Friday, March 09, 2007

The sky is falling the Sky is falling.




So last week we have people screaming about another recession.
Things are looking bad. Heck there were some that were even talking about a supposed DEPRESSION. I love it how Greenspan says one thing and all of a sudden. The world is coming down and people are lining up to see the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Then we have this news.


US trade deficit shrinks to 59.1 billion dollars


The US trade deficit narrowed 3.8 percent in January to 59.1 billion dollars thanks to record-breaking export growth, the Commerce Department said Friday.

It was a bigger drop than expected on Wall Street, where analysts saw a deficit of 60.0 billion dollars, and marked the steepest change in the trade figure since October.

An improving trade picture could be good for first-quarter US economic growth, as a higher deficit subtracts from gross domestic product.

Total imports fell 0.5 percent to 185.8 billion dollars last month while exports jumped 1.1 percent to a new record of 126.7 billion.

US exports of capital goods grew by 1.0 billion dollars from December to January, consumer goods increased 500 million and foods, feeds and beverages went up 300 million.



Then you have that news coupled with this:


Unemployment Rate Drops to 4.5 Percent

WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's unemployment rate dipped to 4.5 percent in February even as big losses of construction and factory jobs restrained overall payroll growth. Wages grew briskly.

The latest snapshot, released by the Labor Department on Friday, offered a somewhat mixed picture of the employment climate.

The slight decline in the politically prominent jobless rate, from 4.6 percent in January, came as hundreds of thousand of people left the work force for various reasons.

Employers, meanwhile, added 97,000 new jobs to their payrolls in February, the fewest in two years, as bad winter weather forced construction companies to slash 62,000 jobs, the most since 1991. Factories, feeling the strain of the troubled housing and auto industries, also continued to cut jobs. They eliminated 14,000 positions last month.

On a more encouraging note, job gains in the previous two months turned out to be stronger than previously estimated. Employers added 226,000 new jobs in December, versus the 206,000 last estimated. Payrolls grew by 146,000 in January, up from a previous estimate of 111,000.


Where are the Vultures on the economy now?
The Chicken Littles screaming about the sky is falling?

Really really quiet.
Quietly reading over their scriptures for the next opportunity to wish for more negative news on the Health of the US economy.

Unemployment has been at record lows for the past 3+ years. Hovering between 5% and 4.3% and NOTHING. When you have numbers that low nation wide it is generally considered to be full employment. Here in Florida its a 3.2% unemployment rate.

Those that don't have jobs right now, don't have them because they don't want them. Point BLANK.

But this reminds me of an old cartoon I saw a few years ago.



I think this may need to be updated to now put Global Warming in 2006 and Depression in 2007.

1 comment:

LRO said...

Was it Greenspan who made that comment or the new fed chairman, Bernake?