RUSH: Grab sound bite 33. We just got this one. This afternoon at the White House, daily press briefing, the chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, Jason Furman. Oh, to set this up, the unemployment numbers are out and they’re absolutely horrible. The number of new jobs is absolutely horrible. The number of people who left the labor force is horrible. The unemployment rate went down to 7.2%, and even the Drive-Bys, in their report, are saying it’s unexpected, doesn’t make sense.
It only makes sense if you add to it the number of people leaving the labor force. The universe of jobs continues to shrink. The unemployment rate doesn’t mean anything anymore. The real unemployment rate’s about 12%. That’s the U-6. That counts people who are no longer looking for work. They’ve been looking so long they’ve given up. So now the economic news is horrible, the jobs news is rotten, so they bring this guy Furman out there, who’s the chairman of President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and he had this to say about the economy and what’s wrong with it.
FURMAN: Sales growth, as shown in those first two indicators slowed in the first half of the month, and one survey said 40% of consumers cut back on their spending because of their uncertainty. UI claims soared by 50,000. The Gallup job creation index slowed. Economic confidence fell to the lowest level in years. Steel production fell and mortgage applications slowed. That’s just based on the data we have through October 12th. So as we look at more of October, those numbers could change and could potentially get worse. This all just really underscores how unnecessary and harmful the shutdown and the brinksmanship was for the economy.
RUSH: Well, how long did this shutdown go, two weeks, two and a half weeks, and yet all of that because the government was shut down with brinksmanship for two and a half weeks. This is amazing. Forty percent of consumers cut back on their spending because of their uncertainty. UI, unemployment insurance claims, soared by 50,000. The Gallup job creation index slowed. Economic confidence fell to the lowest level in years. Steel production fell. Mortgage applications slowed. And that’s just based on the data we have through October 12th, and that’s all because of the shutdown? What a crock.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: They’re trying to blame all of this economic downturn on the shutdown. We are supposed to believe that employers did not hire in September because they were afraid of a possible government shutdown in October. Yes, you see, that’s how things work. See, everybody’s so focused on government, that they weren’t gonna hire anybody at The ABC Acme Widget Company because there might be a government shutdown in October. So they didn’t hire anybody in September. That’s what we’re supposed to believe.
These are just anecdotes. That’s what Obama and Carney call all these reports from employers who say they aren’t hiring people, or they’re moving ’em to part-time work, because of Obamacare, just anecdotes. And, by the way, the regime is now denying that there’s an increase in part-time hiring. They’re literally denying it, just openly denying it. It’s another thing that set Jon Stewart off. That’s just a flat-out lie, it’s an insult to his intelligence. That’s one reason he called it a turd last night. That’s perfectly permissible terminology in low-information newscasts, call something a turd. It works. It works.