Posted on 12/15/2009 3:51:21 PM PST by SeekAndFind
For most of 2009, pundits on both the left and right have insisted that the programs enacted to bring the financial system back from the brink wouldn't—and couldn't—work. And they have been wrong. They said the TARP would throw good money after bad, but now Bank of America, recently a basket case, is paying back $45 billion in TARP funds—with interest. They said the stimulus passed in February was way too small to halt the economic decline. Actually, it has short-circuited the recession. The economy shifted from shrinking at a 6.4 percent annual rate in the first quarter to expanding at a 2.8 percent rate in the third quarter. "This growth has been better and stronger than we expected, than anyone expected," says Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Skeptics are now focused on the next big economic problem we face: unemployment. The numbers have been dismal. America has lost 7.2 million jobs, and the unemployment rate in November was 10 percent. For African-Americans, the rate was 15.6 percent, and more than one in four teens are out of work. Economists believe the unemployment rate will persist at 10 percent through 2010.
But jobs are on the way, and sooner than you think. Not enough to make everybody happy, of course, or to reach anything approaching full employment. But the data suggest that the economy, now growing at a rate above its historical trend, may be creating more jobs than are being lost.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
These are the numbers Daniel Gross touts :
* Companies shed only 11,000 payroll jobs in November—the smallest drop since late 2007. For the past three months, the government’s first estimate of job loss figures has been high; when the November numbers are revised, there may be a job gain. Labor market recoveries are always a lengthy four-step process.
* First, as businesses stabilize, they fire fewer people. First-time unemployment claims are still elevated, but the four-week moving average is 474,000, the lowest in more than a year.
* Second, when demand begins to pick up, businesses prod existing workers to work harder, which is why we’ve just witnessed the fastest two-quarter productivity surge since 1961.
* Third, when growth persists, bosses give part-time workers more hours or bring on temporary workers. In November, the economy added 52,000 temporary jobs, the largest addition since 2004, and seasonal retail hiring for the Christmas season is up 37 percent this year.
* The final step—adding full-time positions—is happening now.
Services account for about 86 percent of jobs. And it’s here, not in the shrunken housing and finance sectors, where the employment recovery is taking hold. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the service sector added 58,000 jobs in November, the second straight month of growth. Among the new services workers are the 240 employees of the Elysian, a 188-room luxury hotel that opened Dec. 9 on Chicago’s Gold Coast.
Yeah, the democrats are job-creatin’ wild men!
The economy is fabulous!
We are rich, rich I tell you!
Uh-huh. So's Christmas!!
And yet I don’t see Obama giving Bush any credit for the one part of the government’s actions that’s worked.
When?
His other reasons for optimism on the jobs front :
* Since the stimulus was passed in February 2009, only $237.6 billion (30 percent) of the $787 billion package has entered the economy. The tax cuts and infrastructure spending in the pipeline for 2010 and 2011 will support job creation.
* New Jersey Transit just approved a $583 million contract for two construction firms to get cracking on a new commuter rail tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River. It will create at least 1,000 jobs starting next year.
* The the weak dollar point to a second source of support for job growth: exports.
Exports fell from $164 billion in July 2008 to $122 billion in April 2009, but they’ve risen in every month since then, to $137 billion in October. On Dec. 4, Korean Air announced an order for five Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental jetliners for a total of $1.5 billion.
* There’s a work-sharing proposal just drafted in which companies are given incentives to hire more people.
Yep, 0 said today that attic caulkers and sexy insulation installation will save the job market and the planet..
More green shoots?
Tax cuts? Where?
When the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010, we will see the largest increase in marginal tax rates since the Carter Administration.
He's joking, right?
let’s see if Daniel Gross puts any money where his mouth is.
if not...then he’s just spouting hot air.........
I will not believe it until I see it. Normally I would say that the American economy will recover, for it always has; however, we are unchartered waters. We are drowning in debt, and if the country decided to embrace cap’ n’ trade and socialized medicine, how will recovery be possible?
Jobs are already 6 months late.
Massive Government intervention is continuing to slow the re-hire rate.
Jobs are on the way all right—we will need people to re-build Houston and Chicago when the terrorist attacks blow them up. We will need workers when we stumble into a war and the draft is re-enstated. We will need all the workers we can muster when riots and revolution rip the nation. There will be jobs in all the new prison camps, re-education centers, we will need uniformed members of the New National Police and the Anti-Hate patrol. There will be lots of jobs handing out new citizenship packets to newcomers at the borders. Hollywood will be booming cranking out films like “The Life of our glorious leader Obama parts 1, II, III and IV,” “The treachery of George Bush” and “The sainthood of FDR” William Clinton will be a Hollywood Producer in this future era— a job he was born to do. Everyone will be working! Then, there will be the rallies and parades! The massive floats of Obama blessing the world, The balloons of reparations and social justice. It will be glorious Citizen! It will be a new age—it will be historic.
It’s not just jobs that are needed, its wealth.
Jobs “created” from government bureaucracies simply trades existing (and forecasted) tax revenues for “make-work” services. No new revenue (wealth) is generated. Its circle economics that eventually will run dry.
The financials are withering. The financials geerally lead in recoveries and declines. The only thing growing is Government control. Right now they are giving, giving , giving but, soon yes very soon they will be taking back.
IMHO
Their having way to much Eggnog over at Slate .
you are right. the Dems are impeding their own recovery by adding on taxes, health care cost worries and cap and trade. no one in his right mind will make full-time new hires right now. part-timers will get the nod. we may be stabilizing - we are not expanding. jobs come in expansion.
Jobs are on the way . . . to India!
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