The Atlantic Monthly On The Economy

Earlier I said today's job report was horrendous. Surprisingly, I was not alone. Surprisingly, the mainstream media in the guise of The Atlantic Monthly had this to say:

The two numbers you'll hear today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' two jobs surveys are 113,000 jobs added in January and 6.6 percent unemployment. 

The first number (from the payroll survey) is ugly: In a recovery like this, you want to hover around 200k jobs added per month. In the last two months, we've added less than half that—about 94K.

And actually, The Atlantic Monthly is a bit off. "Hovering around 200,000" won't do it. Anything less than 200, 000 in new jobs is an indication of economic stagnation, but the Obama recession has been so horrendous it will take a lot more than 200,000 new jobs/month to get the economy going.

In addition, the Congressional Budget Office says the third leg of Obama's 3-legged stool, ObamaCare, will be a further drag on jobs.

The other thing I learned from The Atlantic Monthly article: one can find almost any statistic, fact or fictional, to support one's world view of the economy.

I'm an eternal optimist. We've never had it so good in this country. For some, it will get better. For most, it won't get worse.