A good Rush rant. I've always wondered about these job loss numbers. Question for the thread, how many jobs is .1 percent of the unemployment rate equal to?
Booming U.S. Economy Leads World,
But U.S. Media Reports Only Doom, Gloom
February 6, 2004
Listen to Rush...
(…point out the crock in the media’s assessment of the U.S. economy and job growth)
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT 12:10 PM ET
RUSH: I've got to start with some economic news. The latest headline, this is from The Guardian, the UK Guardian, this is not a conservative paper, "Surging U.S. economy leads global recovery."
"The U.S. economy strengthened considerably in December, leading the global economic recovery and leaving Europe and Japan behind, said the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development today." And then we go to the next story from the Associated Press, "German unemployment rate rises to 11%."
"Germany's unemployment rate rose to 11% in January from 10.4% the previous month" - that would be in December for those of you in Rio Linda - "as the number of jobless people in Germany rose by 282,000, according to the state labor office on Thursday."
So you have two interesting headlines here, surging U.S. economy leads global recovery, German unemployment rate rises to 11 percent. Now, we go to the Reuters news agency, doesn't matter, Reuters, AP, anywhere here in the United States, and the headline, "Job growth in January disappoints." "The U.S. economy created just 112,000 new jobs in January, far fewer than expected, government data showed on Friday in a disappointing reported that will likely weigh on President Bush's reelection campaign."
This is absolute caca! This is the best January in three years, for crying out loud! You know, I'll tell you what's happening out here, folks. We are allowing the libs, both the libs in and out of the media, to take what is great economic news and they're turning it into a depression so that it fits the America that they have in their playbook, an America of soup lines, homelessness, desperation, tumult and chaos out there, and hopelessness. I mean, John Kerry can't run his campaign without it, nor can John Edwards. Every nation on the face of the earth would be ecstatic with a 5.6% unemployment rate. What do you think the Germans would be doing today if they could report an unemployment figure like that? Remember when Clinton - this is really funny - remember when Clinton would go over to Europe when he was president, he'd always say, I'll tell you, I go over there and the press is saying you're doing so great over there, how come your press is attacking you, I don't understand it? I said well, they just don't like me over there because I'm doing good things.
Can you imagine if Bush went over to Europe now? Would the press in Europe say, Mr. President, your economy is leading the global recovery. Why are you being so savaged? I doubt that it would happen. But nevertheless, my friends, this is just getting out of hand. Now I want to play for you a sound bite today that I captured from CNN this morning, our old buddy Bill Schneider, who is no longer wearing that dead animal on his hat. We didn't alert anybody, we just mentioned it, PETA heard it and PETA must have gotten to him because every time Bill Schneider shows up he shows up inside now. I think he was working outside at some politburo-like building in Manchester, New Hampshire and had that dead animal on his head during the New Hampshire primary. He's their pollster, political scientist, political analyst. He just cannot hide his glee here in this report over how bad this economic news is making it look for Bush.
SCHNEIDER: I make of these numbers that he's in some trouble. Those are about the numbers his father saw at the beginning of the year when he disastrously ran for reelection. People aren't happy. The Democrats have been beating up on the president for an entire month, his State of the Union speech was not a triumph, the president is trying to restart his campaign, he's going on Meet the Press Sunday to try to make his case. Americans are happy over I'd say three important numbers. Two 1/2 million jobs lost since he took office.
RUSH: That's a crock.
SCHNEIDER: 500 Americans lost in Iraq, and 44 million Americans uninsured without health insurance. Those kinds of numbers are putting the president in a difficult position.
RUSH: Bill, for crying out loud, when are you people going to get the facts on this? You just keep parroting this stupid, now it's up to two and a half million jobs lost. For the longest time it was two million jobs lost. Now it's up to two and a half. Ladies and gentlemen, let me ask you a question. President Bush has been in office since January 2001. Is it even possible that we have not created a single job? You note the tone of this, why, we've lost two and a half million jobs. What is this business of 44 million uninsured? Back in 1992, the number was 43 million. When Bill Clinton and Hillary started their health care it was 43 million, or 40, or 42, and it goes up and down from 35 back up to 43. Nobody is uninsured when they have an emergency. This is all a crock. The only new number here is the 500 dead in Iraq. But this two and a half million job lost figure has got to be counted.
I've got a story today from Investors Business Daily. You know, I was tempted to fire off a note to Bill Schneider today but it wouldn't matter. The fact of the matter is we had this number back in I guess it was either September or November, I'm not sure which. Well, it would have been November, yeah, latter part of November. Somebody ran some numbers, the net job loss at that time was 330,000. The number of jobs lost versus the number of jobs created led to a net loss then over the three years of 200 and some odd thousand, 300,000, 330, and that's slowly being wiped out now with the new job creation that's happening with our roaring economy which is leading the world out of its recession, that's not being reported here.
The Investors Business Daily today has a story by Jed Graham, "For nearly a year a debate has been brewing over which of the government's employment measures is wrong. Monthly payroll figures derived from a survey of 160,000 employers show a net loss of 537,000 jobs the past two years. But, the monthly survey of about 60,000 households shows the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs in that span." Well, we just heard CNN report there are two and a half million jobs lost. Now we find out from Investors Business Daily there are other government numbers that show 2.4 million jobs have been created.
Come on, folks, use your brains on this. This is an ever-expanding economy, I don't care whether we're in a down cycle or not we're always expanding. The population base is always expanding. We are pretty near the statistical full employment number anyway. It's just not logical to assume that all we do is lose jobs. And he didn't say on CNN net job loss, that's not what they're trying to do. They're trying to create the impression that there are two and a half people that used to work that don't because they can't. And that's not what happens. People find work and leave work all the time. It is a cycle, you know it yourself. This idea that there haven't been any jobs created, these guys that report this know this is all a bunch of bohunk but that doesn't fit the agenda, it doesn't fit what the purpose here is. This is to paint a picture of doom and gloom of the U.S. economy, going into this election season, because it matches what? It matches precisely the Democratic Party presidential election playbook. And it just isn't the case. It's the exact opposite.
The economy is roaring back. It's bringing the world back out of its global recession. There are jobs being created. We just had a story the other day of all the unreported self-employed jobs that these employment surveys do not cover. And there were 15 million jobs, net 15 million jobs that do not get reported as people employed in this country. Well, throw that in and it wipes out any of Bill Schneider or any other Democrat's number of two million or two and a half million jobs lost. All of this is a crock. This is the most powerful economic engine in America, and it's rolling, and it's expanding and it is growing. We are the wealthiest country on the face of the earth. To try to paint a picture of this country as a soup line, soup kitchen on the way to depression, is simply purposeful dishonesty, pure and simple.
rushlimbaugh.com |
