I’m with you! But, the one thing the Republicans do well is to promote hate for Obama! Through Rush Limbaugh and others, they have a huge following who believe in their dogma including my husband. Unfortunately, the Democrats are not as good at rallying their troops. I just hope less people are listening. I too am disappointed in Obama in some ways, like not being tough enough, but he stands for what I believe in and unfortunately the others don’t!

Erm… the statistic is jobless claims, which is quite a different thing from the actual number of people out of work. When you loose your job you can only collect unemployment for 26 weeks, after which you can no longer file a claim. So… all this statistic is counting is the number of out of work people who have been unemployed for less than 26 weeks. There are a whole heck of a lot more unemployed folks out there who are no longer eligible to file a jobless claim.

According to this chart the unemployment rate in October of 2009 was over 10%, which is not too far off of the all time record high. True, it has fallen a bit over the past few months, but is still over 8.5%, which is a point that has not been seen in over a quarter of a century.

I doubt it’s because they came down with a case of truth-telling. It’s agenda.

@YoBob I will grant you the point that the way we count the “jobless” is messed up… But you have to be fair with that assessment… it’s the same one we’ve used for like 60–70 years, including under Bush… and no one pulled the numbers out and said “oh well things aren’t that great, see this many people probably just gave up looking…” with him ya know?

The fact of the matter is, our economy is improving. We can squabble about how well it’s improving, how many people are still jobless, etc, etc… But we can’t deny the fact our economy is adding a solid chunk of jobs every month, and that the private sector has been for like 17 straight months now.

Well, the Republicans think that everybody is going to swallow their crap no matter how far fetched and outrageous it might be. Unfortunately, many do. The most recent crap in my inbox has been that Obama changed the decor of the oval office so that it has a Muslim based theme.

@comity I don’t think that the Dems aren’t rallying their troops. I think Obama doesn’t want to get down in the mud and pig crap with them. Pretty much like a grown up ignoring the temper tantrums of a five year old.

I hope the elections prove me right.

@Dutchess_III Me too!!

Haven’t you heard? Obama is hated so much that the only solution is to get him out of office, just so people will feel comfortable enough to fix the economy once again…...That’s all it takes, apparently…...

Hated by so few, but man do those few bitch and scream. It’s all racially based too. That’s what just slays me. We’d like to assume our leaders are intelligent, thoughtful people.

Unemployment claims only reflect how many people have filed unemployment claims, not those who have exhaused their benefit, nor those who have given up.

You know, my husband isn’t racially biased. And, he’s a nice guy! He actually believes President Obama is evil. I think he’s ridiculous! He thinks the same of me. I guess we all don’t see things the same wayl. But, when it’s election time, I hope people see it like I do, not like he does!!

@comity…..Does he believe in all that really silly stuff, like Obama isn’t an American and stuff?

@CaptainHarley I keep hearing that…that people have “given up” looking for work. That just makes no sense. What do they plan to live on? Air?

@Dutchess_III As opposed to the not working they were doing while looking for work? Employment isn’t the only way to stay fed, and in some cases the job search and such just get in the way of taking care of oneself.

@ Dutchess_ lll No not that. He listens to Rush Limbaugh, and agrees with him. Yuch! We separate in the evening as I watch CNN and he watches FOX news. What can I tell you. We’re like Mary Matalin and James Carville!

@CaptainHarley See my earlier post. In summary, I agree that the way we count is stupid because we stop counting people who stop looking but, it’s the same method used to count jobs for every president since FDR… we can’t ignore good numbers now just because they’re for Obama. And either way, we know we’re adding jobs every month.

@incendiary_dan That was awfully vague. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Criminal activity?

@Dutchess_III There was nothing vague. I said that people looking for work find no work anyway, so it’s not like giving up looking makes a tangible difference to them. If they manage to stay alive despite not having sanctioned jobs (you remember that’s what I teach, right? ) then it isn’t going to kill them to stop looking.

So…their chances of getting a job are absolutely 0, and will remain so for the rest of their lives, so how are they paying their bills? Can you give me a concrete example?

Darn those facts!

Soon as the holiday season is over, the claims may return.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies No, I believe this is a real trend not just seasonal.

Unemployment figures are not arrived at using unemployment benefit claims. They are calculated based on methods approved by the International Labour Organization, most especially two surveys – one of businesses and one of households.

Ain’t nobody axed me about unemployment!

@tedd the counting methodology has changed several times since Reagan was first elected president. The official unemployment rate cannot be compared accurately from the FDR years to the Carter years, or from Carter to Obama. There have been several changes to the ‘Official numbers’ that cloud the issue.

