.

But...

nobody alive believes it. Literally true? Sure. But not true for what it implies. Since nobody believes the employment situation is good the talking point just makes the speaker less credible... even if true.

(Lawyers often think not in terms of their strongest arguments but their strongest arguments that the jury will believe. An incredible but true defense might be worse than a plausible but slightly deceptive defense.)

[MineralMan]

8. I don't know. The guy who used to deliver my newspaper quit.

He just got his old job back at the same pay. He said that the company was ramping up production again. It's not bad news for everyone out there. And there's more good news to come. Did you think all those jobs would instantly reappear? Look at the chart. It's a curve. And jobs are returning faster than in previous recessions.

I realize that's no comfort for people whose jobs haven't returned. But, the trend is there.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. 'Literally true? Sure. But not true for what it implies'. So IGNORE the truth because

the lies with which the other side floods the media are more persuasive?

Is THAT good politics?

[Techn0Girl]

19. The truth is that after 2 years we are STILL 75% in the hole....

from where we started.

There is NO jobs recovery.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

62. 'strongest arguments that the jury will believe' Great analogy. But our 'jury' of voters

has been tainted by huge blizzards of disinformation about the economy, health care reform, etc. What would Perry Mason do?

[Techn0Girl]

4. And choco-ration's been increased to 20 grammes !

If you actually know how to read that chart you will see that the area of the positive increase is only about 1/4 the area of the negative loss.

The chart you put up ACTUALLY says that in the past six months we have only made up 25% of the jobs that were lost in the first place. HALF lost while on OBAMA'S WATCH!

Aren't pictures pretty?
Facts are hard.

Hope you're choco-ration tastes yummy.

[MineralMan]

6. Ah, the choco-ration schtick again. And copied and pasted

from that other thread, too. Very good. Very fast. Brava!

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MineralMan]

12. Well, see...I'm a Democrat, and that's the current logo.

I've been a Democrat all my adult life. Logos change. My party affiliation never does. Lots of luck with your metaphors. Mix them carefully, won't you?

[Techn0Girl]

14. I've been a Progressive all my life....

OK, that;s a lie...my horrid family were republicans and I actually voted for Nixon in the first election I ever voted when I was 18.

But then I left home at 21 and by 23 I was a Progressive from then to now.

You be happy with your logo and I'll be happy being a Progressive.
And I am putting you on ignore because you always have little to nothing to say and are frankly annoying.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

43. How is what you've spammed this thread with "Progressive"? You are sliming

our President repeatedly, just weeks before a crucial election.

[Techn0Girl]

50. FACTS are neither spam nor slime....

Something I have to get through teabagger's heads every time.

There is NO recovery
Every working class American knows that from experience.

[BzaDem]

61. You are correct that facts are not spam or slime. The problem is that what you call "facts"

are not actually facts.

In fact, the more likely you are to say something is a fact, the more likely the OPPOSITE of that fact will be true.

[Brickbat]

7. If you do the math,

you find it's only 8 percent.

[Techn0Girl]

11. Thanks :) ... I was only eyeballing the chart and guesstimating...

but the 8% figure sounds about right.

Why do teabaggers fight for things that go against their best interests?

Why do some Democrats put up charts that clearly show how bad off they are and then flaunt them as if they showed how much better their side is then the other?

Who do some Joe six-packs paint their faces odd colors and then pay $50 a ticket (plus parking) to support a Billionaire's sports club?

Why...why .... why....

[ProgressiveEconomist]

16. What percent of lost jobs had been recovered 14 months after Dubya's FIRST

recession had ended? LESS THAN NONE-- employment was still declining.

"The 2001 recession was followed by a so-called jobless recovery that lasted nearly two more years", according to the CNN report quoted in the OP.

You've got to compare the Obama recovery with past recoveries to be able to tell whether it's inadequate or superior, and it's superior.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And, if you use the precise statistics from bls.gov, as CNBC did recently, you'll come up with 9 percent, not 8. Pretty good eyeballing job you did, though.

[Brickbat]

20. I used a calculator, not eyeballing. But I blew it when I rounded down instead of up.

I'm not really interested, frankly, in comparing this recession with any other one. I do like to work to make the "bikini graph" clearer -- I think it's easy to look at it and assume we're not losing jobs anymore, or that what is shown is the jobless rate, or something. I've never liked that graph, simply because I think its design is misleading.

[Techn0Girl]

26. I think the design of the chart is intentionally misleading ....

....choco-rations and all.

Orwell wasn't a fiction writer - he was a fucking prophet.

Actually he was just someone who woke up because this kind of crap (and the kind portrayed in his novel) has been going on ever since there was a ruling class.

[Qutzupalotl]

98. I think the design of your posts are intentionally misleading.

Job gains minus job losses is starting to turn to a net positive. Yet you wear blinders and say these changes aren't real. Why is that, I wonder.

[dmallind]

18. But a net increase is not the claim made

The claim made is how quickly the trend of losses was reversed and made into positive growth.

