Unemployment

[chancellor]

You know, it's amazing that you just summed up in plain English his entire position. And about 100 times better than he ever has. This is the link he needs to make more clear. Yes, deficit spending is bad, but so is 15% unemployment and a depression. He needs to say that we'd have been worse off with millions more unemployed but a balanced budget. And he needs to make clear that that is what the GOP would have done.

It was a choice of the lesser of two evils, and imo he made the correct choice.

The problem is, he can't make the link. He has both a fact chasm as well as a credibility chasm to overcome, and despite his great communication skills, he simply won't be able to overcome both.

Fact chasm: Deficit spending and employment levels have little, if any, causal link that's been comprehensively proven. Deficit spending to prop up zombie banks has not been comprehensively proven to be bad, but certainly Japanese experience certainly is indicative that it's not good.

Credibility chasm: You do remember, no, the claim that a great deal of that deficit spending would "reduce unemployment to 8%"? Why the Obama administration hasn't made Zandi disappear for selling them on that half-wit assertation is a mystery to me. But they made the claim, nonetheless, and we're still looking a 9.1% unemployment - and vastly more that have had benefits run out and simply have disappeared from the job market.

Oh, and fun short term fact: Half the jobs last month were created by one employer. Who has received not one, but two consecutive ObamaCare waivers. MickeyD's is at least doing well...

[chancellor]

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid unexpectedly edged higher last week, stoking fears of a stalled economic recovery even as a separate report showed record U.S. exports in April.

Unemployment will probably creep back up to 9.2% for June. And the continued use of "unexpectedly" relative to jobs data makes me shake my head. At this point, "well, duh!" would probably be better...