CNN COLUMNIST TOUTS “AMERICAN SPIRIT” AS KEY TO RECOVERY
|| By FITSNEWS || We’ve said it till we’re blue in the face, but we really, really, really hope the American economy is improving. So does everyone, right? Sure. Expanded employment, incomes and consumer activity are essential to getting our Republic back on track: And the good news is the only thing policymakers really have to do to stimulate all three is get the hell out of the way.
But as we’ve said on countless occasions the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are far from “robust” (despite recent data that would seem to point to the contrary).
And rather than give a false picture of the nation’s economic health, we think it’s important to call things as we see them.
Kristina Hooper – an investment strategist and CNN contributor – sees things quite differently.
In a nauseatingly chipper column posted on CNN/Money, Hooper offers the definitive “Rainbows and Unicorns” treatment of the American economy – in which everything is, well, rainbows. And unicorns. With a double helping of red, white and blue.
“The American dream is coming back,” Hooper’s headline boldly declares before launching into litany of positive data points related to the nation’s unemployment rate.
“The job situation has improved dramatically in the past year, with headline unemployment dropping from 7.2 percent in October 2013 to 5.6 percent in December,” she writes.
That’s true …
Hooper is also correct when she says the percentage of long-term unemployed has declined – 35.9 percent in October 2013 to 31.9 percent last month.
What does Hooper fail to mention? That a record 92.9 million working age Americans are currently out of the work force – or that the country’s 62.7 percent labor participation rate is the worst on record since December 1977.
In other words there are fewer unemployed people (and fewer long-term unemployed people) because they have given up looking for work.
And while Hooper does mention anemic wage growth, she claims “lower oil prices are acting as a big pay increase right now for consumers.”
Moving on …
According to Hooper, recent upticks in consumer confidence will produce a retail renaissance in 2015.
“Consumer durable goods owned by Americans are very old by historical standards,” she writes. “So there’s a need to buy, along with an ability and desire to buy.”
Again … really?
Hooper saved the best for last though …
“All this, combined with the indomitable American spirit — which was beaten but not broken in the Great Recession — should combine to help the United States move forward in 2015,” she concluded.
Yeah … in case you were wondering, this the part where we all chant “USA!! USA!! USA!!”
Look, we hope Hooper is right. It would be great for millions of Americans if she is. But in lieu of a real jobs recovery – one in which the labor pool expands courtesy of better paying, full-time positions – we remain pessimistic about the promised consumer renaissance.
61 comments
See? That’s the difference between CNN and Fox News. CNN reports facts. Fox just makes up shit.
7.2…5.6…35.9…31.9…figures don’t lie…92.9…62.7…but liars figure.
Actually Fox and CNN both hover around 50% fact based reporting.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/05/is-msnbc-the-place-for-opinion/
Aw, man! I saw the picture and assumed it was a Taylor article :-(
Oh dammit Fits quit beating around the Bush!
Just tell us how much we need to cut taxes for the Rich to reach Economic nirvana!
If you got no job…you don’t pay taxes…so I doubt you have to worry. Only Obama’s Wall St. cronies have money to pay taxes or anything else…
They have jobs…you’re the out of work blogger.
Sadly, even if your mythology were true, it only indicts you.
Your ideology is disgusting, because it is based in hate and hope for failure for the fellow Americans who pull the wagon upon which you are lazily perched.
Nailed it!!!!
Totally. He should just come right out with it and say that instead of tax cuts to the bone for the rich, we should all just reach deep into our pockets and cough up whatever we can to pay them directly…cause you know…it stimulates the economy.
As opposed to the South Carolinian Spirit, where you stick your head in the sand and wait for the rest of the country to drag you along?
at a $1.40 in federal tax back to the state. We have our hands out like so many welfare mamas….most of whom are white by the way.
I say cut the adults off of welfare-kids are fed and have Medicaid?
The American spirit is ALWAYS the saving grace. We freed the slaves from their Democrat owners and we won WWII, despite Liberal-tarian appeasers who are reincarnated today in the RonPauls, Obamas and FITS of the country…All because of our belief in God, justice and righteousness…
What the liberals at CNN will NOT tell you, is than any manifestation of the American Spirit and Hope, includes the TOTAL Rejection of Obama and the Democrat Party.
We will not begin to heal..and fix the damaged land until we STRONGLY Rebuke Liberalism…and all of the dangerous policies it has launched and inflicted upon us….
OH MY!!!!
Watch this fat, drunk,POS with NO talent show off that ‘American Spirit and Hope’!!! :-)
And he is making fun of the Haley painting on another thread? LMAO!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bh4lB0bBws
Only when debt is paid back is wealth created. But the payment must exceed the principal, and the payment must have its own intrinsic value. None of this has occurred since 1989.
None of this has occurred since 1989.
1989? Uhh, the national debt was jacked up under Reagan too.
Edit:
“None of this has occurred since 1971.”
All fixed.
You’re right. Sorry. I was thinking of the aggressively unwilling to pay down debt.
The tax man cometh!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B11yHCErk9EYVmhyenp0aHFWQ2c/view?usp=sharing
I opened it but did not play — it looks suspicious to me — I ask if it is safe to play because I don’t know what that message means…..
it is a link to my google drive – you can download it or play it in your browser.