[Techn0Girl]

22. Unemployment is still at 18% from the U6 official figures - 9.6% if you use the lower...

U3 figures.

There is NO recovery.

[dmallind]

25. Another red herring

If a man goes from a shattered leg with a compound fracture unable to stand, to being in a painful cast walking with a crutch, he is recovering. He has not recoverED.

But that aside you keep changing the metric the OP claimed. The claim was ONLY that the job losses had been reversed and made into job gains in very short order. That can only be measured as the chart measured it - by looking at job gains vs. job losses. UE rates are not the same metric as they are divided into another variable other than just number of jobs.

[Techn0Girl]

33. Not a Red Herring at all...

It's reality.

The OP is spreading the meme of a "job recovery" which is either highly misinformed at best or disingenuous at worst.
There is NO recovery. 18% are STILL out of work (official U6 figures).

Housing is the lowest in decades and so is consumer spending.
There is no recovery.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

46. Who said, 'Most people who don't know, don't know they don't know'? Before

Steve Allen, who said it often?

And who said, "What scares me most is not what they DON'T know, but what they know for sure that just ain't so"?

[Hydra]

75. That would you you at the moment

But I find it unsurprising that after almost 2 years of "green shoots" that the numbers have yet to actually indicate anything other than what Obama's first stimulus was designed to accomplish- a blunting of the damage in the hopes that it would all go away with no further effort.

But just in case you know something I don't, what is the new engine of this totally recovering economy? What will replace the hideous damage done by the bankers?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

76. Let the President himself answer that question, with the transcript of Monday's CNBC town meeting

at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/20/remarks-president-cnbc-town-hall-discussion-jobs .

[Hydra]

77. Ya, and where is the answer to the question I asked you?

He often retreats to the concept that if we do nothing to hinder Adam Smith's invisible hand (of God), that everything will just rebound all by itself.

I want to know where all the new jobs are going to come from. During the campaign, the idea he proposed was a green revolution. Highly skilled green jobs...and now he talks about Wall St. fat cats as his new source of financial recovery.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

78. I can't read Obama's mind. I can only read what he says, as can you.

And I gave you a direct link to his latest word on the subject.

[Hydra]

79. Right, and it told me basically nothing

So are you going to answer, or pretend that you have a better idea of what's going on than Technogirl?

[dmallind]

93. Again with the mismatched measures

You measure how quickly jobs are gained by counting jobs gained. Pretty simple concept. Unemployment rates depend also on bnumber of people in the workforce so they introduce a second variable (and of course even then are lower than their recebnt peak)> Adn housing? Consumer spending?? What the hell do they have to do with measuring an improvement in the jobs lost/gained metric exactly?

You see the problem with DU doomers is they cannot - absolutely are incapable of it - realize that "this specific metric is improving" and "everything is 100% AOK and there is nothing wrong with the world or any single individual in it" are NOT identical in meaning, and the one cannot be refuted by pulling straw out of the other.

[ipaint]

39. wrong place. nt

[Name removed]

49. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

29. Unemployment always is a lagging indicator. Dubya's second, 2007-9 recession

cost the economy 7 percent of its December '07 workforce. Find another such 7 percent employment decine in US history and compare unemployment rate recoveries 14 months after the recession ended if you want to judge Obama's performance on unemployment this time.

Without doing that, you're just blowing smoke.

[Techn0Girl]

31. If the employment rate doesn't mean anything....

then why have you brought it up 20 times since Sep 6th?

[USArmyParatrooper]

72. Strawman. Who said it was meaningless? Nobody

He said it's the LAST indicator to improve when you're coming out of a recession and he's 100% correct.

As more jobs are created more people decide to go back to work. Because of this job growth doesn't necessarily mean the unemployment rate will decline. But in order for unemployment to decline you MUST first have job growth.

FACT: We were losing 750,000 jobs per month when Obama took office.

FACT: Those losses steadily declined and moved into positive job growth several months later.

[JVS]

96. Wouldn't that mean that Obama cannot claim credit for what your graphic paints as the rapid blue...

turn around?

[USArmyParatrooper]

70. Actually according to this 16.7%, plus you still don't get it

http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp?fromYear=2007&toYear=2010

Even the U6 figures only include those who desire employment. They just also include people working part time who desire to work full time.

While job creation is tied to unemployment, the creation of jobs doesn't necessarily mean the unemployment rate automatically goes down. Due to the recession many people made other life plans. Men and women who decided to be stay-at-home moms and dads, teens and young adults who decided to move in with parents and go to school, etc. As more jobs open up many decide to give the work force another whirl, and sometimes for reasons unrelated to the job market.

The FACT of the matter is his chart is 100% correct. We have gone from massive job loss when Obama took office to positive job growth. It's absolutely amazing that you try to spin job growth to be a "meaningless" statistic. It is also very common knowledge that the unemployment rate is the last statistic to improve when you're coming out of a recession.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

74. 'His chart is 100% correct'. Thanks. I'm too tired to respond to all but the most

blatant, ON-POINT distortions. Please keep going.

