Why does media not note UE claims 20,000 above Clinton's last week

[papau]

The number of Americans filing for initial jobless benefits dropped to the lowest level in more than three years last week, 336,000, the lowest number for any week under Bush, and only 20,000 higher than the last week -Jan 13, 2001 - reported under Clinton.

And if the numbers are true (We know they will be revised upward - but we will pretend for a week that they are true) we can all say that is a good thing.

But excuse me if I wait for the payroll numbers for March.

[meegbear]

1. My question is

When they release these numbers, how of these are becuase they got a job and how many because they can no longer claim?

[papau]

2. the "no longer want a job" is a bit of Bull - just take the longer term

UE losing benefits because it is over 39 weeks and add them back in,

and the UE rate moves up to 7.7 percent.

[meegbear]

5. I was unemployed for 14 months ...

I lost my benefits at the beginning of August. It angers me that they can put the spin that the numbers dropped without saying how many of those are due to having no more benefits.

[swinney]

3. numbers slumber we need Clinton jobs

Under Clinton. at this stage, we would have created 11 million new jobs. Quite a difference.

It was no accident. Clinton's people worked hard to make it happen.

[Centre_Left]

4. Are you suggesting...

That Bill Clinton, faced with the bursting of a massive investment bubble plus terrorist attacks plus a series of widely-publicized accounting scandals plus new competition for American companies from resurgent foreign competitors, would have magically been able to conjure up 11,000,000 million jobs by this point in his administration had he been able to serve another term?

[mhr]

6. Yes, Because He would Not Have Given The Rich A Tax Cut!

eom

[papau]

7. true -the marginal effect of anticipated forever deficits obviously stopped

some capital investment because the hurdle rate was higher than it would otherwise have been. Plus the use of the a portion of those tax cut for the rich monies for higher consumption stimulus items - tax cuts for the rich suck as a consumption stimulus - would have kept the Clinton miracle moving to ever higher GDP and jobs created.

Then remove the money used for war that mainly stimulated overseas economies, and yep - a stock market bubble that has no real effect on GDP would not be in the election ads for 04 as an excuse for the current administration lousy results since the current expansion/boom began 11/01/01.

[papau]

8. resurgent foreign competitors equate to who? - or is outsourcing now

called establishing resurgent foreign competitors?

[Centre_Left]

9. By foreign competition...

...I simply mean companies in other countries competing with US companies for customers. Many American companies, particularly in the manufacturing sector, have suffered over the past couple of decades due to the stream of imports coming into the US from places like China and India. That phenomenon has hit some industries particularly hard over the past three years and has played a role in the "softness" economic recovery. Bill Clinton could have done have little to stop the flow of imports other than to place huge tariffs on foreign goods, something he certainly would not have done since he was a vocal free trader.

[togiak]

10. Correct

Yes, you are correct. There is nothing that ANY president can do to stem the tide of manufacturing job losses in this country. There is no way that we can compete with a country that pays workers less than half our wages and whose workers are just as efficient (well marginally less actually) as our own workers.

This trend didn't start under GWB. It has been going on since the 80's, accelarated in the 90's and has exploded in this century.

But that was the whole point of the boom of the 90's. We were moving from an industrial base society to a post industrial technology society. That is where the Clinton boom came from and that is where Bush is failing. He is doing nothing to enable our economy and he is doing even less to help our work force move from industrial to post industrial.

All economists know that free trade is a net-plus for an economy. The dirty secret, however, is that unless you enable the free mobility of the workforce you get huge sectors of the population that are screwed by free trade (such as manufacturing employees).

[papau]

11. I agree - the movement of manufacturing jobs only accelerated under

Bush -

Clinton was on top of this, Bush either can't find his nose on his face - or does not care to look for it.

15 years ago the World Bank studies were pointing out that where plants and mills are built - even if built solely because of gov subsidy, and even if economically in a poor location for lowest price/best quality to market - those locations are where the jobs move to. Folks do not reject subsidies - be they straight cash from the gov, or low pay, dump on worker/dump on environment laws. Corporate ethics/morality/loyalty do not exist.

So yes, we all agree- while manufacturing will always remain part of the US economy, it will be a smaller and smaller percentage of GDP and jobs overtime, and even may/will decrease in absolute numbers over the next decade.