Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Friday, December 7, 2012

Good* Job Numbers

Tim Geithner calls out the GOP.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/12/economy-adds-146000-jobs-in-november.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

Every time we use the word "good" about the post-2008 economy, it comes with an asterisk, still these are good numbers.  Unemployment fell to 7.7%.  My hunch is that if it falls below 6.5% we will create a self-sustaining boomlet.

This is the context in which the GOP is engaged in brinksmanship over the economy.  If we go "over the fiscal cliff" - which it doesn't look like we will in terms of the tax cut portion - the next job report will come out in early January and include holiday retail hiring.

If - as it looks now - the GOP caves quickly on tax cuts in order to move on to a debt ceiling hostage scenario, we should be looking at about two sustained quarters of decent job growth before we reach the debt ceiling cluster-fk in February.

Wall Street will not be amused of the Teatards destroy the economy recovery.  Neither, I suspect, will the American people.

The GOP continues to back itself into rhetorical corners that eventually it will find itself struggling to escape.

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