Here is that word again, “unexpectedly”!
Weekly Jobless Claims Post Surprise Jump, Hit 500,000
New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to a nine-month high last week, yet another setback to the frail economic recovery.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 500,000 in the week ended August 14, the highest since mid-November, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
CNBC’s headline writer also got gobsmacked, writing this header for the Reuters story: “Weekly Jobless Claims Post Surprise Jump, Hit 500,000.” Maybe Reuters should seriously look at hiring better analysts.
Recovery summer?
More like the recovery summer’s bust. Larry Kudlow has more on the Economic Lessons of the Summer Swoon: disinflation, dropping bonds, falling stocks, and this,
And let me repeat my own mantra: The Fed can produce new money, but it cannot produce new jobs. Fiscal policy — and its threat of overtaxing, over-regulating, and overspending — is what’s ailing the economy. And that threat is reverberating through stock and bond markets. (The stock market, by the way, is still about 11 percent below its late-April peak.)
Small wonder that only 41 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s job performance
“Unexpectedly”!, at that.
Oh, look,
Bloomberg’s also into “unexpectedly”!
UPDATE
Sing it, Don! The Unexpectedly Song
