Unemployment 8.6%

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Look...voters vote THEIR pocket books, and when the percentage of the population working is shrinking and wages (even before adjustments for inflation) are shrinking...it doesn't matter if Unemployment Rate drops to 2.0%, the voters aren't going to drink the Kool-Aid.

And an economy growing at 2% GDP with NEGATIVE real wage growth will soon become an economy with NEGATIVE GDP growth - a recession.  And that new recession is going to be obvious in 2012Q1 (or 2012Q2, at the very latest), right in time to engineer a landslide against Obama.  In fact, as I pointed out last month, half the GDP growth of Q3 was due to increased spending on medical services and electricity (due to the heat wave).

The negative wage growth (even before inflation), is showing up in both the GDP reports and the employment reports....it's undeniable.

Not to mention, consumers are continuing to pay down debt.  So with shrinking wages and no new debt spending, where is continued growth going to come from?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The first editions of the AP story pointed out that it ONLY dropped because 315,000 people stopped looking for work, so they are no longer counted toward unemployment figures.

The AP has now conveniently reworded that information after their overlords in the DNC demanded that they hide it.

Pure coincidence.

Isn't that what Reagan said too?

how would you know, you're 19 years old?!  And if someone has told you the Reagan recovery was fake, they you really are to be pittied.  The recovery during the Reagan and Clinton administrations was an absolute gold mine for anyone with markable skills.  Both were very real and broad based, though the IT bubble of 90's made follow through in the 00's tough.