I, for one, am simply shocked that initial jobless claims went down briefly as students headed back to college (instead of looking for work) and then went right back up. Shocked. And I'm not even an economist! It's almost as if real life data somehow factors into economic data in a logical way!

I'm shocked--just shocked--that economists were expecting things to improve and that they have not.

What is the point of this post? Were you shocked when things actually WERE better than expected?

Treasury yields charged higher Thursday as better-than-expected news on the economic front eased fears

money.cnn.com/2010/09/09/markets/bondcenter/treasurys/index.htm

Stocks posted big gains Friday after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered reassuring words on the economy and as U.S. growth turned out to be better than expected this spring.

www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100827/FREE/100829814

The stock market had its first winning week in a month thanks to better news on the economy.

www.philly.com/philly/business/20100904_Better-than-expected_jobs_data_boost_markets.html

etc.

Yes, you probably were shocked at good news. That's fine, there are plenty of legitimate pessimistic economic models out there. But pretending that it's implausible to expect a good economic report, and cherry-picking the bad ones to report on, just makes you look desperate to be right.

john, apparently you have been living in a cave somewhere - not that I think that's a bad idea. Every single bad economic report since Obama took office has been labeled "unexpected."

If you just don't get it, we understand. Crawl back in your hole and pull the rock back over the entrance.

They willingly toss themselve's under the bus for the "Won".

Its all for you Damien!

Stocks posted big gains Friday after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered reassuring words on the economy and as U.S. growth turned out to be better than expected this spring.

Ben's full of it. There's nothing left that Treasury can do except print money leading to catastrophic inflation, they're already lending money for nothing.

In other news, good job totally missing the gist of Dan's post, though.

John likes Obamanomics just fine. Barry has done soooooooo much to improve the economy.

Why just last month business leaders told him that UNCERTAINTY was the biggest obstacle to recovery. UNCERTAINTY caused by Democratic legislation like Health Care Reform, Cap & Trade, Card Check, etc.

Hell, they pass laws they don't read, and fill them with "The Secretary shall decide; The Secretary will promulgate regulations; The Secretary will establish methods.........".

Every single bad economic report since Obama took office has been labeled "unexpected."

I don't have time to teach you how to use Google, but your generalization is prima facie bogus. Someone who accuses me of living in a hole couldn't possibly be trying to tell us that the media hasn't published any articles predicting bad economic news lately.

In addition, the first two links I posed called the GOOD economic reports unexpected as well. Hmm, some good reports are unexpected, and some bad ones are unexpected. Why, it's a regular media conspiracy, I tell ya!

Perhaps you can make the argument that economists are bad at predicting, but that's pretty much as far as you can go without a tinfoil hat.

What exactly are you arguing here John? That the economy is in some sort of recovery because Biden declared it Recovery Summer? If so I'd like to direct you to my 401k balance, my housing appraisal and my non-existent cost-of-living adjustment.

The "point of my post" as you were so kind to ask is that things don't happen in the economy because of wishful thinking, they happen as a results of some driving events or catalysts. The current driving forces we have had recently are ill-conceived home loans, staggering growth of national debt, a hostile environment toward small business owners, and persistent talk of raising taxes and energy costs via cap and trade.

Given the above there is no reason to expect an economic recovery at this time. Don't take my word for it. Go talk to an investment broker and tell them you want a plan that guarantees at 10% return because you want to retire soon. Go to a mortgage broker and ask them if they think interest rates are going to rise soon because of an economic recovery. Go ask your boss for a big cost of living adjustment because "the recession is over".

The economy is not recovering. We shouldn't expect it to until the driving forces behind the recession change. To suggest I am cherry-picking bad economic news is disingenuous.

What exactly are you arguing here John? That the economy is in some sort of recovery because Biden declared it Recovery Summer?

I made no arguments one way or the other on the health of the economy, so I won't bother addressing your attempt to attribute one to me.

The "point of my post" as you were so kind to ask is that things don't happen in the economy because of wishful thinking, they happen as a results of some driving events or catalysts.

Huh. It seems that your point was that you're shocked that a single economic report was expected to be better than it was, citing that as evidence that "economists were expecting things to improve and that they have not", without acknowledging that the economy produces a mixed bag of reports that include others that actually WERE better than expected. Followed by some rant about the media that may have been a copy/paste error from some other post.

Since you obviously have some thoughts about the state of the economy, I'll look forward to reading them in some other post that actually includes them. This post, however, provides as little insight into the economy as one that might take one of my links above as evidence that the economy is improving.

Sigh, we are done "john". And here I was hoping for an interesting debate not random crap.

To give you the last benefit of the doubt, this is not the first time the word unexpected has been used by Reuters. It is not a "single report". Go do a search. They use it in almost every story about the economy. Bad news is always unexpected. My point was that anyone who has been following the economy would not find bad economic indicators to be unexpected. If they do, they are dreaming.

And this is not just my observation. I direct you to Instapundit, and his posts on "unexpected" bad news:

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=unexpected

The only time from now on that any economic news would be "unexpected" is if it turned out to be good for the first time in about 2 years.

Remember back in April when Joe Biden predicated that the U.S. economy would be adding up to 500,000 jobs each month? That was supposed to begin three months ago.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made a startling statement in a press briefing September 21. He acknowledged that the economy is bad and further stated under questioning that the recovery would take years.

Now, that's unexpected.

John: "I made no arguments one way or the other on the health of the economy, ..."

Lol

This is definitely the safest course of action for a lefty today..........

have you heard the news we are out of the recession? (how stupid do they think the American people are)