Non-recovery News: More Jobs Lost, Record Low Homes Sold

Another Thursday, and the Labor Department released new figures for people filing their first-time unemployment claims. Figures are now at a 9-month high, as bad as they were last November (a year after the multi-trillion bailout and subsidization of the banking system began.) This is not an indication of recovery, despite DC spin, nor is it a slow recovery - it's a deterioration - it would be a useful policy to admit this, rather than sugar-coat it, so we can examine better methods to create jobs.

The ranks of the new unemployed grew by an additional 12,000 people more this week vs. last week, to half a million people led by California, Indiana and North Carolina. Last's week's already bad number of 484,000 was revised upward to 488,000.  Those merry analysts got it wrong going in, again: "Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast claims slipping to 476,000 from the previously reported 484,000 the prior week".

Keeping track of other non-recovery news: pending home sale figures slipped to their lowest level since 2001 last month, while the number of houses waiting to be sold (or 'inventory') represents a 9 month backlog (the highest since last August.) Bank repossessions of foreclosed homes are near record levels, and have risen for the past 8 months. 

And, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke keep claiming those bailouts worked.