Jobs: Lower unemployment rate but someone somewhere hates it

I have some good news and some bad news.

Wait! I have good news that is bad news. Or else, I’ve got bad news that is good news. Such is the nature of news. Well, that and writing up a cop report about a store clerk being assaulted with a frozen burrito. Ouch.

Obviously, whether news is good or bad is in the eye of the beholder, or the editor.

The subject of unemployment is such a topic. You might scratch your head and say: “How can an improvement on our unemployment rate be bad?” Take it from a guy who has written almost as many unemployment stories as weather stories, unemployment is a subject to praise by some and scorn by others.

Just read this story in the Wall Street Journal blog. It says the rapid rate of employment may tighten the monetary policy. The writer says employment rate has outrun the level of payroll growth. That’s a bad thing, according to this guy.

Economists will argue this topic until the cattle futures come home. And if you can get economists to agree on anything about this issue, then you are a cinch to find no politicians who agree. I hardly gamble anymore, but I would be bold enough to bet someone $100 that if unemployment got to a monthly rate on which economists could agree was a positive event you wouldn’t find any Republican to agree the jobs rate was great.

Well, perhaps I should not take that bet. I see here that the Republicans see today’s unemployment rate drop to 8.9 percent positive so they take credit for the drop. Yep, it was all their yapping about the deficit that did. I don’t have to read on to see what the Democrats think.

It’s kind of like a bumper sticker I saw not long after the change of the century that said: “Same s**t, different century.” That about sums it up.