[sarcasm]

ping

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

It would be interesting to know how many of those newly created jobs were taken by "illegal aliens"..... uh, I mean "undocumented immegrants". That could account for the fact that there are jobs out there, but the unemployment rates don't seem to be dropping.

[BushCountry]

ROTFLMAO -- Preemptive strike on good news! Haa, haa, you guys are so predictable and funny. Thanks for the laugh this morning.

[eeriegeno]

* The government says it gets its new job count by surveying 300,000 businesses. But the participants are not selected randomly or scientifically. And there is no way of knowing how many of these companies reply truthfully to the government's request.

"Garbage in, garbage out."

It seems to me that the crunched numbers are not very 'bankable' since the input is not very scientific....

[arete]

I have just about given up on government reports. Everything is now adjusted, readjusted, factored, smoothed and averaged. The CPI and Personal Income reports are so distorted by fudge factors that they are now meaningless. "Even though you are paying more for an item, we have determined that you are paying less because the quality is better and since you are saving money we are going to add that money onto your income." Now that you know that you are employed even though you aren't, and that you are paying less for stuff and making more money, aren't you happy?

Richard W.

[xzins]

Conservatives believe that able-bodied people should be working. It's best for their own well-being, it's best for their families, and it's best for the nation in that it decreases social welfare costs and increases individual contribution to the economy.

Conservatives MORE THAN anyone, then, should take joblessness by those who want to work to be a great problem, if not a great tragedy. (Liberals should be rejoicing that the unemployed must temporarily feed at the public trough, in hopes that they get addicted to "work-free" money.)

Conservatives need to demand that the money going to a new drug entitlement instead go to strengthen our military and guard our borders. While new border guards would be new government employees, they are simply necessary. They would provide jobs and security.

Conservatives also need to agitate for higher tariffs on ALL goods entering this country. This income should be used to reduce taxation, and it would protect American jobs by making the relative costs of American goods less expensive. This would increase orders for goods made by Americans.

Also, any company that farms American jobs overseas SHOULD lose tax exemptions for all aspects of that part of their business. Why should my government give incentives for Americans to lose their jobs?

Finally, we should, for long-term security interests, protect all of our heavy industry. God forbid that a high intensity world war would come about, but if it does we need our own heavy steel, our own shipbuilding, our own aviation, and our own technology. We don't need to be dependent on some foreign country for these kinds of production.

All of the above will increase American jobs.

[PISANO]

Yep it is GW's fault. He LOST 150,000 jobs within 10 days after assuming office. People just started being laid off within days of his inaguration because businesses went broke and companies folded. All because the ANTI-BUSINESS ANTI-WORKER President was elected.

This is the rhetoric I listen to daily that confirms our nation's education system is in dire need of help. Yes, I know that is GW's fault too!

[lelio]

* The number of people unemployed for at least 27 weeks is 1,959,000. Back in January the number hit 2,036,000 - the worst since 1993. As comparison: Back in February 2000 the number of people unemployed for 27 or more weeks was just 708,000.

Well that certainly isn't a nice statistic, that long term unemployment has more than doubled under Bush's tenure. Better stop publishing that figure.

Could anyone on here answer by question on this thread about how can the new UI claims be 400k a week but according to the government's layoff figures companies have only laid off 800k for the first 8 months of this year? That's a difference of 22k reported layoffs vs 400k new claims.

Granted not everyone has to report layoffs, but still why the near 20 times difference in numbers? Is someone, like Laz pondered, getting laid of 250 times a second?