So it's 8:30 pm Thursday and time once again for the release of the weekly number of new unemployment claims. The number is 404,000 or just above 400,000. In one of the funnier lines of the day, the AP says that this may be a sign that the job market is stagnating. You think? Since last April, the US ecnomy has been stuck with this statistic above 400,000 except for one week when it fell just below that level. The weekly figure means very little, the four week average is more meaningful, but a six month figure consistently above 400,000 means a lot. Simply put, the economy is not growing so it is not increasing the number of people employed. This means that unemployment cannot go down and instead is going up as more people join the workforce.
This number is also important since it puts into perspective the Obama "jobs" plan. It took Obama years to come up with a plan that is just a temporary tax reduction in exchange for a permanent tax increase. It is another of the Obama plans that rob the future to gratify the present; rephrased, it is another re-election scheme from a president who seems out of workable ideas for the country and who seems to have few good ideas for his re-election. Hopefully, with the failure of the Democrats in the Senate to pass the bill, it is dead. Maybe now we can have congress look at some ideas that could actually help the economy without mortgaging the furture.
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