Friday, January 8, 2010

Do you know what tomorrow is?

Tomorrow is the one anniversary of the report issued by Obama's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christine Romer, that said that unemployment would not go over eight percent if the Stimulus Package was passed.  As they say, that was then, this is now:

On the December Jobs Numbers
Posted by Christina Romer

Today’s employment report, though a setback from November, is consistent with the gradual labor market stabilization we have been seeing over the last several months.

Payroll employment declined 85,000 in December. To put this number in perspective, employment declined 139,000 in September and 127,000 in October. So, in a broad sense the trend toward moderating job loss is continuing. This trend is particularly obvious in the quarterly pattern: average monthly job loss was 691,000 in the first quarter of 2009, 428,000 in the second quarter, 199,000 in the third quarter, and 69,000 in the fourth quarter. (emphasis added)
Translating Romer's statement using my Administration Spin to Plain English dictionary, the gist is:  unemployment sucks and is getting suckier but even though it is far above the eight percent we promised it doesn't suck as bad as it could so therefore, we're doing a real bang up job of only somewhat really sucking.

Of course that is easy for Romer to say, she still has a job.

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