Labor Department: Jobs Lost in January.

The Bush administration Couldn't Fudge The Numbers Enough This Time.

Excerpt NY Times report "U.S. Economy Unexpectedly Sheds 17,000 Jobs ":

Economists had predicted a substantial gain in January payrolls, and early signs pointed to a relatively strong report. Instead, the government reported the first decline in jobs since August 2003.

“There’s a race going on between an economy that’s gathering weakness and aggressive monetary and fiscal policy,” said Ethan Harris, chief United States economist at Lehman Brothers. “Whether we have a recession in the U.S. or not depends on which of these two forces moves quicker.”m

 I think bloke is entirely wrong on this being short term.  They be able to produce more stagflation, but with our tremendous debt from our warmongering, we, or at least the middle and working classes, are going nowhere for a long time unless we get real change and less war from our leaders.

BTW, didn't I tell you that the Bush administration would refigure December's numbers to make them look better?

Excerpt 2 from the complacent NY Times writer Michael Grynbaum:

Mr. Harris noted that the employment data can be quite volatile from month to month. The last reported monthly decline, in August 2007, was later revised up to a 74,000 gain.

Just last month, the December report showed an anemic 18,000 rise in payrolls, prompting a significant downturn in the stock market. On Friday, the Labor Department raised that estimate to a gain of 82,000 jobs.

See previous posts on this  subject by clicking on "jobs" tag:

I will try to make a list  of the most important posts later.

tags: jobs  economy  recession  

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