If our country were not having such economic trouble, it would be completely hilarious to watch economists and other so-called experts trying to predict what our economy is going to do next. Anyone who happens to be paying attention to the news knows that unemployment is higher than it has been for years. Twenty-six years, to be exact. We have been hearing for weeks how the economic downturn is slowing down and how the economy is about to start on an upward march. The same experts who have been telling us that, after looking at all of the reports coming from the Labor Department and other entities charged with keeping up with such items, are also quick to say the recovery may be a jobless recovery.

Some of those reports are scheduled to be released today and it is expected that they will contain good news. Specifically they are expected to say that employers only cut a net total of 130,000 jobs in November, which is down from the 190,000 cut in October. Well, I missed that one, didn’t I. The report that has just been released says on 11,000 jobs were lost in November. Didn’t I tell you this was a tricky business? That is supposed to show us the job losses are still occurring, but are slowing down, which is good news. In other words, fewer employees are losing their jobs, but as you can see from the chart above, we have a very long way to go before our economy pulls itself out of the tank and starts adding jobs.

I listen to NPR’s Morning Edition every day on the way to work and nearly every Monday morning, Steve Inskeep announces they will be taking a look at some of the reports that these different entities will be releasing in the coming week. I do not begrudge them that look, as it is their job to do such things and to help keep us all informed. I just find it amusing  that anyone really believes they can predict what is about to happen in our economy and with the job market. If that ability is there, then why did they not predict the complete and total meltdown that happened in September 2008? Should they not have been able to look at the reports and work to avert or diminish what was about to happen?

My point is this. There really is no way to predict what is about to happen with our economy. We can all sit around and talk about jump starting our economy and the President can hold a jobs summit, but will that add jobs to our economy? I think not. I have no problem with President Obama holding the summit and discussing ways to reduce unemployment, but until the American economy picks itself up by it’s bootstraps and gets back to work, it is all in vain.

We are living in a country and in a world with a different kind of economy than our mothers and fathers lived in. It is not an economy where most people have a job and work hard to keep it. Instead, it is an economy that promotes speculation about how certain companies or stocks will perform. I am not talking about honest investment here, but rather the debacle we have witnessed with speculators betting that the housing market was going in the tank. That was nothing but profit hunting, plain and simple, and had nothing to do with investing in a company that they believed in.

The kind of economy we have right now does not lend itself to creating jobs and I am afraid the jobless recovery the experts have been talking about may very well come to pass. In the next few months, I would not be surprised to start hearing how the economy is on the upswing and how well everyone is doing. If that happens, we need to look at the definition of “everyone”. No matter how good the predictions are or how well they say the economy is doing, it will not be the truth if the average American citizen does not have a job.

Tags: Economic Predictions, Economy, Jobless Recovery, Labor Department, Morning Edition, NPR, President Obama, Steve Inskeep, Unemployment Rate

This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 6:45 am and is filed under News/Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.