[Techn0Girl]

86. I'm sorry but you are misinformed....

we are still losing jobs ....


http://www.fundmymutualfund.com/2010/09/adp-reports-100...

"ADP private sector employment is always reported the Wednesday before the Friday where U.S. government employment data is released. Since it varies from what the government reports relatively substantially it is usually given less attention but this morning ADP released a -10,000 private sector contraction in employment."

and
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68J35B20100920

(Reuters) - The U.S. recovery is so soft that it risks creating a "frustrated generation" of young people unable to find work despite having heeded advice to stay in school, a senior official from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Monday.

and then there is the latest U.S. government jobs report, Bureau of Labor and Statistics ....
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

"The number of unemployed persons (14.9 million) and the unemployment rate
(9.6 percent) were little changed in August. From May through August, the
jobless rate remained in the range of 9.5 to 9.7 percent. (See table A-1.)"

Grabbing on to some misinterpreted chart and claiming "recovery!" is disingenuous at best.

[USArmyParatrooper]

94. Absolutely NOTHING you posted refutes anything I've said.

You can post other people's negative opinions all you want, but they don't refute the facts.

FACT: The unemployment rate is only one of many economic indicators - the last of which responds to an economic recovery.

FACT: You can have positive job growth without a reduction in the unemployment rate. This is due to more people deciding to enter the work force. In fact, it's quite common when you're coming out of a recession.

FACT: When President Obama took office we were losing 750,000 jobs per month. After he took office the loss rate rapidly declined and we moved into consistent, positive job growth for the last several months. There was only ONE month of a slight loss due to temporary Census employees having completed their jobs. But that was offset by a massive job increase at the time they were hired.

As Al Franken put so well, You have a right to your own opinions. You do not have a right to your own facts.

[Techn0Girl]

104. "FACT: You can have positive job growth without a reduction in the unemployment rate. "

You really aren't listening are you?
You're blocking the whole thing from your head.

The cognitive dissonance you're putting out is scary indeed...

OK let;s go with one of your "facts", "FACT: You can have positive job growth without a reduction in the unemployment rate."

Fine then - let's look at he LATEST Bureau of Labor Statistics report from Sep 21st"


http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm


Job were LOST between last July and last August


Table C. States with statistically significant employment changes from
July 2010 to August 2010, seasonally adjusted

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| July | August | Over-the-month
State | 2010 | 2010(p) | change(p)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska........................| 326,700 | 318,300 | -8,400
Arkansas......................| 1,171,500 | 1,160,600 | -10,900
California....................| 13,861,500 | 13,827,900 | -33,600
Colorado......................| 2,203,000 | 2,194,400 | -8,600
District of Columbia..........| 724,800 | 705,000 | -19,800
Hawaii........................| 592,800 | 586,500 | -6,300
Idaho.........................| 608,300 | 603,000 | -5,300
Maine.........................| 593,800 | 589,400 | -4,400
Michigan......................| 3,881,300 | 3,831,000 | -50,300
New Mexico....................| 802,600 | 798,200 | -4,400
| | |
North Carolina................| 3,893,900 | 3,912,500 | 18,600
Pennsylvania..................| 5,609,300 | 5,592,400 | -16,900
Texas.........................| 10,390,400 | 10,356,200 | -34,200
Washington....................| 2,806,900 | 2,797,600 | -9,300
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
p = preliminary.

That right the trend is downwards
not job growth - job decrease.
Jobs are being lost.

So according to your OWN (strange) logic, we are NOT in a recovery.

The Obama administration has kept a bad economy static for two whole years and the latest report says that jobs were lost .

Please wake up. Progressive people need you.

[USArmyParatrooper]

105. Holy smokes how many times do I have to spell it out for you.

Those are UNEMPLOYMENT statistcs. You can't refute jobs growth by using unemployment statistcs. Why? For the fouth time... Unemployment can go up even when a net positive amount of jobs hits the market.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

109. She's partly correct for once. Those ARE employment statistics, if you look closely

at the heading she posted, but very obscure and highly selected ones. I don't know why she went to the LAUS (Local Area Unempoyment Statistics) page rather than the main page ( http://www.bls.gov/cps/tables.htm ).

The data she SHOULD have posted for a national picture of unemployment for July and August are in Table A-3, at http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea3.pdf :

A-3. Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population by sex and age, seasonally adjusted (Numbers in thousands)

............................... July2010 Aug2010
TOTAL
Employed ................. 138,960 139,250
Unemployed .............. 14,599 14,860
Unemployment rate ....... 9.5 9.6

Note the unemployment rate ( unemployed / (unemployed + employed) ) went up slightly even though employment rose. That is because enough more people thought the economy had improved enough to start looking for work again to overpower the effect of more employment on the unemployment rate.

Just as you said, unemployment is less of a direct measure of economic progress over time than employment: Unlike employment, the unemployment rate reflects peoples' changing attitudes about the possibility of finding a job. After the economy has recovered enough for peoples' attitudes to stabilize, unemployment becomes a more reliable, though LAGGING, economic indicator

[ProgressiveEconomist]

24. Your post IMO is ITSELF an Orwellian inversion. The 'chocolate ration increase'

in Orwell's book was accepted because the past value of the ration had been incinerated down the memory hole.

