July unemployment numbers better than expected

Employers cut far fewer jobs from payrolls in July, the government says. The unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent in June, the first decline since April of 2008. The Labor Department reported a net loss of 247,000 jobs in July, the fewest job losses since August 2008. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of 325,000, CNNMoney reports.

First of all.. TOR wants to say CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ECONOMY  you suck a little bit less than you did last week.     Secondly I heard Larry Kudlow explain that the first thing that recovers after a recession is the stock market (check), then manufacturing numbers start looking up (we sold more cars so I gues that's a check) and finally jobs come back (sort of check)...  I gotta hope that this thing is turning around
if for no other reason than Goldman Sachs is reporting big gains and their executives are back at the Lamborgini dealerships.

But back to the numbers because we hera at TOR have some questions.   First of all we read that the unemployment rate dropped from  9.5% to 9.4%although there was a net loss of 275,000 jobs. Now I’m no genius but I do know one thing that if you have a net loss of jobs how can you say that the unemployment rate has dropped.  That's like saying that your ERA drops although you gave up 10 runs in 2 innings.


Of course I know the answer which is that certain people will leave the workforce all together and stop looking for jobs as they feel disenfranchised and at this point are not considered unemployed anymore and I guess they just become homeless.  Poor guy is working for Shell one week, the next he's on the unemployment line and now he's picking through garbage and pissing on himself in the subway

What gets lost is obviously the fact that the rate of unemployment has dropped significantly as there were less jobs lost now than in the first few months which is kind of like getting excited because your favorite team lost the championship by 10 points not 20. Then again as one of my buddies over at Footballguys says you can have the glass-half-full approach and say that we beat the spread.