NYT:
Another 651,000 jobs were lost in February, adding to the millions of people who have been thrown out of work as the economic downturn deepens.
In a stark measure of the recession’s toll, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that the national unemployment rate surged to 8.1 percent last month, its highest in 25 years.
UPDATE: Slog’s resident right-wing trolls are blaming Obama for Feb’s job losses—because, you know, Obama had been president for nearly two whole weeks when February began. Nate Silver addressed this issue on FiveThirtyEight.com yesterday: When will voters begin to hold Obama accountable for the state of the economy?
Buried in the latest NBC/WSJ survey (.pdf) is a question asking voters who they blame for the country’s economic problems. Currently, 8 percent of voters say that Obama’s policies are “mostly responsible” for the poor economy and another 6 percent blame him in part. But the longer the crisis lasts, the less patient voters will be…. Obama crosses the 50 percent threshold at almost exactly 18 months from now, which would mean September 2010. At that point, a majority of voters say they will hold Obama accountable for the performance of economy.
Perhaps not coincidentally, 18 months is also about the point at which a majority of voters expect the recession to have ended. By comparison, of the several dozen economists polled in the Wall Street Journal’s monthly forecasting survey, 65 percent expect the recession to have ended by the third quarter of 2009, and 100 percent anticipate its conclusion by the end of 2010.
President Obama continues to be very popular.
Right wing followers of Comrade Rush and Comrade Bush – not popular.
Enjoy!
The Presidency is MAGIC, dontcha know? The minute someone becomes President, all blessings (or curses) from that well thereupon flow.
I wonder sometimes if the people spouting the asinine right-wing talking points are familiar with the term “Judas Goat.” The bloviators on talk radio and Faux ‘news’ are the Judas Goats. Three guesses who’s being led to slaughter. The blowhards won’t suffer the consequences of insane trickle-down voodoo horseshit economic theory, but they can espouse it just as if they actually believed in it, because they know the sheep will still follow anyone who leads with authority.
Remember what Andrew Carnegie said about the Great Depression? He said it was wealth returning to its rightful owners. Anyone who doesn’t believe the One Percenters still think that way is naive, to say the least.
@50, there likely won’t be a GOP by 2012, so you’d better cast your hopes elsewhere (not that I believe you actually are right wing or even bother to vote, nor that you give a rat’s ass about anything more than fucking with people).