You are ignoring the history of past recessions in proclaiming the current Obama recovery inadequate. Logically, though, you cannot judge the current recovery without comparing it to past recoveries using the same metrics.

When you do that, as I show in post #16 below, the Obama recovery clearly is superior to its immediate predecessor, recovery from Dubya's FIRST recession.

[Techn0Girl]

28. 18% unemployment .... millions losing their homes this year.....

Detroit an abandoned third world city... consumer spending at it lowest in decades....

There is NO recovery.
Enjoy your choco-ration.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

80. What a responsive reply

[Qutzupalotl]

97. That's underemployment.

And saying that there is *no* recovery is false. You could have said there is no *complete* recovery, but you didn't. You chose to lie.

[WilliamPitt]

52. (facepalm)

[ipaint]

13. The unemployment rate for those making under 25,000 a year

is 21-30%. I'm so glad that the comfortable muddle class is recovering but one third of this country is in a depression with NO end in sight. In addition the end of extended unemployment benefits is right around the corner and thanks to this bogus "fastest jobs recovery" meme distorting the real picture in favor of corps and the rich an extension will be nearly impossible.

[dmallind]

21. Self fulfilling prophecy

Of course the UE rate is high for low earners - because unemployment doesn't pay much.

That study would have been much more meaningful had it been time-phased. What is the UE rate for people who had an averagge income of X when they were working

[ipaint]

42. The study uses employment data from 2008 and compares it to the end of 2009.

People making under 25,000 in 2008 are facing unemployment rates in the mid to high 20's today.

http://www.clms.neu.edu/publication/

[Techn0Girl]

48. Eye opening stats !

[dkf]

15. This is as good as it gets people. Reality bites.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JoePhilly]

32. You are starting to sound like the paranoid sibling of ...

the boy who cried wolf.

In fact, you make that kid seem pretty normal.

You endlessly refer to choco-rations ... not sure what those are.

You clearly think the end of the world has come.

And apparently, Obama is the cause.

So I am curious what your plan is ... what is the direction that should be taken.

[Techn0Girl]

35. "You endlessly refer to choco-rations ... not sure what those are."

I know.... I know....

For extra credit complete this sentence...
"Those who cannot remember the past.... "

[JoePhilly]

51. This is the best response you had?

I kind of assumed you were making a 1984 reference ... although it seems pretty weak in this context.

Particularly given that the book 1984 was fiction, and not actual history.

And isn't the quote you refer to better phrased as “Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it” from Edmund Burke?? This version generally predates the version you refer to.

And of course you avoid the real question I asked. big surprise there.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

34. Aren't you? You have substantially more replies in this thread than I do

And I think these links are worth reposting, despite the fact that a few people (you included) apparently do not understand them or the concept of comparing apples to apples, oranges to oranges, and truth to lies.

[Techn0Girl]

36. You keep reposting them and the people o this board will kep knocking them down....

the past 18 times you posted the same job recovers meme you were met with as much resistance as you are getting here.

The DU search box is right up there for anyone to use.

The truth is the truth.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

40. 'The truth is the truth', I agree. And I'll keep posting it, despite spam spam spam

from those who are spreading disinformation and defeatism on a supposedly progressive discussion board, and not really responding to the content of the truths I keep repeating.

[Techn0Girl]

47. Teabaggers have the same attitude....

Anything that contradicts their peculiar view of the world is "spam"

They're on a mission.
Just like yourself.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

56. See post #46. What's YOUR mission? Sliming President Obama? An R sweep in November?

[Techn0Girl]

57. My only mission is dealing with facts and putting them out there.

And I am not going to misconstrue the facts just because "my guy" happens to be in office.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

59. You CAN'T be serious. If you are, I really feel sorry for you. See post #46.

[USArmyParatrooper]

73. "The truth is the truth" and the truth is Obama took us from massive job loss to positive job growth

As much as you want to take it away you can't.

[Techn0Girl]

89. Have you seen the latest official U.S. BLS Labor stats?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm

It says jobs were LOST from July to August of this year. The trend is downward a the moment
That's from the U.S. government.

[ThomWV]

23. What makes you think the speed of the recovery has anything to do with attacks on Obama?

And I mean that as an honest question. So what if this recovery (is there really a recovery going on?) is fast or slow? That has nothing to do with constant attacks on Obama or a natural tendency for Democrats to try to defend him. The point is that if he had not been such a fucking wimp and actually stood up for something there would be no need to defend him.

[RaleighNCDUer]

27. That's a pretty big strawman.

'I'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314021/Middle-class-mother-Velma-Hart-confronts-Obama-meet-voters-event.html#ixzz10IE1UzHo

Where does it say she was talking about the economy? At all?

