I know. What’s being reported is that the unemployment rate has fallen yet again (hell, not just a fall, but a “plummet”!) And subsequent reports will likely show unemployment continuing to edge down in the run-up to the 2012 election, creating a picture of an economy on the mend under the steady stewardship of a driven President refusing to be defeated by either the fiscal mess Bush bequeathed him, or the do-nothing Republican Congress that is trying to thwart him, most likely because he’s Black.
And that’s because we have a media who are actively interested in seeing Obama re-elected — so much so that they no longer concern themselves with facts, but rather only with how best to frame facts in the aid of a progressive world view. And if that means massaging the narrative a bit — by, for instance, leaving unmentioned the strange decline in the numbers of Americans (who it would appear at a casual glance must be dying off at a remarkable clip) being counted as part of the potential work force — well, then an activist with the best of intentions acting on his or her patriotic duty to bring the hoary old US Constitution kicking and screaming into the 21st century has gotta do what an activist with the best of intentions acting on his or her patriotic duty to bring the hoary old US Constitution kicking and screaming into the 21st century has gotta do.
Fortunately, some of us know the real story. Unfortunately, the postmodern President and his academic sophists are willing to bet that they can shape perception and create an alternate set of “truths” before the election — and given the way we’ve been conditioned to accept the media as mostly unbiased, and given how we’ve been inculcated with deconstructed and reframed notions of “fairness,” “tolerance,” and the like, they may just be right.
But on the off-chance some erstwhile non-engaged American happens by here, allow me to help. From Americans for Limited Government:
Once again, the civilian labor force participation rate has declined, from 64 percent to 63.7 percent in a single month. Since January 2009, it has declined from 65.7 percent, resulting in approximately 4.7 million people no longer being counted towards the unemployment rate. If they were included, the real rate of unemployed working age adults would be 11.01 percent, and the underemployed would be 17.6 percent.
Overall, that includes the 12.7 million people that BLS says are actually unemployed, and then 4.7 million who have given up looking for work, plus another 10.5 million who can’t find full-time work. All together, there’s 28 million working age adults who simply cannot find work in the Obama economy.
Notes Jim Pethokoukis:
Bottom line: The unemployment rate is dropping because economic growth continues to be so anemic that nearly 4 million Americans have quit looking for work and have been disappeared by the Labor Department. This still isn’t much of a recovery.
— Says you. To the mainstream press, such an unemployment rate “plummet” is a clear sign that The Won may have finally been able to break the Bush curse and raise the economy from the dead.
Couple that with the fact that, since Obama took office, we no longer have to worry about the seas rising, and what we have here is the perfect storm for a progressive re-election — and the fundamental transformation of the US!
Here are some charts.
so what this says is that once a President Romney is in office and people have a renewed sense of optimism about the economy, people will flood into the workforce and the unemployment rate will skyrocket
But how are we doing on burrito coverings? *That’s* the real question.
Tyler nails it too.
Happyfeet, what do you think Romney will do to bring optimism to the economy?
When we need to scrap government healthcare, slash onerous regulation, beat back public unions, actually reduce the deficit and debt(not just slow it’s growth), de-fang the EPA and a dozen other bureaucracies, restructure and reduce entitlements, the most Romney will do is drop corporate tax rates a percentage point or two. And raise the minimum wage.
I don’t see optimism happening because the government fixes are done by team R instead of team D. It’ll only happen when government fixes are stopped, so free market fixes can happen.
change is usually met with a burst of optimism, here in America
it’s a thing
but there’s TONS of easy quick things to do that will rev the motor
Obama has been fucking awful
but beyond the quick and easy I’m not sure what Romney can be counted on to do
he’s something of a cowardly McCain-like whore you know
“change is usually met with a burst of optimism, here in America
it’s a thing
but there’s TONS of easy quick things to do that will rev the motor”
Promising to raise the minimum wage isn’t the sorta change that will inspire business or employment. The dumb ass should be promising to lower the minimum wage, now that would be a change.
Change doesn’t inspire rational optimism; improvement does.
Irrational optimism, as inspired by mere change, is what leads you to 80+% approval ratings before you’ve done anything, and a Nobel prize solely for not being your predecessor.
Yes the dumb ass should be promising to lower the minimum wage.
But people are tired of the dreary Obama years. It’s no way to live.
Happyfeet, what do you think Romney will do to bring optimism to the economy?
I can’t speak for happy*, but I think the best thing Romney could do would be not to complain too loudly as he’s signing the budget bill the new House and Senate send to his desk. The one that contains no funding for Dept Ed, Dept Energy, or Homeland Security, for starters.
* because I’m not a cupcake-addicted trendy hipster Japanese schoolgirl on meth.
Those would be the House and Senate with Paul Ryan and Rand Paul as speaker and majority leader, respectively?
Now THAT’S optimism!
no this is optimism… National Soros Radio discovers a miraculous and profound economic rebound “the vast majority of economists” have missed!
stupid economists
I heard where Chairman Bernancke argues — in effect — that Congress ought not to think seriously of returning the people’s money to the people by lowering spending radically or drastically anytime soon, for fear of crashing the economy! He is a genius, the Chairman.
FTFT
[…] update: Jeff over at Protein Wisdom found somebody to do the REAL math: Once again, the civilian labor force participation rate has […]