As expected, the economic train wreck continues:
The United States economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday, as it struggles to gain any momentum for a sustained recovery.
That estimate matched the consensus forecasts for the gross domestic product, and is a slight uptick from the second quarter.
An economy growing at a sluggish, 2 percent, nearly all economists agree, cannot produce nearly the demand needed to bring down the nation’s painfully high 9.6 percent unemployment rate. And the trade gap remains wide, as imports outpaced exports.
These numbers are unlikely to provide much of a morale boost for President Obama and Democrats, who are just days away from crucial midterm elections. High unemployment and soaring foreclosure numbers in the Midwest and Western states already made this a particularly tough election season for Democrats. Friday’s numbers will probably produce little relief.“It’s the expected G.D.P. number, which is mostly bad news for the economy,” said Josh Bivens, an economist with the liberal leaning Economic Policy Institute. “The growth rate is just nowhere near enough to put downward pressure on unemployment.”
Nowhere near enough? I would say it provides absolutely NO pressure to bring down unemployment…hell, it may be an indicator of even more unemployment. And if this number is revised downward in a few weeks, as is usually the case nowadays, we better be ready for higher numbers in unemployment.
Need more bad news?
With a downward revision to consumer expectations more than offsetting an upward revision to their assessment of current conditions, Reuters and the University of Michigan released a report on Friday showing an unexpected downward revision to their consumer sentiment index for October.
The report showed that the consumer sentiment index for October was downwardly revised to a reading of 67.7 from the previous estimate of 67.9 and is down from 68.2 in September. Economists had expected the index to be upwardly revised to a reading of 68.0.
As a result of the downward revision, the consumer sentiment index is now at its lowest level since November of 2009.
And all the while our MSM is spinning. Imagine for a minute what kind of reports we would be seeing if Bush was the President instead of the media’s goldenboy.
Just days before the mid-term elections and jobs remain the major campaign issue. Unemployment stands at 9.6 percent with nearly 15 million people out of work. Gallup’s analysis argues things are even worse, with unemployment hitting 10 percent again – a number voters wouldn’t see until the Friday after the election. As Gallup explained, it’s “up sharply from 9.4% in mid-September and 9.3% at the end of August.” That means heartache and struggle across the United States.
That’s not the story being told this election. What voters are left with are false impressions from the broadcast news shows – that somehow the worst unemployment in 25 years is not that bad. CNBC’s Steve Liesman called it “self-sustaining job growth,” on NBC’s April 2, 2010 “Nightly News.”
That’s also exactly the opposite of how those same networks handled low unemployment during the last mid-term election. Then, with a Republican in the White House, journalists worked hard at undermining the positive news with the possibility that bad things might occur.
It became such an issue that President George W. Bush was constantly defending his economic record. As CBS’s Mark Knoller put it on the Dec. 3, 2005, “Saturday Early Show,” Bush was trying to take some responsibility for the good economy. “The president insists his economic policies, including his tax cuts, deserve some of the credit.”
He seldom got any.
The Business & Media Institute looked at “job” and “employment” stories around the delivery of each monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report. BMI analyzed morning and evening news shows in the 12 months from October through September of both 2005-2006 and 2009-2010.
During the year leading up to the 2006 mid-terms, reporters undermined positive stories nearly half the time (21 stories out of 46). Combined with negative stories, that gave a downbeat impression of a period where 2,215,000 jobs were created and unemployment barely touched 5 percent.
During an identical time period in the 2010 midterm elections, journalists worked hard at finding the positive news in otherwise strongly negative news. Forty percent of all negative stories (22 out of 55) were spun so that they included the “silver lining.” Coupled with other positive stories, that gave viewers a more upbeat impression of a year where unemployment either passed or neared 10 percent – twice what it had been in the previous mid-term.
When unemployment was under 5% the media and the left spun it in such a way that Bush was mishandling the economy. Now unemployment is at 10% and hey, it could be worse. And hey, there are signs things may be looking up.
Give me a break.
See author page
I was just saying this same thing somewhere this morning.
Here’s another graph for you to put up.
It shows the capitulation on the part of the Obama Administration with regard unemployment.
Yikes!
Timmy Geithner has the USA at over 8.75% unemployment STILL after the new president is installed in Jan of 2012!
Actually, that is NOT correct, if you subtract out government spending you will see that real GDP, i.e. the private sector dropped.
See Bizzyblog: http://www.bizzyblog.com/2010/10/29/gdp-charts-govertnment-vs-private-sector/
There will be no recovery while Obama is President.
Great header picture!
Basically, that’s a summary of the GOP’s fervent hope and single intention over the past 22 months, reduced to the length of a fortune cookie message.
@ Greg, No American wants a stagnant economy, double digit unemployment or a crippled Private Sector that is the true backbone of the Economy. The Current Regime’s Policies, meddling in Private Sector Business and over regulation have created this climate of uncertainty.
