With today’s new employment numbers we can now take a fairly complete look at the overall performance of the economy during Bush’s entire term in office. This is a stretch of nearly four years, which (as I mentioned in my earlier post) is probably a long enough period of time to allow the economic policies […]
Maybe the only way for Bush to spin the employment report is to mention that the unemployment rate stayed at 5.4%. But this is because the civilian labor force fell by 221,000 as the household survey of employment fell by 201,000. The labor force participation rate fell to 65.9 percent and the employment-to-population ratio fell […]
We now have the final employment figures that both sides can use down the home stretch of the campaign. The Bush campaign can truthfully state that 1.71 million new jobs have been created in the last year (or 1.78 million new jobs since August 2003). But when hearing such numbers, always remember to apply context: […]
The BLS numbers are out, and they are significantly below expectations: Nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend upward in September, increasing by 96,000, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Over the prior 3 months, payroll employment rose by 103,000 […]
Governor George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign promised that 5 million new jobs would be created over his 4-years in office if he were to become President. That would have represented about a 1% per year increase in employment, which is about how fast labor supply increases each year. The Payroll Survey numbers from […]
Tomorrow the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) will release what is probably the most important economic statistic we’ll get between now and the election. As such, it will color the tenor of the remaining 3 1/2 weeks of the campaign. Here are some stories (in no particular order) to help get you primed for tomorrow […]
Cheney’s reaction to the report on Iraq’s WMDs that was released yesterday: MIAMI – Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Thursday that a finding by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that Saddam Hussein’s government produced no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 justifies rather than undermines President Bush’s decision to go to war. […]
Speaking of WTO disputes… it looks like we’re in for another protracted on between the US and EU, this time about Boeing and Airbus. Yesterday USTR Bob Zoellick filed a formal complaint with the WTO over subsidies to Airbus. The EU will counterattack with a complaint about subsidies that Boeing receives. I expect lots of […]
The House and Senate conference committee has agreed to a compromise corporate tax bill that will modify, amend, create, and end various specific corporate tax provisions. Part of the initial impetus for the bill was a ruling by the WTO that an aspect of US tax law violates WTO rules. The specific tax provision that […]
The Washington Post ran a piece (also carried on MSNBC.com) fact-checking the claims of both sides in last night’s debate. Cheney’s made the following statements that are not true, according to the WaPost piece: He claimed that he has never tied together 9/11 and Iraq. Untrue. He asserted that only $120bn has been allocated to […]