The latest Labor Department figures found that the number of Americans seeking jobless benefits has fallen to the lowest level since February.
More Good News On The Economy
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The latest Labor Department figures found that the number of Americans seeking jobless benefits has fallen to the lowest level since February.
Is that because they’re getting jobs, or is that because everybody who doesn’t have a job has already filed now?
I mean, if it means we’re pulling out of the dive, that’s good news, I guess. But I wouldn’t call that amazing news. At the end of the day, there’s still too many people without jobs…
Fortunately it does look like we’re pulling out of a dive right now… let’s hope it stays that way…
With our suffocating health care cost surge and the fact that America is one well-placed Iraqi truck bomb away from serious psychological damage to the US consumer markets, it’s hard to imagine our economy will be too secure at any point in the next couple years. But then again, Bush did a perfectly swell job of talking down the economy in 2001 to justify his first round of tax cuts. He may very well as adept at talking it up now….and you can bet he’ll try now that we’re a year away from an election.
Health care is a problem, but it’s not a catastrophe. As for Iraq, the markets have already adjusted to that situation. World events that don’t significantly effect markets tend not to have a big effect on trading. The situation would have to get much worse for it to have an effect on the market.
Ironic that the same Democratic Party that excoriated Bush for “talking down the economy” in 2000/2001 are now doing the same themselves…
Funny, Jay–I seem to remember there actually BEING a strong economy in 2000, rather than signs of a slowing of the decline. I could be remembering that wrong, though. (no, I’m not: check out http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/jan-june00/economists_1-13.html for one of many reminders)
Oh, O/T, but I’ve been back to an old post of yours that featured a message I wrote you concerning your verbal assault on Dave Matthews several months ago, arguing against the war in Iraq.(http://www.jayreding.com/archives/002912.php)
This is my first time on your main page in a while, and I must say the non sequiturs are still absolutely delightful!
Keep up the great work,
JR
By the latter part of 2000 to the beginning of 2001 it was clear that the economy was slowing – as the tech “bubble” was beginning to burst. It hardly takes a financial genius to tell that stocks were exceptionally overvalued, and the people who thought they could make a killing “daytrading” were naive at best.
By mid-2001 we were in a mild post-recessionary inflation – of course September 11 ensured that what would have been a mild recession that would have been in full recovery by November became something more…