Department Of, If Only It Were True: Accelerated Economic Growth "Starting"

There is a bible quote that goes, "of the making of books, there is no end," or something like that. The same could be said about stories on the Internet (and in print) regarding the state of this recession that supposedly ended last year.

There are so many stories on the Web about unemployment, the state of the economy and the price of tea in China. It becomes a matter of, who do you listen to? Who is being honest? Telling the truth?

No one has a crystal ball -- I know if I had one, I'd be living in Las Vegas -- so we have to take predictions, projections and pronouncements with a grain of salt. Still, someone like Larry Summers, who recently left the White House as director of the National Economic Council, should have something to say that we can put some stock in.

"Nearly one in ten American workers is jobless ... the longest such streak since records began in 1948, according to the Labor Department."

In an article on Huffingtonpost.com, Larry does hold forth on the economy, and hopefully we can put some stock in his words. Here is the first few graphs of the story, by Huffingtonpost business reporter Shahien Nasiripour:

Two years into the Obama administration the architect of the president's economic policy remains resolute that, if the nation simply waits, job growth is right around the corner.


"The prospects for starting to see significant employment growth and reductions in unemployment right now are better than they've been in the United States in a number of years," said Larry Summers, who recently left the White House as director of the National Economic Council.

Summers, who arguably more than anyone in the Obama White House shaped the administration's response to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, said accelerated economic growth is "starting to happen."

"And historically, the behavior of output precedes the behavior of employment," he said during a Sunday interview on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS." "It's a process that, unfortunately, takes time."

The article is continued, so click the link to finish it. But let me give some stats that are included:

Nearly one in ten American workers is jobless. It's been above 9 percent for 20 consecutive months, the longest such streak since records began in 1948, according to the Labor Department. When Barack Obama took office, the nation's unemployment rate stood at 7.8 percent.