And doesn't "exhausted of defending you" state that she HAS BEEN defending him? Despite the half-assed HCR bill, the abandonment of DADT and DOMA, the escalation in AfPak, the bailouts to the very institution that created the financial crisis?

If he'd put any kind of conditions on the bailouts, stating the banks MUST make loans available instead of just sitting on those billions, where would the employment situation, the housing market be today?

If he'd put even a weak, pitiful partial public option in the HCR bill, such as allowing the over-55 unemployed to buy into Medicare, would that be too much to ask?

Improving unemployment is good, no doubt, but it's cold comfort if you are one of the MILLIONS who are still unemployed and, thus, ininsured. Housing prices stabilizing post-bubble is fine, but no help to the millions who have lost their homes and now can't possibly look to restoring what the banksters took from them WHILE those same banksters collect multi-million dollar bonuses for screwing them.

There were progressive solutions that could have been enacted a year ago, when Obama's favorability was still through the roof, and the disappointment today is that by reaching out to placate the implacable right he squandered any chance of accomplishing them. Any surprise his defenders are exhausted?

But OK, lets look at what YOU are focusing on:

"All told, the economy has added 763,000 private-sector jobs in 2010. For comparison purposes, note that the economy lost nearly 4.7 million private-sector jobs in 2009, and lost 3.8 million in 2008."

Yeah, you can see it as a dramatic turnaround from the previous years. But the fact is, 763,000 jobs is less than 10% of the 8.5 million jobs lost in the two previous years - so the question is, is the glass 8% full, or 92% empty?

[Techn0Girl]

30. Kudos to you!

"Yeah, you can see it as a dramatic turnaround from the previous years. But the fact is, 763,000 jobs is less than 10% of the 8.5 million jobs lost in the two previous years - so the question is, is the glass 8% full, or 92% empty?"

:fistbump: :fistbump:

Google up the OPs name and "jobs recovery" in the DU search widget - you'll find he's been spreading this meme since Sept 6th in at least 20 different threads - usually with the same chart.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

37. As James Carville often says, 'It's the economy, stupid'. And I'm not saying I think you're

stupid. Far from it. You are very articulate. But IMO you are stretching what the woman said in a wrong sirection.

I heard her articulate deep fear of returning to "hot dogs and beans".

[USArmyParatrooper]

71. "Where does it say she was talking about the economy?" Oh, gee. Maybe the part you left out?

"I have been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people, and I’m waiting, sir. I’m waiting. I don't feel it yet."

She specifically mentioned wanting to "feel" the change for the middle class, a reference to her economic condition.

Which, apparently is being a Chief Financial Officer with no credit cards and two kids in a private school.

[galileoreloaded]

38. What in god's name are you talking about? Guys, we have to get smarter or we arent gonna make it....

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

41. Silly rabbit... you're looking at actual jobs

The cool chart is the rate of change which shows that we have been losing jobs slower.

But since our current paradise is still well below the replacement rate we still lose jobs in the economy every month and have not repaired any of the damage done.

[galileoreloaded]

45. Look, we can't even have a discussion about birth/death because we can't even grasp

the freaking basics. This is getting ponderous. This is the last site I would ever expect to have to dumb down data, but hey "when in Rome".....

[ProgressiveEconomist]

99. Aren't more Boomers retiring from than graduates and dropouts entering the labor force?

[eridani]

107. Let's see the numbers--lots of boomers can't afford to retire n/t

[ProgressiveEconomist]

111. LINK to a BLS table from 1970 to date. Note the declining trend in the civilian labor force

as a percentage of the population.

http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea1.pdf

[eridani]

114. Yes, that's the trend. But I don't see how that will help with under/uneployment

We still have no net job gains for 15 years.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

60. Align the graphs at the ends of recessions, ditch recessios before the oil shocks

of the 70s, and focus on the points where job losses hit bottom.

Then you'll see what I'm talking about.

[Techn0Girl]

63. You sound more like an Ikea instruction sheet than an "economist"

[ProgressiveEconomist]

64. Do you know what you sound like?

[Andy823]

44. K&R

The facts speak for themselves, but the MSM just won't put out these kind of facts, they prefer to only put out the "doom and gloom" forecast"!

I have said it thousands of times, it took Bush 8 years to screw things up and put us into the mess we are in now, it will take a lot longer than 18 months to fix this mess! I know there are many, many people that are out of work that just can't see where all the job growth is, and many of them lost their jobs to "OUTSOURCING" overseas, and those jobs will probably never come back. If the damned republicans would actually work with the president and work to actually hep the country and not just the rich who pretty much own them, we could be getting into all kinds of new alternative energy production. If they thought more about the average american than the rich, we could start working on infrastructure projects that would produce jobs. There are a lot of things that we could be doing, but it takes votes in congress, and until we can get a "real" majority to work for the people, we aren't going to see much going on. If americans could simply see these facts and understand that the republicans have been doing nothing to fix things, just voting NO to make Obama fail, maybe we could get a "real" majority and push through the things we really need to fix this country.

