Good News & Bad News to Start Your 2009

Here's the good news to start the New Year: "Jobless claims drop by much more than expected." The bad news? The MSM doesn't understand what it means and so implies it must be due solely to seasonal reasons. Can't be true good news if Bush is still the President.

As Randall Hoven writes:

"The "recession" we are currently in (which started last December, according to the NBER) was based largely on employment figures, not GDP. The number of people employed peaked last December 2007 and decreased every month since. The cumulative loss so far? There were 1.38% fewer jobs in November 2008 than in December 2007.

Hoven, again, on December 3rd: (The National Bureau of Economic Research, the official caller of recessions, recently said we are now in a recession that started one year ago, in December 2007.
[...]
This struck me as odd. Not that I don't believe we are in a recession now, but the starting date of December 2007 just seemed too early to me. To see if this made sense, I looked at some underlying economic data and the NBER's explanation, such as it is. Why this might be important, I'll explain later.
The rule of thumb for defining a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative real growth in GDP. This is now the second recession called by the NBER in the two terms of President George W. Bush, yet in neither case were there two such consecutive quarters. In fact, at no time in Bush's Presidency were there two such quarters.)

Real GDP growth in the US actually went up the first two quarters of the year, despite going down in Europe at that same time. US GDP finally relented in the third quarter, shrinking at an annual rate of 0.5%.
So that is what we know about our "recession" to date: real GDP growth of positive 0.8% for the first 9 months of 2008, and a decline of employment by 1.38% in the first 11 months. Those are not "Depression" numbers by a long shot. They are not even normal recession numbers: the employment decline was more than 1.38% in 9 of the 10 previous recessions since World War II. (Yes, I know, we're not out of this yet. But the current numbers are not alarming in any historical sense.)
And now we are hearing good news on jobless claims."

Well, we're not really hearing the good news, just yet. That won't begin until The One is crowned on January 20th. Until then the MSM-driven theme of approaching Depression will continue. That means the Feds will continue to pretend they can fix what they broke. And they will take your money, flush it down the government toilet, and demand you give more. That's how it works in a Socialist economy. And that's what the MSM, the Democratic Party, and the Left want: a Socialist economy in which they are the Commissars, and you, you ignorant hicks, are their Serfs.

Those multi-Trillion dollar Federal bailouts won't fix anything, but they will prop up moribund companies past their proper shelf-date, lend legitimacy to Organized Labor's 'theft of services' modus operandi, and give the government drones much more power over you and your everyday lives. The very idiots whose lack of knowledge regarding economies, and how they work, have hamstrung American industries, destroyed banks and lending companies, will remain in place. They will continue to accept the bribes that come with oversight of their own financial supporters in business and Labor. They will continue to amass fortunes stolen from hard-working Americans and given to non-working Americans in hopes of securing their votes. It does seem to work for them, doesn't it?

So, you know the good news, which is that the economy and the unemployment rates are doing fairly well. And you know that the usual suspects will say to you, "Who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes?" Who do you believe, eh?

Happy New Year!

Somewhat related: 50 years later Fidel Castro remains a lying, murderous bastard and the MSM still loves him.

Anthropogenic Global Warming still ain't happenin'! But the Left still pushes the fairy tale. Seems volcanoes are warming the Arctic. Have you been told this?

Pseudostinian Terrorists remain cowardly weenies; Israel shows it still has a pair.

Al Franken, nitwit, continues to try to steal the Minnesota election.

And to all the Pacifists out there who decry all Violence as useless, I leave you with this quote from the late, great Robert A. Heinlein:

"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue -- and -- thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor; and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms."