Here's the headline according to the AP: "The U.S. economy added fewer jobs than expected in November and the unemployment rate rose to its highest level since April, underlining the continued weakness in the labor market 17 months into the recovery."
What I fail to see is why anyone is surprised by this. The election is over, so the games to keep the unemployment number down are also over. For example, the people who worked at the polls on election day got counted as employed in the October report, but they are now unemployed for the November report. That is one of the reasons why government employment was down in November. Of course, even the games by the administration cannot change the basic fact that unemployment is very high and has been very high since shortly after Obama took office. No matter how many times Obama or one of his people tell us that things would be worse without them, everyone is still staring at the worst bout of sustained unemployment in this country in 70 years.
Another headline with great impact on the labor market came this morning in an article that said that failure to pass an extension of the current tax rates by December 15th would cause the stock market to fall drastically. This would undermine the entire premise behind quantitative easing by the fed. Supposedly, QE2 will cause the stock market to rise and this will lead to a "virtuous circle" of high stock prices meaning more confidence meaning more spending meaning higher employment and corporate profits meaning more spending still and higher stock prices still and so on. If Obama and the obamacrats continue to play games with the tax issue rather than settling it in accordance with the results of the elections, they risk a stock colapse and further rises in unemployment as a result of a "vicious circle".
How many times have we been told that obama is focused like a laser on unemployment? It must be the world's most unfocused laser!
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