Day By Day

Thursday, May 22, 2008

About that Recession...

Once again the hysterical rhetoric of the Democrats and their academic and journalistic toadies is embarrassingly off the mark. They have been assuring us time and again that we are, indeed, in a recession, yet each time they do so inconvenient facts in the form of economic statistics intervene.

Bloomburg reports:

May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Fewer Americans than forecast applied for unemployment benefits last week, indicating companies are reluctant to fire more workers even as the economy slows.

First-time jobless claims fell 9,000 to 365,000, from a revised 374,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The total number of people collecting benefits was unchanged at a four-year high of 3.073 million for the week ended May 10.

Read it here.

It seems that every unbiased economic report that comes out surprises the "experts". This calls into question either their competence as experts or their honesty as commentators. What seems, unsurprisingly, to be the case is that many economists, at least many of those whose views are reported in the mainstream media, either unconsciously or deliberately shape their pronouncements to suit either personal or political goals.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. As I have said time and again, there is no such thing as disinterested authority.