All the Hollywood money in the world is unlike to save Obama now. Or us, as things appear to be going from bad to worse...
The number of Americans filing requests for jobless benefits rose by 6,000 last week to 386,000, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Claims from two weeks ago were revised up to 380,000 from 377,000....The average of new claims over the past four weeks, meanwhile, increased by 3,500 to 382,000, the highest level in six weeks...
JP Morgan's analysis :
After today’s retail sales report our best estimate is that second quarter real GDP is currently tracking a 2.0% annual growth rate, lower than our prior projection of 2.5%. Moreover, we see some downside risk to our new forecast...first quarter GDP, which currently prints at 1.9%, looks to be tracking closer to 1.7%. Given the weaker momentum in first half growth, achieving our second half outlook for 2% growth will require more things to go right than wrong, which hasn’t been the case recently.
Same link:
The current White House forecast of 3% GDP growth this year looks hopelessly out of reach. And growth this anemic is probably not fast enough to generate enough sustained job growth to bring down the unemployment rate.
This is all terrible news for U.S. workers suffering from both high unemployment and flat-to-falling incomes.
It’s also not so hot for the Obama reelection campaign. The unemployment rate might well be higher on Election Day than it was at the start of the year. And when I plug the current numbers into the highly regarded Fair-Yale election forecast model, I get a 52-48 Mitt Romney victory.
But don't worry! Obama's going to give an "economic" speech today, in which he will blame Bush for our woes, ask Congress to pass a second stimulus, and plead for another four-year term to get it right.
Really.
Expect a further southward dip once Obama utters his banalities and inanities. The passengers on ship adrift upon stormy seas are not reassured when they realize there is no one at the helm...
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