I'd like to think it isn't too late to turn some of this around simply because another three years like the last one seems unbearable at this stage. I was confident the Dems would get the economy right. Dems have the numbers and had (emphasis) the political capital to do just about anything.

Instead the economy is losing jobs at the same steady rate that Obama's numbers are dropping. The only folks doing well are the same ones who authored the mess.

Administration officials would presumably argue that they were constrained by political realities, that a bolder policy couldn't have passed Congress. But they never tested that assumption, and they also never gave any public indication that they were doing less than they wanted. The official line was that policy was just right, making it hard to explain now why more is needed.

But since Obama came in with high approval ratings, and maintained them for months, this would be a very hard argument to make.

For the first few months of his administration Obama was the political reality!

The reading, reported by the government Friday, is a sign of the continued weakness in the labor market even though the economy grew in the third quarter following the longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression.

The government reported Friday that unemployment rate spiked to 10.2%, up from 9.8% in September. It is the highest that this rate has been since April 1983. Economists had forecast an increase to 9.9%.

There was also a net loss of 190,000 jobs in October, according to the Labor Department, an improvement from a revised estimate of 219,000 job losses in September. However, economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of only 175,000 jobs in October. This was the 22nd straight month of job losses.

Government efforts to end job losses have had limited effects, although the Obama administration estimated last month that 640,000 jobs were created or saved by the federal stimulus package passed earlier this year. But that's modest compared to the 7.3 million jobs that have been lost by the economy since the start of 2008.

Friday's report comes one day after Congress voted overwhelmingly to extend unemployment benefits by up to 20 weeks. There are now a record 5.6 million people who have been unemployed for six months or longer, as the average time an unemployed person has been out of a job hit 26.9 weeks.

Prior to this report, most economists had believed that the unemployment rate would keep rising and that job losses would continue into next year. But the jump in unemployment in October took it to levels worse than what many previously had expected to be the peak.

According to a survey of top forecasters by the National Association of Business Economics last month, the consensus estimate among economists was that unemployment would hit a high of 10% in the final three months of this year and the first quarter of 2010.

This is my favorite line:

Government efforts to end job losses have had limited effects, although the Obama administration estimated last month that 640,000 jobs were created or saved by the federal stimulus package passed earlier this year.

I think real UE including U6 is north of 20%, closer to 22-23.  Count in those who took severance and could not file UE claims, the forthcoming adjustment, the birth/death model fiction and those who have exhausted their benefits and you have 22-23%.

The unemployment rate has doubled yr/yr which is essentially unprecedented in our time.  

It took about 8 months for the stimulus money to hit the streets and gave us a 3% increase in GDP.  Larry Summers has said in meetings about UE and foreclosures "there is nothing we can do about it"..

That about sums it up.  On the one hand the President is saying people need jobs and the top economic advisor is not open to suggestions because there is nothing we can do.

The administration conceded 10% UE in their stress tests why is this a surprise to anyone?  The 20% UE either "saved enough" to survive a long period of UE or they are simply collateral damage.

  Of course they will be portrayed in the media as people who overextended themselves and should have known better.  I guess if we all had "known" better about derivatives and risks the banks were taking and how that would eventually collapse the economy, we as a nation might have saved more.  

Unemployment at 10.2%

• President's top economic advisor admits this is by government design.

• White House intends for unemployment to go down in an election year.

On January 18, 2009, Obama's top economics advisor Larry Summers said Barack Obama's stimulus plan would keep unemployment below 10% and could be deemed to have failed if it crossed 10%.

On July 17, 2009, Larry Summers said

"Both administration and independent forecasts predicted that only a very small part of the total job creation expected from the Recovery Act would take place within six months," he continued. "Indeed, a Council of Economic Advisers' study predicted that only 10 percent of the total job impact of the Recovery Act would take place during calendar year 2009. Given lags in spending and hiring, the peak impact of the stimulus on jobs was expected not to be achieved until the end of 2010."

In other words, an ever growing number of Americans have to sit on the unemployment line until next year by government design. Why? So in 2010, Barack Obama and the Democrats can run on falling unemployment numbers. They'd rather you starve now so they can have recovery happen in an election year.

We're all political pawns to Barack Obama.

One more thing: remember, outside economists say passing the Democrats' health care plan will slow the recovery further, stagnate wages, and increase unemployment. Do we want to do that?

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson

They are anticipating that the numbers are going to drop and are planning on selling the fact that it is at 10.2% presently as political manuevering. Furthermore, unlike the Dems, they are tying the economy to health care.