It was not a Republican Majority in Congress that is responsible for the current situation or has been for almost FOUR years. There were no Republican Czars, Commissars, or academic types that never ran a business, made a product in the private sector, made a profit that grew the economy, it was the Obama Team and the Democrat Congress that accomplished that so grasp one ear in each hand and pull your economically illiterate head out of your arse.
The largest deficit in the history of the planet in less than two years and nothing to show for it. Government Consumes, the Private Sector Produces. Write that on the chalk board 500 times. Is that simple enough for ya. Your Partisanship interferes with simple logic. Spending what you take in still leaves the debt to be paid with interest. Supermarket math and the US Checkbook is overdrawn.
Democrats or Republicans do not matter. Fiscal prudence does. Curt is correct, the Economy is a train wreck and you ain’t seen nothin yet.
Obama created this economic disaster.
Commercial banks are still plowing more and more money into government securities — the opposite of real banking activity.
Every dollar they spend buying these government securities is one less dollar to loan to the small, medium or large businessman.
Get it?
Here’s a graphic depiction.
http://static.businessinsider.com/image/4cbc835b49e2ae7619040000/chart-of-the-day-us-government-securities-att-commercial-banks-oct-2010.jpg
Obamacare R.I.P.
Americans head to the polls to reject socialist medicine
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/29/obamacare-rip/
Keep MEDICARE Solvent and defund this disaster.
Greg, there you go again blaming Republicans for 0-bama’s failure. What a joke, did 0-bama have a majority in both branchs of Congress, oh yes in fact he did. Your hopeless but the independents who took a chance with 0-bama now realize what a loser he is and how the MSM duped them into voting for this incompetent failure. The numbers speak clearly and no matter how hour mini whitewashed or should I say blackwashed brain attempts to spin it, the only ones who will believe you will be in the minority come Tuesday.
The GOP’s feverent hope, or better said America’s hope, is to get this lab experiement of a President and his minority idiots out of office so that America can get on to recovery. News flash dude, your boy has failed. Get over it!!
Greg said:
However, it’s not the hope of the average Americans who joined en mass with the TEA Party to protest the outrageous spending overstepping of Constitutional bounds by this congress and WH. What’s more, the economy hasn’t recovered, despite Obama and Co.’s ranting that it would.
Your fortune cookie analogy is not very accurate, Greg, as fortune cookies tend to be mass-produced garbage without any of it ever coming true.
This regime, like Roosevelts, never intends to allow the economy to recover to the same level it was before he got elected. FDR did all the same things Obama is doing and kept the depression going from 29 till the war started. He tried so hard to keep America out of the war, but those rascally Japanese brought him kicking and screaming into the war. The war is what got us out of the depression, and nothing else. Power is what he wanted and got almost 16 years in the White House. He tried to change the supreme court to 18 justices to get his hand picked people installed, because the supremes fought him. They ( the left ) say he was our greatest president, I say bullcrap, no difference between Him and Carter, and now Obama. Obama is without a doubt the more communistic of the three.
Public Sector = Consumer
Private Sector = Producer
Small Government = Good
Large Invasive/Intrusive/Over reaching Government = BAD
FDRs approach proved that.
Greg…
Have you ever heard of the Cloward-Pivens theory?
@Greg,
>>There will be no recovery while Obama is President.
>Basically, that’s a summary of the GOP’s fervent hope and single intention over the past 22 months, reduced to the length of a fortune cookie message.
Amazing how this liberal resorts to personal attacks – just like a disciple of Saul Alinski et al would be expected to do.
No Greg, stop pretending to speak for the GOP. Sure, political hacks might want to see their opposition lose face at any cost (including the economic situation in the US,) but this doesn’t represent the general consensus of the GOP rank and file. And before similar ad hominem attacks are launched against the TEA Party (in this discussion,) I believe you will find that the majority of its members don’t want to see the economy falter just to lend credence to their belief that Obama and his administration have failed in their duty to improve the economy’s health. Most conservatives (including Republicans, TEA Party members, and conservative-leaning independents) I have spoken to simply want the government to get the hell out of the way and allow them and other American citizens to enjoy as much of the fruits of their labor as is consistent with a society whose government does not impose an undue burden on its citizens. Nowadays, this specifically applies to “social reform” programs that “spread the wealth” in the pursuit of the illusion of fairness.
While there MAY not be any substantial recovery while Obama is President, that’s not what most people want. Most of us want recovery no matter who sits in the Oval Office; we just aren’t expecting recovery unless and until Obama and his administration (AND Congress, I may add) are willing to put politics aside. Far from being post-partisan, Obama and Democratic Party leaders have taken advantage of crises to forward their own agendas – the opposition (in Congress and in society) be damned.
Jeff
@ JVerive, well stated and accurate summation. Thanks!