What a bizarre night! First here in Chicago we are told a blizzard is coming...looking outside...nope, no blizzard. Then after I write about my Chinese Proverb, I get more bad news. Lastly we then almost witnessed the biggest collapse in college football history. I have never in my lifetime seen a worse second half strategy then what Bama had going in the third quarter. They might as well have just knelt the ball down every play! And who let's a freshman quarterback, who walking into the half was completely shell shocked, off the hook? No blitzes, no complex schemes and man to man on Shipley? At least the ship righted itself and the Tide rolled with two turnovers late in the game. It was nice to see Mark Ingram after all he has been through speak at the end of the game. A fantastic story and congrats to Alabama. I would also like to take this time to say I am sorry to the lady for getting too heated about the game...it happens, I love me some football.
Here are your highlights:
The Jobs Report = not good, it points out what we have been saying here on the "fringe left." Fix jobs, get people jobs, who gives a fugg about deficits when people are unemployed and struggling...other than Karl Rove
Portugal passes gay marriage legislation
Blame Jay Leno, the experiment is over and Conan (the more talented of all) looks to be getting the shaft
Ok, so who is racist? Obama....not Glenn Beck...could have fooled me
JUST LIKE BUSH! Uh-oh another John Cole &. Andrew Sullivan tiff
I remember telling a couple of friends this exact same thing not too long ago, "I'm not writing to make conservatives happy", but with less of a take down. I would honestly like for some form of another party to balance America Dems and ? ; the current Republican party, the conservative movement in its current state is not it. This is the best rallying cry I have read:
"It is time to stop looking for an accommodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?"
I am Frank Chow and I approved this message
5 comments:
That jobs report is getting a bit overblown. If you look at the trend of unemployment, we're still moving up. What we saw was near parity in November and then a slight drop in December. That makes sense if you think about it.
Companies engage in layoffs on quarter boundaries. I've been through this and I recall having two rounds of layoffs at one company. One round was in December right before the holidays and the next round was in March at the end of the first quarter.
The tell will be January and February. If we're still not adding jobs then I'll be concerned. But for now I think we're still moving the right direction if not as quickly as I'd like.
See, but you have a job....
Oh gonna be like that my also employed friend? :)
My point is that people are looking at December having layoffs as being bad in a way that's new and interesting. Really it falls well within the existing trend. What would be a concern was if the drop had been more significant and had fallen outside the ongoing trend.
Things are still crappy and, truth be told, probably will be for many people for the next 1-3 years depending on how the pace picks up from here. What would be a problem is if the trend started heading back down again. Then we'd be talking double-dip recession, increased risk for deflation, and no doubt cats and dogs living together. But my point is, we're not there yet. We're still up the creek but it appears we've at least got some kind of hacked together paddle to work with.
When did people losing their jobs become so meh? I know statistically what everything means, but have we become so accepting of people being unemployed?
I just am saying which I think Atrios says every day, people don't care about trends or ongoing expectations. They want to work. Where's my copy of the movie Dave?!
Damnit.
Of course people WANT to work, but the simple reality is that if people don't have money to buy crap, then they don't need people to make crap. If they don't need people to make crap, then people don't have jobs.
The government's stimulus was intended to help break a deflationary spiral where lack of job turns to lack of money spent turns to more lack of jobs. The evidence suggests that this spiral ended several months ago and that we're steadily recovering. But the economy is like a giant ship and it takes time to turn.
Now you could argue that the government should be doing more to add jobs, but there are limits to what they can do. If they do too much then you end up wasting a lot of money and causing inflation. We don't want that either.
The question we have to figure out now is: was the stimulus enough. If it was, then we should see increased hiring and actual job growth in Q1. If it was not then we'll see more of what we saw in December.
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