Jobless claims jump, productivity soars

Remember that it takes 12 months to 18 months for the Fed's. action to really take effect when it moves. They moved big time this past January. Look for positive results somewhere late fall and mid summer next year. The rebates and continued strong exports, energy development, and agriculture industry will carry us till then.

Although I agree that this quarter was an anomaly because of the stimulus checks, it does put to bed the argument about what is better for the economy. Looks like this is pretty solid proof that if you put more money into people pockets the economic activity and government receipts will rise. So where is the argument for raising taxes? There is none. Economics 101 teaches us that if you raise taxes spending will decrease along with investment. The government cannot create jobs, only put people to work temporarily.

I have always thought/said that there really is nothing wrong with the economy anyway. People are spending money like crazy! Granted, there is a drop in residential real estate prices, but prices in 99% of the country are still way way ahead of where they were 5 years ago!

I don't think we will see another stock bubble, or residential real estate bubble, but I think a third bubble is brewing. Some think it's a "green" bubble, but I simply think it is a bauble bubble.

There is no such thing as Good Economic news while we have a Republican President.

This is a repeat of the fraud that perpetrated by the democratic congress and the left wing medial to get Bill Clinton elected. According to the media we were in a near recession when in fact we were in an economic upswing. Throughout the Reagan Presidency the news reported that the good economy was temporary.A big part of any recession is poor consumer confidence. the consumer confidence has been manipulated by the Democratic congress aided by the liberal biased press for the purpose of electing Obama as President.

R u kidding me....WHAT REBOUND??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since public confidence is key to maintaining a strong economy, it always intrigues me how fast the doom and gloom professors leap out to poo poo anything that might get our hopes up. These are the same knuckleheads that drive us into recessions too. It reminds me of aunt Martha that never had anything good to say about anything.

Leave it to MSNBC to be negative so its Democrat can get elected. My party rental business has tripled this year. No downturn for me.

Enough with the constant drumbeat of doom and gloom and gloom and doom!!
Oil is levelling out.
The dollar is regaining some strength.
Orders for durable goods surpassed expectations.
Q2 profits surpassed expectations.
The number of uninsured people FELL in 2007.
Sales of existing homes ROSE in July of 2008.
Consumer confidence is rising.
All of these statements are true, and ALL of them are the exact opposite of some damned "expert" prediction of three, six, nine or twelve months ago.
ENOUGH!
Even Fannie May and Freddie Mac aren't enough to cause the sun to fail to rise.
No, the sky is not falling. It ain't all rosy and pink, but we are not sinking into the ocean in a megameltdown of economic disaster the likes of which have never before been seen on the face of this planet and from which we are not likely to recover within the spans of our great-granchildren's lives, if at all!
It's not good.
But it's not the end of the world.
So shut up, already, Chicken Little.

Greg, you have never thought there was or is anything wrong with the economy. Is your last name McCain because that is exactly what he said and thinks. All I can say to that is you probably own 7 houses as well so it probably does look like that to you. We have not even seen the worst yet.

"n turn, employers have clamped down on hiring, driving the nation's unemployment rate up to 5.7 percent in July"

May I point out that the Europeans would kill for this rate and we still have jobs for the 20 million illegals in this country. When the rate is 4% there are no employable workers to hire. At 5.7 % it is still hard to find quality employees.

That seems pretty amazing to me . Was this article written by the DNC?

My goodness Republicans sure can talk in a circle!

They have had control of the White House and the Congress for 8 years, RUINED everything, we have EXACTLY WHAT THE LEFT WARNED US WOULD HAPPEN 8 YEARS AGO and they have to figure some backassward way to STILL blame it on Democrats.

You are so transparent. You are fooling no one. This economy is s**t! Get ready for the unemployment line.

Who wrote this article; Obama? This is great news. I have made more money than ever, my job is the best ever and my home appreciated about $100,000 in the past year. This is a recession?

Liberals hate good news. Everybody knows that the fundamentals of the USA economy is solid. Democrats dot want to hear this. They need a ticket. They want to be seen as the white knights saving average America. Instead what they will do is tax everybody to death, create BIG BIG BIG goverment and run from Iraq. In short they hate America and anything good in it. Only one problem. You can fool some of the people some of the time,but not all the time. John Mcain will kick ass all the way to the whitehouse. This Anerican hero loves his country and it's people, unlike Barak and Michelle along with Rev Wright, Flager, Resko, Ayers and every other goof ball. If you want to plung America into chaos vote for this babe killer and the rest of his far left buddies

So glad the reporter of this story can see into the future "Spring's economic rebound unlikely to last". Please just report the news and facts not your opion.

