Video: Romer spins the unemployment rise
posted at 5:22 pm on September 4, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
Normally, I’d just have put this in an update to the other two posts today about unemployment, but CEA chair Christina Romer spins so hard in this segment that it deserves its own thread. Nowhere do we hear that Romer predicted an unemployment rate below 8% if the Obama administration got its $787 billion stimulus package, and in fact, Romer talks about losing a net 216,000 jobs as if it was an improvement over losses earlier in the year:
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“Two hundred and sixteen thousand [jobs] is a terrible loss, but boy, that’s about 500,000 less than were lost just six months ago.”
Losing 216,000 jobs is better than losing 700,000 jobs, but those 700,000 jobs are still lost. The 216,000 net loss in August comes on top of all the losses that preceded it; that’s what “net” means. Furthermore, as Edward Lazear explains in the previous post, we’re losing fewer jobs not because of recovery but because there are fewer jobs to lose. Current losses are not an improvement, or even “less bad,” as Romer quotes Biden as saying. It’s further erosion of employment in the US with a decrease in the rate of decline only, and only because there are fewer jobs to eliminate.
That is as ignorant a statement as claiming a -1% GDP as an indicator of a recovering economy because it’s not as bad as the quarter that preceded it. It’s still a net decline.
The unemployment rate means a lot more at this point, since it reflects the aggregate damage to the economy – and the fact that Romer and Obama have not implemented policies that stop it. That would be the same rate that Romer and the CEA said would be arrested at 8% with Porkulus. Note too that without Porkulus in this graph, unemployment would have begun to crest in this quarter:
If we are to take Romer seriously at all, she predicted in January that even absent a stimulus package, we would be approaching the peak of unemployment now and would get net growth in about three or four quarters afterward. Given that argument, how can she argue that Porkulus has any effect on either the economy or employment? The lowest curve was her prediction on employment growth with Porkulus, and the middle curve without the stimulus spending. Which curve does the actual unemployment rate data most resemble so far?
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Sweet. How sweet it is.
Finally, Obama’s chikkinzzz are coming home to roost.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:22 PM
This.
When you have to plead incompetence to defend against charges of malfeasance, you know you might be in trouble.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:36 PM
ear relevant…
driguana on May 19, 2013 at 8:59 PM
Flush this lying tudd down the drain with the rest of the Obamacrap.
kemojr on May 19, 2013 at 9:34 PM
This was Dan Pfeiffer’s week in the barrel, like Susan Rice he was given the White House talking points and sent on a mission. He really needs to get copies of these tapes and watch them and see how foolish and unbelievable he looked and sounded. The White House is losing the little credibility it still had by sending these shills out every week trying to do damage control. Community organizers make poor leaders.
savage24 on May 19, 2013 at 9:42 PM
Pfeiffer’s statement that the law is irrelevant because the IRS conduct was “outrageous” and “inexcusable”, tells us all we need to know about this administration.
However, the follow-up should have been, “On what standard do you judge their conduct to be outrageous and inexcusable since the law is apparently not an appropriate standard?” (At least in Pfeiffer’s mind.)
What this comes down to is this: “if the Administrative deems something “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such. As we have seen in so many other areas, if the Administrative deems something to not be “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such.
In their mind, the law is – in fact – irrelevant. That’s what makes this situation so dangerous.
It’s not socialism. It’s worse.
EdmundBurke247 on May 19, 2013 at 10:36 PM
Irrelevant = “What Difference Does It Make?”
jaydee_007 on May 19, 2013 at 10:41 PM
A fitting capstone to Ed’s story about loss-prevention (aka employee theft) and management’s “permission structure” in this post.
(Not to mention the jaw-dropping statements of Eleanor Clift in this one.)
AesopFan on May 19, 2013 at 11:40 PM
I enjoy popcorn and hope it is a long week.
Drill and Fill on May 20, 2013 at 12:41 AM
Hey give Barky a break. He had to get his sorry ass out to Vegas.
tbear44 on May 20, 2013 at 4:49 AM
Of course they sent Pfeiffer out to do the Sunday shows. He was the most senior expendable staff member they had . . .
BigAlSouth on May 20, 2013 at 5:39 AM
Pfeiffer… The guy with the red shirt in the landing party…
Boudica on May 20, 2013 at 5:53 AM
Perfect!
lea on May 20, 2013 at 7:11 AM
Does anybody else remember the campaign in 2008 when Obama defended his lack of administrative experience by saying he was just so smart and tuned in that his instincts were better than experience. Someone needs to dredge up these sound bites and play then with the current line about the government being too large to control and that the White House only knows what it reads in the newspaper.
bartbeast on May 20, 2013 at 8:43 AM
If where the president was during the Benghazi crisis is “irrelevant”, then he wasn’t where one would expect the Commander-in-Chief to be. So, where was he? Was he watching a movie in the residence? Was he bowling? Or was he having a bi-curious outing with his good buddy Reggie Love? If Obama was AWOL, as I suspect he was, it is he who is irrelevant. This entire stinkin’ criminal Obama Regime must go and now!
SpiderMike on May 20, 2013 at 9:31 AM
If this continues all week, it will be ‘O’ himself doing the rounds on the Sunday talk shows – except for Fox, of course. (‘O’ can do everything better than everyone else as he has been known to say.)
He then gets the extra benefit that no one will challenge him like they have begun to do with his minions.
Carnac on May 20, 2013 at 11:00 AM
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