It's up to the democrats to get this information out there and they best be hurrying up before it's to late! I think the majority of americans want things fixed, and they want both sides to work together to fix it. The problem is the MSM is doing their best to get the republicans back in office so they can go back to the good old days of the "BUSH" years, and we all know that will simply mean things will get much worse, not better!

[ProgressiveEconomist]

53. 'The facts speak for themselves, but the MSM just won't put out these kinds of facts'

Well said. Thank you

[TK421]

54. After eighteen fucking applications, and one response with no call back

where is my fucking job?

[Techn0Girl]

58. Go ask ProgressiveEconomist ... he knows we're in Recovery....

And what's the First Step in Recovery again.....

[opihimoimoi]

55. KnR :o)..The Baggers refuse to believe for they are blinded by MOOT PUB SHIT

[LAGC]

65. The problem is, job gains aren't even making up for all those new people coming into the workforce.

We have to acknowledge that the stimulus was way too weak, too many tax cuts for businesses that didn't go toward hiring new people, not enough public sector jobs -- Obama and Congress should have done more to spur public sector growth to make up the short-fall until the economy improves and private sector can take over again.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

66. 'the stimulus was way too weak' I agree with you. Rohmer's trillion-plus recommendation

IMO should have made it to the President--good riddance to Larry Summers. I agree with Paul Krugman that we may be on the verge of the kind of "liquidity trap" Japan experienced for a decade after its deep recession of the 80s. Monetary policy here now, like monetary policy in Japan then, reaches its limit when short-term rates have been cut to zero. Only fiscal polciy can stimulate demand enough to keep deflation away.

But the fact remains that economic growth has resumed, traditional measures of private-sector job growth have stopped declining, and even the FY 2010 deficit is expected to drop from its FY 2009 level.

And all of this has begun to happen much earlier than usual, when compared to past recessions that weren't even as deep. Obama's economic advisers have much to be proud of and certainly no reason to hang their heads in shame. We're going in the right direction, but a 7 percent drop from the December '07 workforce will take years to restore.

[Techn0Girl]

67. Economic Growth has NOT resumed {sigh}

You're spouting these talking points as if they were real facts.
A couple of days ago you were trying to make the case to resume big business tax cuts - trickle down economics.

So it's obvious you;re not an economist nor are you progressive in any reasonable definition of the term.

What IS obvious to most of the people posting on this thread is that we have not gained ANY significant number of the 8 million jobs that were lost in '08. Not even 11% of them came back.

What IS obvious is that personal bankruptcies are higher this year then they were the last year.

What IS obvious is tat we have 9.6% unemployment - the highest it's been since 1982.

What IS obvious is that new housing starts are lower then they have been in over THIRTY Years (1968)

Look , it is obvious that you are unemployed (or else how could you be making all these posts throughout the day), like myself. Probably on a fixed income and your arguments do not suggest a sophisticated education (at least in economics anyway). In other words you are just like most of us out here. You;re probably just getting by barely yourself - I know I am since I got aid off last July.

But you continue to defend trickle down theories and put out bad economic memes from charts that don't even support your odd positions.

And then you rattle off talking points like "traditional measures of private-sector job growth have stopped declining" which isn't even true, and is open to wide interpretation if it was (it isn't).

So my question is what;s up? Why is someone like yourself supporting the talking points of Big Business and an obviously failing (albeit slowly) economic policy?

What's your stake here?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

68. See post #46. What are your sources of economic news? This story has been everywhere

during the last week. I could give you many references to newspapers, cable channels, and blogs, but here's the actual source of the story:

From http://www.nber.org/cycles/sept2010.html "

Business Cycle Dating Committee, National Bureau of Economic Research

CAMBRIDGE September 20, 2010 - The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met yesterday by conference call. At its meeting, the committee determined that a trough in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in June 2009. The trough marks the end of the recession that began in December 2007 and the beginning of an expansion. The recession lasted 18 months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II. ...

A recession is a period of falling economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more
than a few months ...

The trough marks the end of the declining phase and the start of the rising phase of the business cycle."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Actually, most people who read economic news knew that economic growth had resumed as soon as the fourth-quarter 2009 report from commerce.gov showed a positive GDP growth statistic. Since quarter two and quarter three were roughly equal in GDP growth, it remained bor the NBER's business cycle dating committee to determine whether the recession ended in 1uarter two or quarter three, and in exactly which month of that quarter.

[Techn0Girl]

81. The NBER has right wing conservative ties....

look here:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Bureau_of_Economic_Research

and Ben Bernake is one of it's chairpeople - you know Mr.Bernake - the guy who is involved with Merril Lynch and B of A. - the one who was accused of fraud during their merger

In other words you are quoting an organization with string conservative ties and who received TEN MILLION in funds from right wing sources (read the link).

So they have n agenda - one in which you are willingly propogating

Oy Vey ....

Look I can list a dozen different indicators and frankly half a dozen were linked to in this thread alone but I know that would not change your mind.

You quote conservative think tanks
Enough said.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

82. See post #46. Ben Bernanke heads WHAT?

And is the dictionary a devious plot too? What does the word "RECESSION' mean, exactly?