Does anyone remember that home ownership was at it's highest level

You know, I vote neither dem or rep on a regular basis, but I think Charles has a good point. 5.7% is NOT a huge number. In fact, it's below average over the last 28 years. I think that the biggest problem with our economy is all the media talk about how our country is falling apart at the seams and the housing market is just going to get worse for the next million years. Our economy is heavily based around consumer confidence, and I can't imagine that the media is helping things. I think they should stick to the facts and not put in predictions or opinions. Ok, unemployment is at 5.7%. That's it, no need to make any predictions.

I believe that well over 75% of this downturn has been generated by the hype of the news media. They can't elect Obama if the economy is good. Any economist can tell you that based on historical and empirical studies that much of the economic downturns in America's past have been at least partially brought on by lack of public confidence and some hysterics in the population of this country.

Real estate professionals and economist have been saying the housing bubble on the west coast was going to burst for the past twenty years. There was nothing there to hold the inflationary housing prices up. The same can be said for the mortgage industry. In the 1970 the banking industry as a whole had to adjust due to over extension and poor banking practices in the 70s and 80s. Some went under -- others went to jail. Today we have the same problem in the mortgage industry. Foreclosures are up. Mostly due to poor lending practices and predatory marketing practices that encouraged, to say the least, many poorly informed or uneducated people to buy more than they can afford. While at the same time you had the willingness of marginal financial companies to loan money under circumstances well outside historical and good business boundaries. These things are truely effecting the economy.

However the GNP is still growing even at a lower rate and while unemployment is up to 5 or 6 % this is still much lower than during the 70s and early 80s. Without the constant harping and yellow journalism of the press overstating the problems and nay saying about the terrible economy, we would not be having near the problems and in fact the problems occuring would not be near as bad and the economy would adjust and improve much quicker.

Carmela, who's really fooling themselves? I think you should take a look at the figures and the history of how the events unfolded. Actually the GOP has had control of the White House for 8 years and the Dem's took back control of Congress after the mid-term elections of 2006. When did gas prices start to go up and when did the economy start to take it's "downward spiral"? It was after the Dem's took control of Congress in 06. Sorry buddy, but its you who is being fooled. It's not really that hard of a concept to follow. If you want to see a true recession, watch what happenes if the Dem's win the 08 election.

kind of curious what rebound the article is referring to....Considering inflation by many experts accounts exceeds 13%, which is almost triple the numbers being given to us by the Govt., unemployment figures are known inside and out to be fiction, considering there hasn't been a shred of good fundamental economic news this year, and considering how badly the Dow, S&P, Nasdaq, NYSE, ect., are performing in terms of real inflation, the never possible to be paid debt levels both in private and public sectors, and the fact that our productive economy has essentially gutted and offshored, I can't possibly see a ray of hope for the soon to be extinct middle class. Never mind who wins the election, it doesn't matter.

I just came back from the Philippines...and Mexico prior to that, and if any of these "cry babies" think our economy is in the @!$%#ter, then I suggest you take a vacation and see the rest of the world. Your eyes will open so fast, that you'll be thankful you have a job, food, and a car to even put expensive gas in. We are soooo spoiled! A 5.4 unemployment rate is NOTHING! And believe me, half of those 5.4 do NOT WANT to work!!!!!! Welcome to the real world ladies and gents....a world of MAJOR benefits and possibilities when compared to others around the globe!!!!!!

I have no clue why the feds are saying things are better other then to get McCain elected, which is probably 99% true. As far as middle income people, none of my family members or friends have experienced anything on the upturn except a few cents saved on gas, which is highly overpriced to begin with.

frankenberry - you paint such a scary picture I guess we should all kill ourselves. Let me guess you are a liberal? Your assertions about inflation, the creditworthiness of U.S. corporations, and their productive capacity are all wrong. As for the middle class, what liberals don't understand is that the middle class is not a static base of people. Some rise and some fall and the poverty numbers are skewed by immigration. The truth is there is no stronger or more resilient economy than the U.S. - Charles toler is 100% correct - there is no good economic news when a Republican is in office.

I just love the author of this article, he could not predict where the economy would be before he wrote this story, but since he is such an optimist he has now let us know that if the growth is good now it's just not going to last. The media in this country are real patriots, they spread doom and gloom about the state of the country because of their bias, and when they help elect who they think should be in office, their assesment reflects the jubilation of their mood and they become optimistic regardless of what the historic data shows. In times of this pessimism, idiots who instead of working to better their lives would rather wait for the government to look after them, weigh in with their pearls of wisdom.

How many more quarters are we going to hear this same thing - "just wait until next quarter - it's gonna be terrible"

The pessimists (usually trying to push their liberal agenda to get Obama elected) have been spouting this same bogus message for the past couple of years.

please remove airliner sales and give me the new numbers, oops no increase but and actual decrease, and in the usual american selfishness Im ok so everybody else should stop complaining. Cant we just admit that certain segments of our economy are doing extremely bad, and it may have not effected you yet but it will.