The US economy and jobs: the basic arithmetic

The US economy and jobs: the basic arithmetic

By Donal on Tue, 06/05/2012 - 2:46pm |

[Dean Baker] The main story of the apparent weakness of the last three months is the apparent strength of the prior three months. In other words, the story is still the weather. The relatively strong growth in jobs and other measures that was the result of a relatively mild winter meant that we would see weaker growth than normal in the spring.

If companies hire people because demand picked up in February rather than April, then they will not be doing as much hiring in the spring as would ordinarily be the case. The same story applies to consumer demand. Families that took advantage of unusually mild winter weather to buy a car in January or February don't go out and buy another one in the spring.

URL:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/04/us-economy-jobs-basic-arithmetic

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Best grafs imo:

These swings from excessive pessimism to excessive optimism, and back again, are preventing the public from understanding the real picture of the economy – which is, in fact, awful. This is like baseball fans standing up and cheering wildly when their pitcher throws a strike, then falling into despair when the next pitch is a ball, ignoring the fact that their team is losing 12-0.

The discussions of the economy have lost sight of the basic score. The US economy is operating at close to 6% below its potential with employment down by almost 10 million compared with its trend level. This is an incredible waste of resources. It is also devastating to the unemployed workers and their families.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 06/05/2012 - 3:09pm

Unemployment helps keep inflation under control.

by Resistance on Tue, 06/05/2012 - 5:26pm

By starving the unemployed.

by Flavius on Wed, 06/06/2012 - 1:38pm

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