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Jobless claims fall by largest amount since July
Market Watch ^ | 02/11/2010 | MArket Watch

Posted on 02/11/2010 5:36:16 AM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell by the largest amount since July. The number of initial claims in the week ending Feb. 6 fell 43,000 to 440,000. This was a sharper drop than expected.

(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News
KEYWORDS: economy
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To: mad_as_he$$
My understanding is that we are in a secular bear market. These tend to last around 15 years. This one started in 2000, and will run til about 2015. Within the secular bear you have smaller, cyclical bull and bear markets. The runup in 2007 was a cyclical bull, as was the runup in 09 that started in March. This is all chart theory dealing with stock markets, but I think it applies to the overall economy.

It seems we're in for slow growth for a while. And that's neverminding the massive debt, and the gubmint policies that apparantly are putting off the recovery. We may yet have another steep drop. We may yet see more "crisis." And more gubmint intervention. All of which will cause this process to drag on even longer than it might have without such mistakes. But that's human nature, which I toss in with the cost of doing business. At some point it will all unwind. At some point new technologies will appear that will create jobs. At some point we'll get serious about energy independence. A new day WILL come. It may just take a while.

21 posted on 02/11/2010 6:01:39 AM PST by Huck (Q: How can you tell a party is in the majority? A: They're complaining about the fillibuster.)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

Expect more and more propaganda, and manufactured statistics leading up to the elections.


22 posted on 02/11/2010 6:01:43 AM PST by The Sons of Liberty (Pork Eating CRUSADER - FUBO! Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin)
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To: All

Only when a democrat is president is losing almost half a million jobs an unexpected good thing.


23 posted on 02/11/2010 6:01:55 AM PST by newnhdad (The longest of journeys begins with one step.)
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To: Daisyjane69

BINGO, the well is running dry. What I would like to know is how many small business’ closed last month.

How many jobs are no longer there to go back to?


24 posted on 02/11/2010 6:04:00 AM PST by tiredoflaundry (I will not be silenced.)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

Seems the only thing that can be “expected” in these reports is that the results will be unexpected by the ‘experts’.


25 posted on 02/11/2010 6:04:13 AM PST by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: Old Teufel Hunden

I’m sure Michael Steele will get right on that!


26 posted on 02/11/2010 6:04:47 AM PST by Jane Long (Clean out Congress...give 'em term limits and their own dose of "government" healthcare.)
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To: Old Teufel Hunden
but I still can’t figure out how we had a net loss of jobs over the last quarter but the unemployment figure fell from 10.1% to 9.7%

A large number of people stopped looking for jobs....a hopeful sign...according to the president.

Say you have a wife, two kids, and enough money to feed 50% of your household. Your "unfed rate" is at 50%. One of your kids moves out. Presto...you now have enough money to feed 67% of your household! Your unfed rate is now a healthy and "hopeful" 33%.
27 posted on 02/11/2010 6:05:16 AM PST by mmichaels1970
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To: Old Teufel Hunden
I’m no expert on this, but I still can’t figure out how we had a net loss of jobs over the last quarter but the unemployment figure fell from 10.1% to 9.7%. I thought you would have to have a net jobs gain in order for the unemployment to fall. At least thats what my basic math tells me. Someone help me with this? Do this mean that there were more people who fell off collecting unemployment than applied for it? I don’t get it...

The unemployment rate only measures people who are out of a job and actively seeking work, it doesn't include people who have given up looking for work or people employed part time. The drop in U3 that was reported was most likely due to people stopping the search for new jobs (just giving up) or getting part time jobs. To find a more accurate figure of what the employable base of the country is doing you need to use another rate, U6. U6 has started to trend downard this month by 1% which might indicate the overall situation is starting to slightly improve, but in a recent BLS report we get this little tidbet that indicates something else:

"The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up in January, reaching 6.3 million. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of long-term unemployed has risen by 5.0 million." --The Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest Employment Situation Summary, released on Friday, February 5, 2010

This indicates that the number of GOOD (full time, good paying) jobs has shrunk by that amount and it continues to grow....trend up, more unemployed.

28 posted on 02/11/2010 6:05:45 AM PST by world weary
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To: mmichaels1970; Old Teufel Hunden

Actually, your unfed rate drops to 25% not 33%, so it is “better than expected”.