Prior to Reagan, if you were discouraged and stopped looking for work, you were still counted as unemployed. Between Reagan years and Clinton, If you quit looking for work, you were considered employed. After Clinton, if you fall off the rolls and no longer were collecting unemployment insurance checks you are no longer counted among the unemployed.

@Dutchess_III

Duchess… what about unemployment? There! I axed! : D

I’m employed! :) Just escaped getting laid off by a hair though!
Now. Plug that into the stats and watch the numbers of the employed sky-rocket by 1. :)

@Dutchess_III

LOL! Why shouldn’t they count you? After all, they count all the make-work jobs created in the federal bureaucracy. : )

Most of the GOP have no connection to the real world that the rest of us inhabit & they have no ability to put themselves in our shoes (this requires empathy & science has proven that the more money an individual has, the less empathy they feel towards others). Many of the Tea Party Republicans have been point blank about pushing companies to NOT hire until Obama is out of office as President. Unfortunately, far too many take what has been said about Obama as being “gospel”. Personally, I voted for him & although I have not been pleased with several of the things that he has done while in office, I think that a lot of his problems have come from Congress being more concerned with getting re-elected than on fixing what is wrong with the US.

Personally, I don’t place all of my faith in the U3 numbers (the official figures, which count only those who have looked in the last few weeks) as they do not include “discouraged workers”.

The U4 figures add in “Discouraged workers”. And given that those who have exhausted their UI benefits are not really counted as “seeking employment” even if they are, there are quite a few unemployed people who fall under this category yet won’t show up in the official unemployment figures.

U5 and U6 figures include the underemployed; people who are technically employed, but possibly for as little as one hour a week and therefore, for all practical purposes, unemployed.

However, what I think you fail to realize, @ETpro, is that many people have no rhyme or reason to their political beliefs, many of which are either no based on fact, or based on explicit non-fact. For instance, did you know that every good thing that happened to the economy under Clinton was due to Bush-41 and Reagan, everything bad that happened under Bush-43 was due to Clinton, and everything bad that has happened since 2007 is Obama’s fault? It’s “true”!

@CaptainHarley Right.. You’re aware that the entirety of job losses in the last 15 months were in the “make-work jobs created in the federal bureaucracy” category… right?

The private sector has added jobs for 15–16 months straight.

@comity Yes, the Vast Right Wing Noise Machine has served the men behind the curtain very well. Now that OWS has focused so much natioal attention on it that the “Lame Stream Media” which is supposedly wildly liberal and biased, but is in fact almost entirely owned be multinational mega-corporations now is actually covering the destruction of the miffle class and the growing wealth inequality; I hope that Big Lie megaphone may be a less effective tool for the corporatists going forward.

@YoBob Classic wrong-wing strategy. Refuse to look at any quantifiable statistics, and rather pick numbers that can’t be counted and claim they are getting much worse, and it’s all the opposition’s fault. Big Lie politics aft its best. Let;s review some additional statistics we can count. At the end of the last Republican presidency, the economy was loosing about 800,000 jobs per month. We have now has 21 consecutive months of private sector job growth. Is loosing 800,000 jobs a month way better than gaining jobs? Your call. You can vote for the people who want to return to Bush’s policies and double down on them and continue to believe that if you keep doing the same thing, this time you will get a different result.

@incendiary_dan It;s certainly not a succen onset of telling the truth.

@tedd Excellent rebuttal to @YoBob atempt to change the topic.

@Dutchess_III No, the hog swill will only go down for so long before it makes people sick. The prophet of Big Lie propaganda was Joseph Goebbels. And even he warned that the lie couldn’t be maintained for long. The wheels are falling off the Big Lies of trickle down economics. We are learning that it is a Big Lie that we must send money to the “job creators” who mostly inherited their wealth and now profit from investing offshore where returns are great and you can shelter profits from even the paltry tax we place on capital gains.

@jerv ”.....everything bad that has happened since 2007 is Obama’s fault? It’s “true”!” I see things a little different. It looks, to me, that the downfall of the American economy with subsequent loss of freedoms all point back the Regan. Why this country picked an addled brained B actor as president is beyond me. His irrational fear of unions and the freedom they represent was probably an early indication of the onset of mental disease. He was the reason I dropped out of the Republican party and is the architect of our current economic problems. He is also to blame for California’s educational system problems. It’s ironic, he dies and we end up in hell.

@Ron_C Why do you think I put “true” in quotes?

@jerv “Why do you think I put “true” in quotes? ” Don’t know, it obviously confused me.

Maybe I’m just too old to understand sarcasm in typing.