[Techn0Girl]

83. Now you are just babelling... You can quote Right Wing think tank sources all that you want....

but I don't think that is going to get you much support here.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

69. What projection! 'your arguments do not suggest a sophisticated education''

"You're spouting these talking points as if they were real facts".

See post #46.

[laughingliberal]

85. +1000 nt

[ProgressiveEconomist]

91. STOP STALKING ME! And I'm not going to give you any help by posting my CV on DU

[Techn0Girl]

88. Worse than that - the latest BLS stats show....

Jobs were LOST between July and August ...

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm


C. States with statistically significant employment changes from
July 2010 to August 2010, seasonally adjusted

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| July | August | Over-the-month
State | 2010 | 2010(p) | change(p)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska........................| 326,700 | 318,300 | -8,400
Arkansas......................| 1,171,500 | 1,160,600 | -10,900
California....................| 13,861,500 | 13,827,900 | -33,600
Colorado......................| 2,203,000 | 2,194,400 | -8,600
District of Columbia..........| 724,800 | 705,000 | -19,800
Hawaii........................| 592,800 | 586,500 | -6,300
Idaho.........................| 608,300 | 603,000 | -5,300
Maine.........................| 593,800 | 589,400 | -4,400
Michigan......................| 3,881,300 | 3,831,000 | -50,300
New Mexico....................| 802,600 | 798,200 | -4,400
| | |
North Carolina................| 3,893,900 | 3,912,500 | 18,600
Pennsylvania..................| 5,609,300 | 5,592,400 | -16,900
Texas.........................| 10,390,400 | 10,356,200 | -34,200
Washington....................| 2,806,900 | 2,797,600 | -9,300
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
p = preliminary.


Almost all minuses in that table - only North carolina gained some.

[JVS]

84. Wow. At this rate we might have reached pre-recession employment within a mere 100 months!

[Techn0Girl]

87. Progress !

[ProgressiveEconomist]

90. Recovery should speed up eventually. And 9 percent in 8 months

works out to 100 percent in 89 months, even if we maintain the current pace of recovery (which we will not, if history is a guide).

Would you prefer that we'd continued on the course represented by the red bars in the chart?

[TexasObserver]

92. Thanks for injecting a little rational thought into the discussion.

Recovery is just that. If someone breaks a leg in 12 places and they're in recovery two years later, we don't say "well, you're not any better than you were two years ago when you had bones sticking through your flesh and you were completely unable to move!"

We say "hey, you're better - how much longer until you're well?"

We didn't get into the ditch in two years and we're not getting out in two years, either.

[MadHound]

95. Speaking of a mighty Wurlitzer,

Thirty million plus, ten percent of our population, is out of work. The true unemployment rate is running between sixteen and seventeen percent. Under-employment is epidemic. And all of this has been pretty steady and consistent this year.

What great jobs recovery? Can I please borrow those rosy sunglasses you have, because being unemployed, I really could use a pick me up.

Instead, we're all left with this reality of our, a reality that isn't changing despite all your happy talk.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

102. See posts #s 92 and 99.

[eridani]

100. The last fucking THREE recoveries have been jobless

Your chart takes no account of the fact that added jobs are 1) sill far less than the number of people enetering the labor market and 2) nowhere near enough to dig us out of the employment hole.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

101. See post #99. But the real question is: How could you reasonably expect the economy to be

any better than it is now. Nobody's happy with the courrent state of the economy, but is it fair to say "We're on the wrong path" or "the stimulus has made things worse", as talking heads on TV and cable and polls of likely voters now say all the time?

A recession as deep as Dubya's second recession of 2007-2009 will take several years to undo completely, but clearly we are past the bottom of the business cycle IMO.

[eridani]

108. You can't. But I effing well DO expect holders of public office to take the current ongoing--

--DISASTER of the "new normal" seriously. Don't you have a fucking clue? The American economy has never in its entire history had FIFTEEN EFFING STRAIGHT YEARS of no net job growth!!!!!! Not ever!(That would be 2000 to 2015.) Why pretend that these business cycles are just the same as they used to be from 1950 to 1975, so all we have to do is sit tight? Thay aren't; not by a long shot.

Sure it's stupid to say that the stimulus made things worse, but why not admit that the stimulus was totally inadequate and that tax cuts are utterly worthless for stimulating an economy where the main problem is the mass obliteration of disposable income for average folks? Every single thing that the administration has done has been helpful but inadequate. Instead of reciting stupid laundry lists about legislative accomplishments, why don't Dems say that they know perfectly well that what they have done has been inadequate, but that Republicans have blocked them from doing anything that might have been sufficient to deal with our very serious mess? That has the advantage of actually being true.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

110. 'why don't Ds say that... Rs have blocked them from doing anything that wd have been sufficient'?

Great point.

Maybe it's because Democrats know that someday THEY might be in the minority again and might want to use some of the same filibuster tactics the Rs have abused to historic levels this term.

