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Jobless Benefits Claims Reach 4-Year Low 

By EILEEN ALT POWELL (Direct descendent of Karl Marx! - tha malcontent)
AP Business Writer Feb 17, 2:31 PM EST

NEW YORK (AP) � The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in more than four years, backing up Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's assertion that the economy is in good shape.

 

(ap) - I had to search secondary AP outlets to find this story.  The AP's main page, no longer "The Wire" that it used to be, did not have this as a main story... Shocking!  I must give credit to the unnamed "AP Business Writer" for opening this story up so Objectively considering the Facts.  I will not hold my breath that "bad news" will not find it's way into this story soon enough though!  Considering the stability issues in the World Economy, and unemployment rates in France and Germany being at 10 and 11%, we should be celebrating this consistently good Employment/Economic news that Americans have been enjoying for a year and half now.  Of course, Elected DemocRATS will continue to refer to this Economy as "wrecked", "trashed" and, as Little Dick Gephardt said, a "miserable failure"... But that's because the are being Deliberately Dishonest, and Unfortunately Political.  They are driven by the Bitterness that comes from having one's ass handed to them for over a decade now. - tha malcontent)


Some 302,000 Americans filed applications for jobless benefits last week, a drop of 2,000 from the previous week on a seasonally adjusted basis and the third weekly decline in a row, the Labor Department said Thursday. The level was the lowest since Oct. 28, 2000, in the closing months of the country's record 10-year long economic expansion.

 

(Manufacturing jobs started going bye-bye at an alarming rate in mid-2000, while Clinton was still President... The Economy began slowing in March of 2000, and yet the AP did not make headlines of it.  They waited, as I documented, until after January 20th, 2001 to "alert" the American People to the Concerning condition that the Economy had fallen into.  By the way, we went into Recession 40 days after Clinton Left Office, and the entire Recession happened under Clinton's final budget... But you will never hear the "Free Press" tell you that! - tha malcontent)

A separate report from the Conference Board, a business-financed research group, showed that its Index of Leading Economic Indicators slipped 0.3 percent in January, to 115.6. But that decline, which followed two months of increases, could be linked to unusual recent movements in interest rates.

 

(It only took 3 paragraphs!... Memo to the AP: Make the Index "bad news" a story of it's own and stay focused on the "Jobless" topic at hand, mmmkay! - tha malcontent)

The Labor Department also said Thursday that prices for imported goods rose 0.9 percent in January as foreign petroleum prices jumped 4.6 percent and the price of non-petroleum imports edged up 0.2 percent. Import prices are expected to continue rising this year as the weaker dollar makes foreign products more expensive for American consumers.

 

(And the AP takes another shot at the Economy with the "Things are getting more expensive" left hook! - tha malcontent)

Still, Greenspan, in a second day of testimony before Congress, repeated that he believed the nation's "economic fundamentals have steadied ... with inflation and inflation expectations well-anchored."

 

("Still" is translated to, "We regret to Concede that"! - tha malcontent)

The decline in jobless claims caught analysts by surprise. They had been forecasting an increase of around 12,000, reflecting an anticipated bounce after impressive declines of 9,000 and 12,000 in the previous two weeks.

 

("Impressive declines" that the "Free Presses" cherry-picked, Left-leaning Analysts did not predict either!  The "Free Press" is focused on all negative predictions because they do not want to admit, or even believe that things could be doing well under a REPUBLICan! - tha malcontent)

Most economists expect the U.S. economy to grow at least 3 percent this year, down from the strong 4.4 percent registered in 2004 but a still very-respectable pace.

 

("Respectable"?... Yet another regrettable Concession on the part of the AP!  One has to wonder, are the "most economists" that the AP is referring to the same economists who have been wrong about the job numbers for the past 3 weeks, and last year and a half for that matter?...  If so, then we can assume they are predicting low here also! - tha malcontent)

Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co., which is based in San Francisco, said the improvement in unemployment claims indicated that there was "better traction in the labor market" with more companies hiring.

 

("No sir!, all of the jobs are going overseas cause Bush (43)'s Economy is a "miserable failure", only having been outdone by Hoover himself!", one Ignorant and Patently Emotional Leftist cries. - tha malcontent)

He said that lower productivity growth in recent quarters suggested that companies "may need to add workers or another line on the manufacturing floor" to increase their output.

 

(Lower productivity = Lazy Americans... GET TO WORK!  Just kidding... It's just the DemocRATS who demanded Bush (43) do something about jobs, then he did, now they are working, and they remembered how much they don't like work, and are now slacking again! - tha malcontent)

In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 41.46, or 0.4 percent, to 10,792.75. The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 5.38, or 0.4 percent, to 1,204.96, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 14.67, or 0.7 percent, to 2,072.76.

 

(The Dow is inching closer and closer to 11,000.  It's definitely not going in the direction it was going at the end of Clinton's reign! That would be down, by the way! - tha malcontent)

The Conference Board's report said that January's decline in the leading indicators index followed a revised rise of 0.3 percent to 115.9 in December and 0.3 percent to 115.5 in November. Before November and December, the index had fallen for five consecutive months, though the declines were modest.

 

(Modest, and considering Employment and Economic Growth, meaningless. - tha malcontent)

Anderson said the leading indicators may be getting "some false signals" from the narrow spread between long- and short-term rates, one of the index's components.

 

(Yes, that is probably Accurate. - tha malcontent)

The index is designed to predict economic activity over the next three to six months.

 

(And the Index is currently not having a good run at predicting! - tha malcontent)

Ken Goldstein, a Conference Board economist, said in a statement accompanying the report that the economic picture "is positive, but more spotty than robust."

 

(Nobody likes a negative Nancy, Ken! - tha malcontent)

He added: "The spike in energy prices and the lower dollar took some steam out of the economy. But the larger concern remains cautious attitudes. Business concerns about the direction of cash flow could lead to cautious decisions about hiring and rebuilding inventories."

 

(Blah-blah, "negative-negative", blah-blah, "could lead to negative-negative"... Considering the track record of these predictors, I am not putting much stock in this Pessimism. - tha malcontent)

The Conference Board report said that five of the 10 indicators that make up the leading index contributed to January's decline - vendor performance, consumer expectations, stock prices, the interest-rate spread, and manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and materials. Four were up - average weekly manufacturing hours, the money supply, building permits, and new orders for nondefense capital goods. Claims for unemployment insurance were unchanged.

 

(Use your own common sense when reading those "indicators", and you will understand why the Predictions are not coming true.  The final three that were "up" are far more influencing on the Economy than "consumer expectations" and "interest-rate spreads".  Focus only on the negative, and that is what you will see!  By the way, with all of the negative info injected into this story that is not directly related to said story, the recent news that the unemployment rate dropped to 5.2% was not mentioned... Interesting.  No Agenda there, eh Associated Press? - tha malcontent)

---

On the Net:

www.dol.gov


www.conference-board.org/economics/indicators.cfm

 
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(That depends on what the meaning of "may" is... All commentary included on this website is the opinion of tha malcontent and is based in the Truth.  No Liberals, Marxists, Stalinists, Socialists, Communists or DemocRATS were harmed in the making of this website, I promise! -  tha malcontent)

 

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