by AlexinCT

I about shit my pants and did a double take when I read the joyous media announcement that things have to be getting better because unemployment has dropped from 10.2% to 10%! No seriously, take a look at this:

WASHINGTON (AP)—A surprising drop in the unemployment rate and far fewer job losses last month cheered investors Friday and raised hopes for a sustained economic recovery. The rate unexpectedly fell to 10 percent, from 10.2 percent in October, as employers cut the fewest number of jobs since the recession began. The government also said 159,000 fewer jobs were lost in September and October than first reported.

Maybe it is the engineer in me that caused this, but the math simply could not add up for me. Read that bolded section carefully. We did not have a reversal where jobs were added that dropped the unemployment number. Employers still shed people, just at a slower rate, and some 160K fewer jobs are now being counted as part of the total unemployed. And the biggest reason for the drop isn’t even mentioned: people that no loner qualify as or are counted in the ranks of the unemployed, because they have given up looking for a job! But then we get a much more accurate number of how many people really are hurting, and hurting bad:

If part-time workers who want full time jobs and laid-off workers who have given up looking for jobs are included, the so-called underemployment rate also fell, to 17.2 percent from 17.5 percent in October.

Wow 17% unemployment. That’s like nuts. Remember the days when the low 4% numbers were still an indication of a troubled economy? And again, the real reason for the drop in the total number of unemployed dipping those 0.2% points is because the bulk of that came from people that are neither employed nor under employed, and simply not counted anymore. Want to know what this means for us according to the MSM:

The better-than-expected figures provided a rare dose of good news for a labor market that’s lost 7.2 million jobs in two years. The unemployment rate hadn’t fallen since July. Still, the respite may be temporary.

Holy crap! I would laugh if this wasn’t so tragic. good news? Is that the equivalent logic likely to be showcased after we get the Obama healthcare takeover where someone that has terminal cancer will be given the good news that the death panel has decided to just give em a morphine overdose and end their misery? WTF? Remember that not to long ago these same cretins told us low 4% unemployment was a sign of disaster and that we should get rid of those responsible for that. Anyway, at least they are honest when they warn people not to get their hopes up too high as this all is likely temporary (more like an unsustainable illusion or mirage).

Job creation is expected to remain far too weak in coming months to absorb the 15.4 million unemployed people who are seeking work—and the 11.5 million others who are underemployed. As more people begin seeking work, the jobless rate is likely to resume rising. The report offered evidence of how hard it remains to find a job: The number of people unemployed for at least six months rose last month to 5.9 million. And the average length of unemployment has risen to more than 28 weeks, the longest on records dating to 1948.

What, no mention of why?

JOBS ARE HARD TO FIND BECAUSE THESE COLLECTIVIST CRETINS IN CHARGE ARE HOSTILE TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR, WHICH IS WHERE JOBS GET CREATED!

Sorry about the yelling, but I just can’t believe more people are not waking up to the fact that we are still hurting precisely because of what these geniuses now running the country are doing. And as long as their strategy is to expand government and government power, and rape the private sector and the citizens to do it, the numbers will keep sliding south despite the resilience of our economic system.

Also be careful with that claim investors are happy about the good news. The only real reasons I can give for the current climb in the stock market are the drastic loss of value of the dollar and a suspicion that the usual players – especially in the banking and financial industries that got big bailouts - are artificially inflating everything to make money for themselves, another bubble that can burst at any time when they decide to reap those profits, or so they can pay off their government loans.