So much for attempt number two on the “Recovery Summer” that the Obama Administration promised one year ago.
Today, the Labor Department announced that weekly initial unemployment claims jumped to 429,000, an increase of 9,000 from last week’s 420,000. Even more ominously, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke explained yesterday that the Fed has already done all it is prepared to do to increase growth, and expressed the same sort of cluelessness as Obama on why their “stimulus” has failed:
We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting.”
The Fed also issued “fairly significant” reductions in its 2011 growth forecast to 2.9% next year (down from a 3.3% growth expectation in April, and from 3.9% in January). Another “Recovery Summer” like this, and Obama will be borrowing Jimmy Carter’s sweater for his own “Malaise Speech.”
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