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The only problem Obama is having is that it's not coming fast enough to where he can still blame Bush

This one started on Bush's watch.

I heard one report over the weekend say that unemployment is rising and may actually already be nearing 20%. The 'official' numbers don't count those who have been used up their UE benefits.

If that is true, then we had a massive cover-up under the Bush Admin, because UE is determined on the previous 3 full quarters. That would mean that UE was much greater than the 'official' 4-5% rates for 2007 and early 2008.

There is a reason that Bush and Paulson were making speeches and news talk appearances in the spring of 2008 with the 'all is well' message.

Considering the rapid nosedive of the whole economy -- employment, banking, housing, insurance, stocks, auto, etc. -- they had to have known that big problems where on the way. The economy is like a freight train. It doesn't stop and go on a whim. It takes allot to slow it down; it takes allot to get it going again.

There had to be signals in 2007 and early 2008 that an economic tsunami was coming.

The unemployment rate figures which are published on a monthly basis are actually derived from a monthly survey of 60,000 households in the United States known as the Current Population Survey. The survey is conducted by the Census Bureau on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The UI figures are not produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Statistics on insured unemployment in the United States are collected as a by-product of UI programs. Workers who lose their jobs and are covered by these programs typically file claims ("initial claims") that serve as notice that they are beginning a period of unemployment. Claimants who qualify for benefits are counted in the insured unemployment figures (as "continued claims"). Data on UI claims are maintained by the Employment and Training Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor, and are available on the Internet at: http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp.

These data are not used to measure total unemployment because they exclude several important groups. To begin with, not all workers are covered by UI programs. For example, self-employed workers, unpaid family workers, workers in certain not-for-profit organizations, and several other small (primarily seasonal) worker categories are not covered. In addition, the insured unemployed exclude the following:
Unemployed workers who have exhausted their benefits
Unemployed workers who have not yet earned benefit rights (such as new entrants or reentrants to the labor force)
Disqualified workers whose unemployment is considered to have resulted from their own actions rather than from economic conditions; for example, a worker discharged for misconduct on the job
Otherwise eligible unemployed persons who do not file for benefits

What do the unemployment insurance (UI) figures measure?

The Bush administration has plenty of blame in this debacle, but wary investors who paid attention saw this coming for a long time.

Obama’s nomination for President should have been the key signal for investors to exit the stock market. Obama’s doing exactly what he said he would do. The financial markets started crashing not long after they realized this dangerous Marxist metrosexual would actually have power with his democrat majority. Anyone who reads the news and had a sliver of intellectual curoisity should have figured out that the debt explosion, along with the insane real estate bubble would not have a happy ending.

My pension funds were in a fixed guaranteed account for the last six years and I was not hurt by this stock market crash. I feel bad other people have been hurt badly by this meltdown but they could have avoided it by informing themselves and thinking independently.