corrente

I wondered why Rove would have Vlastos break the tape on a Thursday, but fifty slaps with a wet noodle for me! That's when the economic statistics come out!

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week by 20,000, the largest jump in a month, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The bigger-than-expected increase pushed total new claims to 350,000 last week and provided fresh evidence that the labor market is still under pressure even though the economic recovery is about to celebrate its third anniversary.
(via AP)

Don't you love that? Three years of recovery and the jobs market still sucks. Some recovery! Some "celebration"!

And—Oh wow!—the economists are wrong again! Can't we please outsource them?

The increase of 20,000 was sharply higher than the 6,000 gain that many private economists had been expecting and was the biggest one-week rise since a jump of 21,000 claims in the week of Sept. 25.

Andmdash;Oh wow!—again!

For September, the unemployment rate held steady at 5.4 percent, but businesses added just 98,000 new jobs, far below what analysts had been expecting.

Why do we believe the analysts? This is the policy result that Bush is aiming for! (A touch of the lash," back) Please, Mr. Overseer ....