29 posted on 02/11/2010 6:07:39 AM PST by mmichaels1970
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

In the grand scheme of things, this is insignificant.

This is akin to a rounding error.

And there is no way unemployment went down to 9.7%, and the GDP went up 5.7% in the fourth quarter.

Let’s just call it what it is—they are cooking the books. The corrections will come in two or three months from now when no one cares about these numbers anymore. The Clinton administration had hined this type of quackery to a fine science.

Funny how a lot of the Zero administration are old Clinton hands.


30 posted on 02/11/2010 6:08:11 AM PST by exit82 (Democrats are the enemy of freedom. Sarah Palin is our Esther.)
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To: Iron Munro
That's because we are running out of people to lay off.

Exactly! Of course this rate will slow as time goes on. It isn't a straight line relationship.

31 posted on 02/11/2010 6:08:12 AM PST by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: The Anti-One

How will the numbers look as a result of the blizzard? There are probably lots of unemployment offices that closed due to the storms. Next week the new claims may double in some places.


32 posted on 02/11/2010 6:10:36 AM PST by 3catsanadog (If healthcare reform is passed, 41 years old will be the new 65 YO.)
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To: tiredoflaundry

That is the birth/death model of 842,000 that they tried to hide last week.(They covered the last year) Those were losses.

The birth/death model is of businesses, not people.

Moreover, none of these numbers count people like my landlord. A self employed professional electrician. He gets no unemployment compensation, nor is he “big” enough to be counted in the birth/death of businesses number. There are millions of people like him.

I am of the belief that the true unemployment rate is closer to 20% than anything else.


33 posted on 02/11/2010 6:12:18 AM PST by Daisyjane69 (Michael Reagan: "Welcome back, Dad, even if you're wearing a dress and bearing children this time)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour
First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell by the largest amount since July.

Yeh -- first-time claims might have fallen, but what about second-time and third-time and fourth-time filers. We now have a permanent class of unemployment claim filers.

34 posted on 02/11/2010 6:13:52 AM PST by Uncle Chip (TRUTH : Ignore it. Deride it. Allegorize it. Interpret it. But you can't ESCAPE it.)
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To: Old Teufel Hunden
The "percentages" are the number of people our government pays an unemployment check to every week. Not the number of people that are actually employed. Just because the number of people that are receiving a check has fallen it does not mean the number of people that are employed has gone down. It simply means that those that have been on unemployment the longest are now falling off the ledgers because they have reached the end of the period of time they are allowed to receive benefits.

On a side note. I find it odd that no one ever mentions the tens of thousands of self employed people that are out of work. I'm talking about all the small businessmen and women that are the backbone of American business. Those people that hire 2, 3, 4 or 5 people at most but that are now out of work themselves. Those people are not eligible for unemployment benefits even though they too are out of work. They are also NOT HIRING.

This country is sooooooo screwed and if something's not done to legally remove the illegal alien from the White House's Oval Office not only is the United States screwed but so too is the rest of the world.

Where are our military officers? Do any of you remember the "OATH" you took?

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Shameful at best if not treasonous to do nothing.

JMHO

35 posted on 02/11/2010 6:18:40 AM PST by The Anti-One (So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour
So we are still hemorrhaging jobs.
36 posted on 02/11/2010 6:22:05 AM PST by tiki (True Christians will not deliberately slander or misrepresent others or their beliefs)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

The idea that things are looking rosier because an arbitrary number was off by something less than one percent is really a bit preposterous.


37 posted on 02/11/2010 6:22:20 AM PST by Mr Ramsbotham ("Did I give you carbolic acid? I'd love to.")
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To: CharlesWayneCT
These figures lie just like the liar in chief... soon to be revised upwards by 58,000.

LLS

38 posted on 02/11/2010 6:28:24 AM PST by LibLieSlayer (hussama will never be my president... NEVER!)
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To: Huck
That’s still almost half a million people. Not good.

Stewart Varney made the point this morning on Fox&Friends that the Admin is touting the creating of 95,000 jobs.

Varney contends that they would need to be creating 100,000 weekly to make any kind of dent in the UE numbers.
39 posted on 02/11/2010 6:29:18 AM PST by TomGuy
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour
Wait...... was this "Unexpected"?

should I bother to ask?

40 posted on 02/11/2010 6:29:45 AM PST by wbill
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