Revised Down
More bad news for the democrats today – GorT has to revise down his post from yesterday on employment figures. Turns out, using the government’s numbers the situation looks worse:
- Unemployment ticked up to 8.2%
- The U.S. economy add a lean 69,000 jobs in May
- April’s disappointing gain of 115,000 jobs was revised down to 77,000
- Long-term unemployment numbers rose to 5.4M (up 300,000 from last month)
- The GDP rose only 1.9% in the first quarter, lower than the estimated 2.2%
The White House quickly spun the news to try to diffuse any ammunition it would lend the GOP which was little more than, “So the news wasn’t good but we’re working….SQUIRREL!…” The standard “we inherited a mess” excuse was trotted out, followed by the following, delivered by Alan Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers:
[the economy faced] serious headwinds, including the crisis in Europe and a spike in gas prices but it was important not to read too much into one month’s figures
This begs two questions:
First, what has the administration done to deal with the crisis in Europe or the spike in gas prices? Aside from inaction, they haven’t done much and in fact, one could argue that they thwarted efforts aimed at addressing the high gas prices.
Second, as far as reading too much into one month’s numbers – look again. The GDP is a quarterly number. The May jobs figures were the third month of seriously disappointing numbers. This isn’t a one-month view. In addition, the May numbers should be a tad better as summer hiring should be wrapping up. This doesn’t bode well at all. I guess we can tune in this afternoon and listen to Jay Carney dance, stumble and trip over this news. Maybe followed by some spin by the POTUS. Of course with geniuses like our representative here Maryland, I don’t think it’s going to fare well:
“We have made progress, said Van Hollen, (D-MD). “Today’s jobs numbers show we need to make further progress.”
Wooo! Summer of Recovery III is here!
GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.