OK, I just now got the connection to your first comment — pretty good! —- heh! heh!….It’s now late at night, I’ve had an extremely intensive and busy day, and now relaxing with shots of Maker’s 46 preparing to retire into dreamland and…..THAT WOKE MY ASS UP..!!
have mercy on us poor billionaires, and our wives!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B11yHCErk9EYLTh0SkRYTl92aUk/view?usp=sharing
I peeked…..
http://www.icanvas.com/banksy-sale-ends-today-print.html
A Jewish synagogue was being audited for the third year in a
row. This year a new auditor was sent who was extremely annoying and nitpicking. At the exit interview the auditor asked the Rabbi about the candles and crackers used during the year. He wanted to know what the synagogue did with the leftover cracker crumbs and candle stubs. The Rabbi explained that they were
sent to the suppliers and in return the synagogue received a new box of each.
The auditor then sarcastically asked about the snippets from the circumcisions performed during the year. The Rabbi explained, “Oh, we send them to the IRS and they send us a new prick.”
I’m extremely disappointed because I believed this article was bringing Liz and Taylor back to us..!!
Just last night I was going over my daughter’s 401k docs from her first real job and I saw something very odd. There weren’t any fund options performing better than a tad over 1% for the past 90 days. In fact most were in the negatives. About a third of them were over 10% over the last 5 years. What the heck is going on right now?
I’m an optimist so I see things in a brighter light. All the right wing negativity does nothing but create fear and drag this country down in pessimism. Whether you like it or not, things are a whole lot better than they were at the end of Bush lite’s reign. Thank God.
Sure. If you love ISIS, our cities in flames and 100 million adults not working with 40 million on food stamps and on Medicaid but can’t find a doctor, things are great!
STFU you dumbass GT freak.
its just flip using many names..same ignorant asshole.
Why the name change, Flip?
You are confused mamabitch15.
because the only asshole who agrees with him is his alter ego Grandasshattrollwithnoblog so he has to invent “friends” to reinforce his altered version of reality and Obama obsession.
“All the right wing negativity does nothing but create fear and drag this country down in pessimism”
I’m an optimist to. The first 3 years since the bottom of the recession have been pretty lame, but the last two quarters have been good and lower gas prices take time to filter through the economy, so it will get better. Wages are always the last to recover. The labor market still has slack. I expect a bad quarter of data here and there, but general improvement. Hopefully, the slowdown the rest of the world is having won’t hurt us too bad.
Wages? GAS PRICES are the only reason we have any job creation. Job creation is limited to low paying service industry jobs-food,bars and hotels as people are spending that savings from the gas tank.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000
Since the bottom of the recession, we’ve only recovered only 25%. But most of that recovery has been in the last year. Gas prices have only just begun to have an impact. Just because we’ve had 3 or 4 years of weak recovery doesn’t mean it is going to continue weak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R_kgy8NpVw&list=RDHfufHBHaJBQ&index=32
Good points however it is bedtime. Mama caught me in her purse AGAIN!!!
Yes, we know. SC is a sucky place to live. Why are you still there then?
I can’t answer for BoZo FiTz however I believe SC is GOD’s country. What a great place.
All the right wing negativity does nothing but create fear and drag this country down in pessimism.
I disagree, but I also agree.
Pessimism is a good trait in moderation. That being said, none of this is “in moderation” anymore, and besides that, this selective pessimism is bullshit. Everyone knows the right wing pessimism will dry up as soon as we have a Republican president because it is politically convenient for them.
How many Republicans refused to admit Dubya was a terrible president until well after he left office? How many still refuse to admit it to this very day? How many tout Reagan as some kind of fiscal conservative god when he’s the one that started the steady incline of national debt?
The ‘pessimism’ in this country is that a majority of Americans in this country believe Obama doesn’t have the best interests of this country in his heart and soul-that he is not ‘one of us’.
40% believe he would rather fight Biblical Christians and Conservatives on the ‘battlefield’ than Radical Islam and ISIS.
It is well beyond disagreements on policy between the parties.
What utter bullshit.
its all he has..bullshit and whining. His Obama obsession is matched only by his ignorance..pretty much like most lonely trolls without a life.
Good morning. I just read the beat down GT put on ya yesterday on another thread.
One question. Why do you come on FITS only to be routinely exposed as the illiterate dumbass your are? I have never seen you contribute a damn thing except spewing sexually perverted text, profanity and a lack of knowledge and information on ALL subjects.
Even Smirks gets one right every 3 or 4 months.
“I just read the beat down GT put on ya yesterday on another thread.”
This guy has jokes, for days! I seriously laughed out loud.
you mean the one where i asked him to back his comments and like you, a total pussy he couldnt, and tried to change the subject to OJ…lol of course you are probably the only one who read that and thought he came out ahead..he came out like you do..like a liar and coward who cant back what he says and has to sign in as many names just to agree to his own comments. You two are the same cloth and everyone knows it..no facts..all hate and has to make up lies to make himself feel good about your obama obsession. So sit down, shut the fuck up and let the adults talk pussy.
The pessimism is from conservative bigots. It’s fun watching your poopy selves moping around.
You must mean the majority of brain-dead, uneducated, ignorant, retarded and stupid Americans. Like you.
Amen!
If there were more positive energy and less negative energy in the media, it would go a long way toward making this a better country – and world. Like attracts like – It’s a fact.
Quit supporting 1.5 million abortions a year,ISIS and policies that destroy the ‘family’ and you may be right.
STFU dumbass.
You really appear deranged? Have you ever visited West Chester, OH and/or dated a Michael Robert Hoyt? :-)
Says the pussy with a huge obama/isis anal sex blame every single bad thing in his life on a political party obsession.
How did you get a cell phone in prison?
needs work
how can you type with Grandasshattrolls hands are down your pants?
Will, you keep harping on the labor participation rate but as everyone has known for decades, it was expected that the labor participation rate would decline when the baby boomer generation started to retire. I don’t think you can blame that on Obama or any politician. See http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/07/17/baby-boomers-are-a-big-part-of-labor-participation-rate-decline