Mike Allen, co-founder of Axios, tried to claim that the economy is headed into a recession on the same day the October jobs report delivered spectacular news.
Why it matters: With Republicans hoping to hold on to their House majority, and doing so primarily by talking up a booming economy delivering record wage growth, combined with record low unemployment and poverty, Axios’ Mike Allen thought he would help his fellow Democrats by attempting to undermine all that good news with fake news.
At the top of his daily newsletter Friday — which is gobbled up by establishment insiders desperate to have their conventional wisdom affirmed (e.g., Allen is pretty sure the Russia hoax is about to take Trump out at any moment, like — now. I mean, now. No… now.) — Allen dropped the following headline: “1 big thing: New signs the booming economy could slide into recession.”
Details: Beneath the Orwellian headline — the chocolate rations will be increased from 10 grams to 7 grams — Allen cherry-picked data to backfill his hysteria.
My favorite is this:
And U.S. economic growth is already slowing:
- In the third quarter, GDP growth retreated to a 3.5% annual rate, down from 4.2% the prior quarter. Going forward, economists expect growth to hit 2.9% in the fourth quarter, and 2.5% in the first quarter of 2019.
Yes, how horrible to have economic growth “slow” from 4.2 percent to 3.5 percent, especially after Obama failed to top three percent annual growth for eight interminable years.
And note how Allen then goes to the experts… Those experts who told us Obama’s two percent growth was not Obama’s fault because it was the “new normal,” the experts who told us four percent growth was impossible, the experts who told us Obama had reached full employment — you know, those experts who are not paid to be experts, but to tell the left-wing media what they want to hear.
The big picture: Something else the “experts” were telling us as recently as last week: the economy only added 190,000 jobs in October. But Reality actually added 250,000 jobs.
GO DEEPER
Details: October’s unemployment rate held steady at a 49-year low of 3.7 percent.
Details: Wages grew by 3.1 percent, something we did not see throughout all eight Obama years.
Details: Without a magic wand, the economy created real jobs in October — 5,000 miners and 30,000 construction workers.
Details: The number of people who have jobs in America hit an all-new record high of 156.6 million.
Details: The labor force participation rate increased by 0.2 percent.
Fake news: Allen claims “Manufacturing activity has stalled for the first time in two years, possibly the result of President Trump’s multi-front trade war.”
That is simply not true.
Not fake news: Manufacturing has not stalled. Manufacturing simply expanded at a slower pace, from 59.8 in September to 57.7 in October. Anything above 50 is an expansion, is manufacturing continuing to expand.
Allen claiming that manufacturing has stalled is like me claiming I have stopped hitting you in the head with a hammer because I am only hitting you in the head with a hammer 57.7 times per minute instead of 59.8.
Real news: “U.S. Added More than 1,000 Manufacturing Jobs a Day in October, Best Since 1998”
Be smart: Along with Allen, Axios was created by the same guy who created the far-left Politico: Jim VandeHei.
To get Politico off the ground in 2007, VendeHei and co-founder John Harris worked overtime to con the conservative media into believing Politico would finally be an objective publication with establishment media bona fides. Then, as soon as Politico had milked all the free publicity and links possible from the right, Politico want far, far, far to the left and never looked back.
Bottom line: Don’t be fooled again.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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