Economy chugs ahead slowly (deceptive)

[MGKrebs]

"Nationally, about 390,000 people filed new claims for jobless benefits, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average is now below 400,000 -- a number used by economists as a benchmark for a deteriorating labor market -- for the first time since February"

"While the number of people with continuing claims rose to 3.7 million, optimists see the labor market stabilizing."

huh?

Unemployment has hovered around 6 percent, not counting millions of people who stop looking or take part-time jobs.

millions

Skeptics say there is plenty of drag on the economy -- the massive trade deficit, the huge weight of household debt, residue of overcapacity in manufacturing, the transfer of jobs overseas and the threat that higher interest rates will choke off the housing boom. They note, too, that hints of a nascent rebound have several times turned out to be false clues.

...yeah, they run out some BS every time there is an election or bad poll numbers, then we find out they lied.

"In the late 1990s, the economy -- on net -- was churning out an average of 200,000 to 250,000 new jobs per month. Since early 2001, more than 3 million private-sector jobs have disappeared -- about 1 million since the recession ended and expansion started again."

lost 1 million jobs since the "expansion" started? yikes. But since tax cuts don't really create jobs, I guess all is going according to plan.

"Expansion last quarter was 2.4 percent, with military spending accounting for 70 percent of growth. "

So I guess that means we have to keep the wars going?

"The tax cuts of 2003 are only now starting to seep into the economy. Most economists say the effect will be positive but temporary"

Good plan. NOT.

edit: ajc site temporarily down for direct link, but it's www.ajc.com

[rock]

1. What's so different than when Clinton was president?

I believe the obvious answer is why the economy in in the tank.

[zbdent]

2. Wow. New claims almost equal the number of voters Gore won by

Funny how the right tries to convince the other 99 percent that everything's peachy under Bush.

"A poor person never created jobs". (or something like that).

Looks like the rich people who got those tax breaks aren't creating the jobs either. Come on! Where are all those super-patriots who are supposed to spend their 55G average tax break to stimulate the economy???

[Maeve]

3. And how much good did the last set of tax cuts do?

Fuzzy math and fuzzier "logic".