Friday, May 29, 2009

Recession Ending--Huh?

How the hell can MSNBC spin 6.78 million unemployed into an end to the recession? By burying that information under some pretty tepid upswinging stats, of course:

(T)he Commerce Department reported Thursday that orders for durable goods like appliances, heavy machinery and aircraft posted their biggest one-month gain in 16 months, up 1.9 percent from March. But March orders were revised downward to a decline of 2.1 percent, leaving the two-month total at nearly a wash...

Other positive signs this week have come from the housing sector. Sales of new homes rose a tiny 0.3 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 352,000 from a downwardly revised rate of 351,000 in March...

Sales of existing homes, a far larger part of the market, were up 2.9 percent in April, a trade group reported Wednesday. But prices are still showing steep year-over-year declines for both new and existing homes.

The median sales price of new homes sold last month, at $209,700, was down 14.9 percent from a year earlier.

Emphasis mine.

But down in the bowels of this story, we get the unemployment news, which is all bad.
But the number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits rose to 6.78 million — the largest total on records dating back to 1967 and the 17th straight record week, according to data released Thursday. The figures for continuing claims lag behind initial claims by one week.

What is wrong with this reporting? Liberals will tell you that they aren't "talking up" the economy, but I can't help but wonder how these stories would be presented if George W. Bush were still president.

The bottom line is that nearly 4 million jobs have been lost since Obama became president, and there doesn't seem to be any end to the shedding of jobs in this economy. No matter how MSM spin this story, the number of unemployed keeps rising.

UPDATE: For those of you arguing that the recession is ending, it wouldn't be because of Obama's stimulus, anyway.