I'm as shocked as you, Kyle.
January 21, 2010: Jobless claims “unexpectedly” rise.
January 14, 201o: Retail sales drop “unexpectedly”.
December 10, 2009: Jobless claims “unexpectedly” rise.
October 28, 2009: New home sales “unexpectedly tumble.
October 2, 2009: Jobless claims rose “higher than forecast”.
August 20, 2009: Jobless claims “unexpectedly” rise.
June 25, 2009: Jobless claims “unexpectedly” rise.
And now for a flashback:
Newsweek (Feb 5, 2009): GOP says stimulus can’t create jobs. They’re wrong.
ABC (June 8, 2009): White House claims stimulus will save or create 600,000 jobs in the next 100 days.
B. Hussein Obama (January 22, 2009): I won.
It looks to me like the only ones who are surprised to find the stimulus’ inability to “create” – or even “save” jobs are people who bought into the whole Obamanaut theory to begin with.
Let’s be honest for a minute, folks… this is bad. As Ed Morrissey over at HotAir and Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit are both saying, even if this is from an “administrative accumulation”, it’s still a sign that the economy is far from recovery, and it’s quite possible that December’s retail numbers were much worse than predicted. The Dow Jones is up, sure… but not because the economy is strong. The value of the Dow Jones is up because the value on which the Dow Jones is based is worth less than it was before the recession. There’s an inverse correlation between the increase in the Dow and the value of the dollar that’s been in place since Bush’s stimulus back in October.
In other words: it’s not a recovery. Jobs aren’t being created, which means people aren’t buying things, which means that it’s harder for companies to stay open and employ people and pay their bills.
And what is Obama’s response? It’s the 21st century equivalent of “Let them eat cake”… “tax them“… because ,obviously, when people and businesses are having trouble making ends meet, the best idea is to take even more money away from them.
I guess that’s what makes all the economic news so “unexpected”. It’s the same thing makes Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts “shocking”. It’s a concept that’s best summed up by Adam Savage from “Mythbusters”: they reject reality and substitute their own.
Here’s hoping they’ll be just as shocked and surprised when they get tossed out of Washington on their flabby butts.
1jason1
The Annoyed Elephant
ncmike72
[...] “official” rate – non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate – is 10%). As we’ve discussed earlier, the “unexpected” rise in unemployment is only unexpected if you haven’t been [...]