“Unexpectedly,” jobs report is better than predicted
Ah, those experts. What is it they’re expert in again? Seems like the last few months have really undermined their creds.
The rate fell somewhat instead of rising. Good news.
But it’s not good news to the left, of course. Here’s what Politico has to say:
An unexpected drop in the unemployment rate set off a fresh round of debate on Friday over how fast the economy can rebound from the coronavirus pandemic and how much the government should intervene to help.
The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May from a peak of 14.7 percent in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported — surprising economists who had widely expected the rate to jump to about 20 percent in May, given that more than 40 million people have applied for unemployment benefits in recent weeks.
The economy gained 2.2 million jobs last month, as states started relaxing stay-at-home orders and opening for business. Markets rallied on the news, with the S&P 500 gaining nearly three percent by mid-day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 3.8 percent.
President Donald Trump and his economic advisers, who have been prodding governors to relax stay-at-home orders, said the numbers show the economy will recover as quickly as they have been predicting. Trump at a Friday news conference compared the pandemic to a short-lived natural disaster and said the numbers are evidence of the “greatest comeback in American history.”
But some economists warned that the unemployment rate is still at highs not seen since the Great Depression — and that it remains hard to predict whether and how rapidly the upswing will continue. The nonpartisan CBO has estimated that unemployment won’t even near pre-pandemic levels — which was at 3.5 percent in February— by the end of next year.
Well, duuuuuh. It remains hard to predict. We need experts to tell us that? And it might not recover fully right away, to previous unemployment levels that were the lowest in umpteen
decades? Fancy that.
By no means are we out of the woods, either from naturally-occurring events or the plans of the left for more crises that might be manufactured. But I don’t think the right feels that some sort of decent recovery by November would be all that “unexpected.”
Just the experts.
There are two problems at work here.
1. Our political/intellectual establishment, including people who are specifically supposed to know something about economic policy, is shockingly bereft of experience in any sort of actual business. It’s all theory to them and usually it’s theory that’s never been fully tested or evaluated.
2. Our elites almost solely see and understand the economy from the perspective of multi-national corporations and the “knowledge worker” professional classes. They genuinely neither know nor care how the economy functions for the rest of the population.
Mike
I expect to see a version of “Downfall” any moment now.
The only positive things about recent events has been the destruction of the credibilities of experts and their models, journalists, and democrat politicians. Those who march in the woke parade are incapable of recognizing this. I betting there are millions whose eyes are wide open now.
The “experts” are in mourning, actually. Good job numbers may mean no more insane stimulus bills, and economic recovery may mean a Trump reelection.
It’s all theory to them and usually it’s theory that’s never been fully tested or evaluated.
It academic economists, perhaps. A more salient problem would be the lawyers and the pure career pols. Run down the list of the Democratic Party’s federal leadership in recent decades: Pelosi, Hoyer, Schumer, Durbin, Biden, Obama, both Clintons, John Edwards, John Kerry, Richard Gephardt.
When the COVID-19 pause began I believed that the economic damage would be minimal because the economy was merely being paused not actually shrinking. The infrastructure is there, the workers are there, the money is there. There were huge amounts spent to cushion the economic blow. If the virus became less dangerous and fewer infections are affecting things, (And that seems to be the case) it boded well for a quick recovery. I was predicting things back to normal by Christmas. But now a lot of the infrastructure has been damaged by looting and arson. The stock market seems to be ignoring that. If the demonstrations and rioting continue (and I think they will), the market may have to reconsider the present enthusiasm for a quick recovery to normal. The Democrats are determined to not let that happen because ……….Trump. I’m not nearly as sanguine as I was back in March. Be wary, but hope for the best.
But according to the poll highlighted by (Ycchhhh) Drudge … President Trump is very unpopular …until you try to find out what they sampled.
It was NOT a probability sample.
It was a convenience sample. They just asked people it was ”convenient” to talk with.
Which means, I bet PhyicsGuy would know for sure, that the results are whatever the pollsters wanted it to be.
Just like the Democrat/MSM/Academia response to unexpectedly good news.
Kate —
Good job numbers may mean no more insane stimulus bills, and economic recovery may mean a Trump reelection.
Expect in two weeks that the “experts” and Democrats and media (BIRM) will detect a “spike” in cases (from all the non-socially-distanced protests, but they’ll ignore that and blame restaurants and parks and church services), and they will turn on a dime AGAIN and insist that we all be locked down and the economy crashed. For our own good. And we will be sorrowfully told that our misbehavior in the face of the pandemic means that we have to stay locked down for months now, at least until the first week of November, dontcha know. Too bad, but better than killing grandma, if it saves one life blah blah blah.
And then there will be mass civil disobedience, and the MSM will relentlessly attack and attack and attack, all the while blaming the fall of every sparrow on Trump.
(And everybody I know with about four exceptions will nod along po-faced and heap obloquy on anyone who raises even the slightest question. Sigh.)
If this doesn’t happen, I will be incredibly surprised.
(P.S. At this point I’m hoping that people I know who have been out protesting (i.e. taunting the cops into reacting so they can feel that sweet victimhood) come down with Covid and feel sicker than they ever have before. Because “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” as they all said when the anti-lockdown protests were happening.)
I don’t think they understand that everything they do just red pills more people. As someone who grew up in the Eastern Intellectual Establishment and made a similar journey from left to right like Neo, I still do a double take with each new wave of nonsense. The old liberal consciousness sees covid19 or the riots and the way they are being used as terrible news for a President bent on reform of our institutions. The new awareness sees that every time they ramp it up they inadvertently accelerate their own destruction. While they are probably not communists in the old soviet sense, they are Marxists to the core and, as many here appreciate, cannot prevail long term. My sense is that the end will be more like Ceausescu’s sudden demise. Writing in the early 20th Century Lin Yu Tang began his My Country and My people with this quotation from Confucius: “Truth does not depart from human nature. If what is regarded as truth departs from human nature, it may not be regarded as truth.”
Heh. And then I click to the next post, and find that you have predicted the exact same thing. 😀
They shut down the economy because their victim-classes were making too much real progress — can’t have that.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/06/06/anger-games-economic-rebound-antithetical-to-the-class-warfare-plan/
Antifa is a very revealing name, when you realize that Marxists believe the entire middle class is fascist by its very nature, irrespective of the actual form of government in power.
Shades of Dewey beats Truman —
https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-post-blasted-grim-milestone-unemployment