Today's unemployment numbers

I think that the media has lost its collective mind. This morning it was announced that the economy lost another 350,000 jobs and the unemployment rate jumped to 9.4% last month. This is touted as good news. CBS did everything but play "Happy Days are Here Again" in the background when it reported these figures.

Let's be honest about these figures -- they are terrible and very bad news. True, things are not getting worse at the same rapid rate that has prevailed since the start of the year. Still, all that has happened is that the initial rush of layoffs that ripped through the economy in January through April has slowed. The jobs lost were those that could most easily be shed. Now we are getting to jobs that are harder to take out of the economy. In other words, more people getting fired are in companies that are failing or doing extremely poorly rather than in companies that are downsizing to try to preserve their profits. This does not seem like cause for celebration to me.

The downsizing job losses have peaked since most of those who were in peril due to this trend have already been fired. The problem is that on a net basis these same people are not being hired elsewhere.

In many respects the media portraying this as good news is like a doctor dealing with an epidemic who tells the population that they need not worry since nearly all of those at risk for a pandemic have already died. In other words, the doctor failed to save his patients, but the disease is running out of potential victims. Not good news in my opinion.

Nevertheless, I am sure that we will continue to hear how this is good news due to the Obama stimulus (which, of course, has not really started -- given the governments inability to do anything quickly). I hope that the American people can see the reality despite the news media. After all, these are the same reporters who spent many months decrying the Bush administration during the last recession in 2001 because the number of jobs was not going UP fast enough. In that recession slow job growth was a catastrophe, but in the Obama recession a slowing of the avalanche of job losses is great news. What fools these reporters be!