"Little more than a year ago, the economy was in freefall.  Today, it's growing again.  Little more than a year ago, the economy was losing an average of 750,000 jobs per month.  It's now been adding jobs for five months in a row."  President Obama, June 11, 2010."A mixed-bag week on the employment front: Initial jobless claims were higher than expected, although they dipped 3,000 to 456,000 for the week ending June 5... A Bloomberg survey had expected initial jobless claims to fall to 448,000. Meanwhile, the more telling four-week moving average -- which smooths out anomalies for holidays, strikes etc. -- increased 2,500 to 463,000.  Jobless claims need to drop below 400,000 during the next two quarters to give economists and investors confidence..."  Joseph Lazzaro, Daily Finance, June 10, 2010.(Read Full Post)