IMO, the logical person to do what you suggest is milquetoast, even with Sharron Angle, Harry Reid. IMO, if Dick Durbin were Majority Leader, we'd see more aggressive push-back against the Party of NO.

I wish someone would put together a timeline of Republican obstructionism on the economy and other issues.

[RaleighNCDUer]

115. Not to mention that such jobs as are added are primarily low-pay

service sector jobs, not high-pay manufacturing jobs. A guy loses a 70k job, and he and his wife both go out and get 30k jobs, that might LOOK like an increase in employment by 100% - but they're still making 10K less than they were.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

116. Great point. But isn't that mainly due to globalization, not to the President's

stimulus program?

Retraining such "displaced workers" for the good jobs of the future is a separate issue IMO.

[RaleighNCDUer]

117. You've noticed, maybe, that it's been a year since theyve claimed that

'employment is a lagging indicator'.

I think they've figured out that there's a difference between "lagging" and "not coming back", but they're afraid to say so publicly.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

118. See post #109 above for thoughts on why unemployment is a lagging indicator.

Unemployment typically goes up faster than employment for a while during a recovery. That's because the unemployed are those actively looking for work, and more will look for work as prospects for finding a job improve.

[RaleighNCDUer]

119. You do understand that there is a difference between

'unemployment' and 'the millions of people out there who are unemployed'?

People who are not collecting unemployment but are living off their relatives are UNEMPLOYED. People who are homeless and not collecting unemployment are UNEMPLOYED. People who have lost their unemployment and are selling their possessions at swap meets so they can cover the rent are UNEMPLOYED.

The unemployed don't just magically appear when they start looking for jobs. They are already out there, in their millions, and they are pissed. And when new job creation is not keeping up with the numbers coming out of school and entering the workforce, even as the elderly are forced to keep working beyond their retirement years, they will STAY unemployed - whether the government counts them or not.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

120. I;m just trying to understand the statistics, using the definitions of those who publish them

Look up "unemployment" at http://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm . If people are not actively looking, they may be desperate, but they're not "unemployed" in this specific sense.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

103. LINK: Hasn't President Obama said essentially what I said in the OP many times, most recently

in a CNBC town hall on jobs? Is he a liar?

From http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/20/remarks-president-cnbc-town-hall-discussion-jobs :
The White House, Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release September 20, 2010

"Remarks by the President at CNBC Town Hall Discussion on Jobs, Newseum, Washington, D.C.

MR. HARWOOD: ... The National Bureau of Economic Research, as you know, has said that the recession ended in June 2009 ...

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, even though economists may say that the recession officially ended last year, obviously for the millions of people who are still out of work, people who have seen their home values decline, people who are struggling to pay the bills day to day, it�s still very real for them.

And I think we have to go back to what was happening when I was first sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. We went through the worst recession since the Great Depression. Nothing has come close. In fact, if you look at the consequences of the recession in the �80s, the recession in the �90s, and the recession in 2001, and you combine all three of those, it still wasn�t as bad as this recession that we went through.

So the month I was sworn in we lost 750,000 jobs; the month after that 600,000; the month after that 600,000. This is before any of our plans had a chance to take effect. The financial markets were on the verge of meltdown and the economy was contracting about 6 percent -- by far, the largest contraction we've seen since the �30s. You combine all that and what that meant was that we had to take some steps very quickly just to make sure that the financial system was not collapsing ... And in addition, we had to make sure that we didn�t slip into a Great Depression.

Now, we've done that. Those programs that we put in place worked. So now you�ve got a financial system that is stable. It�s still not as strong as it was back in 2006, 2007, but it is stabilized. You�ve got now eight consecutive months of private sector job growth. Businesses are able to borrow again; they�re investing again; they�re making profits again.

That's all the good news. The challenge is, is that the hole was so deep that a lot of people out there are still hurting -- and probably some folks here in the audience are still having a tough time. (Applause.) And so the question then becomes what can we now put in place to make sure that the trend lines continue in a positive direction, as opposed to going back in the negative direction.

... The other side, their basic argument is that if we go back to doing what we were doing before the financial crisis and before I was President, that we�d be in a better place.

... I know how frustrated people are. I know in some cases how desperate people are.

But I also know this -- that an economy that was shrinking is now growing. ... And I am confident that if we stay on a course that gets us back to old-fashioned values of hard work and responsibility and looking out for one another, that America will thrive; that the 21st century will be an American Century again."

[Odin2005]

112. Do you cheerleaders think we are fucking stupid?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

113. See post #103. Are you calling President Obama a LIAR?

[TexasObserver]

121. FASTEST jobs recovery

Many who can't accept that simply do not understand how long the process of recovery takes, and that it is a process.

[Crystal Clarity]

122. Too late to rec unfortunately

but great post! :kick:

[ProgressiveEconomist]

123. Don't worry--rest assured that you "rec" would have been canceled by another "UNREC"

and not made any difference to the result.

From watching the net recs total bounce up and down, I extimate this thread got at least 40 positive recs.