263,000 More Jobs Lost

The report out today continues to show that the economy is hardly "coming back from the brink" as our illustrious president has claimed. 263,000 more people lost their jobs in September. I haven't bothered tuning into the drive-by media to see what kind of spin they're trying to put on this month's numbers, but since it's higher than last month, and well over the forecast number, I'm sure whatever it is they had to brainstorm very hard indeed. On the other hand, I'll do my best guess and say they're probably trying to say how great the fact that last month's number was revised from 216,000 jobs lost to "only" 201,000. Just a hunch though.

So what about the unemployment percentage? The reported number was 9.8%, up another 0.1% from last month. But again this doesn't even begin to tell you the real story. Thousands upon thousands of people recently exhausted the last of their unemployment claim money and are not even counted in those numbers. Neither are people who are now working part-time but want to be working full-time. When you take all these people into account, the actual number could be approaching 20%. The recent numbers on youth unemployment, those aged 16-24, is a whopping 52.2%. Yet you hardly hear that number in the network media, if you hear it at all. Yet in 1982 when it was half that, they were trumpeting it as a sign of failure by then president Ronald Reagan.

So now what Mr. Obama? If the porkulus hadn't been passed, the number would have been 2,630,000 instead? Oh right. He's too busy in Denmark pitching for the Olympics to make his slumlord pal Jarrett and all their friends in Chicago even more rich to be bothered with such a low priority as job loss in the US. I forgot. On the bright side, I guess when the Olympics do start, more people will be jobless, so they'll be home and watching the Olympics. If they don't have to sell their televisions so they can eat. Or get kicked out of their apartments and houses because they can't make rent or the mortgage payments. Yeah, on second thought I guess that isn't such a bright side...