NYT: ...Scaling Down (spinning) Expectations of Job Growth

Didn't Krugman recently address this new phenomenon of bad economic news being presented as an issue with two sides, like some "Crossfire" discussion, instead of simply being reported as bad economic news?


NEWS ANALYSIS
In Trying Time, Scaling Down Expectations of Job Growth
By EDUARDO PORTER

Published: September 6, 2004

There was a time when adding just under 150,000 jobs a month, three years into an economic recovery, would have been considered a disaster. As recently as last December, President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers forecast that in 2004 employment would grow, on average, by about 216,000 jobs a month.

Yet on Friday, when the Labor Department reported employment growth of 144,000 jobs in August and bumped up its earlier estimates for June and July, yielding a three-month average of 104,000 new jobs a month, many economists said it was good news.

"The August jobs report fails to return us to visions of boom, but it nonetheless puts the U.S. back on a reasonable employment income trajectory," wrote Robert J. Barbera, chief economist at ITG/Hoenig, in a note to investors. N. Gregory Mankiw, chief economic adviser to the president, said the report "confirms that the economy is going in the right direction."

The reception of 144,000 jobs as adequate employment growth is evidence of economists' more modest view of what the economy can deliver, after an unexpected cooling of demand in the late spring and early summer....

***

The campaign of John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, released a fact sheet pointing out that 1.6 million private-sector jobs have been lost since Mr. Bush took office.

"This is very bad news for Bush politically," said Jason Furman, an economic adviser for the Kerry campaign....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/business/06jobs.html

CV:

BSEE
MBA
Commercial Pilot
18+ years professional work experience
Honorably discharged Naval officer
2,500+ resumes out the door

Hope for the future?

What's that?

it sounds like you're not alone out there, dealing with this.

What effect living under Bush has truly had.

For me, the American dream is dead since I no longer have enough years left to recoup economically.

Some days I wake up and say why bother anymore.

despite the damage done, that we might, at least, no longer be living under Bush come January.

With any luck, there'll be a new day dawning in January. My bachelor's in accounting and law degree husband was laid off more than a year ago and has decided to volunteer on D campaigns to improve the economy instead of doing still more fruitless job searching.
I became self-employed 20 years ago, which has its down side--no bennies like health insurance or a retirement plan--but nobody can lay me off.

Most of my support goes to the local Congressional campaign since Kerry is spending no time or money in Texas.

Good for you! Are you in Houston? I have a friend there who's well educated, smart, and diligent, and he cannot get a career going. He's gotten a good job and done well at it twice in the last couple of years, and both times the companies have downsized half their employees, including him. In between, he's done all sorts of entry jobs and temp work, none of which went anywhere. It's hard to keep him encouraged.

But still, when I try to explain it to some people, they simply don't grok it. Some think I am not doing enough. As if.

On the other hand, there are people who do get it: The wonderful people at the food stamp office.

Damn, I would give my right nut to never see them again.

of underemployment now!! Has a masters degree and still cannot find a decent job.. He's been reduced to teaching online..

can you do anything else other than fly? I know you love it and pays good but 51 months...

I returned to school to become a professional pilot and began an apprenticeship program the day of 9/11/04 - good bye aviation.

Most skills are in program management, product management, and people management.

Have also done systems engineering and operations analysis.

So far no takers with my long history or skill set.

got laid off friday before last... Filed for unemployment and told my parents. I'm 28 with a BS (albeit in history)... thinking about going back to school for a JD. Hopefully Kerry wins so we will hopefully have at least a 4 year reprieve to get things in order in case anything crazy happens.

don't know about you but I've been trickled down on enough

to paraphrase a texas saying "don't trickle down on my boots and tell me it's raining...."

when bush* gets in his car to go down the road -- Everyone gets left behind

Each unemployed person isn't burdened by job requirements and can be a full-time volunteer to defeat Bush!

There's no more time-consuming "job" than looking for employment and making ends meet (or at least wave at each other).

Hell, no. Barbera better get used to the idea that his best bud, G.W. Hoover is going to lose, thanks to all the people who are unemployed & underemployed.

"We've turned a corner in employment." -- G.W. Hoover

"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover

Corporate profits and productivity are way up in the U.S. over the last 3 years (i.e., since the recession officially "ended.") Existing employees are individually working harder and longer than ever. Bush and his labor department have made it easy to deny overtime pay to millions of workers, especially white collar types.

Why should they care about the unemployed or the underemployed? Their people are raking in the dough. Everything is on track for the Bushies' idea of a good economy.

If they get another four years, look for massive rollbacks of regulations, especially environmental, that will cost even more jobs but will increase the corporate coffers (on a short term basis).

And so many people wille vote for Bush and other Republicanns because they make them feel "safe." What a crock.

s_m

just like my family, watching Jesus TV all the time and brainwashed into believing that Jesus will rapture them next week...

It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. Parsons swallowed it easily, with the stupidity of an animal. The eyeless creature at the other table swallowed it fanatically, passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grammes. Syme, too-in some more complex way, involving doublethink, Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?

From 1984

which means that an ever increasing portion of our society is give over to permanent unemployment or underemployment. Plus the "job growth" that they're citing is strictly because a large number of people have permanently left the job market.

It's the Greater Depression folks, get used to it.