Still Losing Jobs; So What’s Your Excuse Now?

I can’t wait to hear the White House explanation for June’s unemployment numbers. I assure you whatever the response, it will be laughable. Today the BLS released that unemployment climbed higher than expected in the month June. That was only part of the jagged pill that the administration must swallow, the numbers also put a torch to all of Obama’s “green shoot” arguments like an ant under a magnifying glass.

We lost 467,000 jobs in June even as Obama “hopes” to mathematically create and save 600,000 by the end of August. The increased stimulus spending has done such an excellent job, that the rate at which jobs has been lost increased from May to June. This puts to bed Obama’s long held argument of “green shoots” in the economy because although we were losing a ton of jobs every month, at least this month’s ton wasn’t as big as last month’s ton. Taken together with the fact that consumer confidence has taken an unexpected dive, I can’t conceive what the Obama spin can possibly be on this one. My guess is that he won’t address it or try to move onto some other crisis.

I’m also wondering with consumer confidence in the tank, why are we still pushing a stimulus that requires consumers to spend in order to work? We could “hope” that people will change their minds, but I’d much rather try policies that work.

If you are wondering about Obama’s jobs bill, cap and trade. Right Klik had an excellent post today on the economics of cap and trade. I’m reposting his graph showing how much money will bleed to other countries once cap and trade has started.



Good thing we rushed that cap and trade bill, we’re in the middle of an economic crisis. Quick, let’s pass health care as quickly as possible. It's like being shot in one foot and treating the wound by shooting the other one.
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Update:
Obama just commented on the news. He called the news sobering and asked people to be patient for his economic policies to continue to devistate the economy...I mean work. He also stated that the rate of unemployment is slowing, which is a lie. The rate just increased.

Update #2:
AP reports that including people who have given up looking for work and part-time employees that unemployment rate would be at 16.5%. The part I love most about articles like this is quotes like the following:

"Even with higher pace of job cuts in June, the report indicates that the worst of the layoffs have passed."

Then they follow up this great news with this:

"Still, many economists predict the jobless rate will hit 10 percent this year, and keep rising into next year, before falling back."

So you see...the worst is over.