The last Bush Administration "surge"

It's jobless claims:

The number of U.S. workers lining up for state jobless benefits surged last week and home building slumped to a record low in December, data showed on Thursday, as the economy's downward spiral accelerated.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s is forcing companies to slash jobs, creating a vicious cycle for an economy mired in a year-long recession.

This was the first major set of grim economic data to greet President Barack Obama, who took office on Tuesday, and analysts said it underlined the need for swift government action to heal the fractured economy.

The White House said Obama was working to implement a rescue plan quickly, but believed the economic climate could still worsen before getting better.

"The young, new administration woke up to a pounding economic hangover. It's a hangover that will likely last for some time since no one yet knows how to deal with it," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, New Jersey.

Adding to the ranks of unemployed, technology giant Microsoft Corp announced the largest job cuts in its history on Thursday, laying off up to 5,000. Chipmaker Intel Corp and chemical company Huntsman Corp also announced thousands of job cuts this week.

First-time applications for state jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 589,000 in the week ended January 17 from 527,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said.

This was the highest number since a matching reading in the week of December 20 and exceeded analysts' forecasts of a rise to 540,000 new claims. The last time claims were higher was in 1982, when they notched a weekly rise of 612,000.

Underscoring the deterioration in the labor market, the number of people remaining on jobless rolls after drawing an initial week of aid jumped 97,000 to 4.61 million in the week ended January 10.

If there is any good to come out of all this, it's that at least so far, Americans seem to have awakened from the infantile state into which George W. Bush encouraged us to wallow for eight years and recognize that we didn't get here in 100 days and we're not going to get out of it in 100 days. And with the exception of Rush Limbaugh and his hate radio compatriots, who get paid based on the amount of hatred he can rouse out of Americans' financial misery, most Americans are willing to have some patience and see how the situation shakes out. Amazing what happens when a president asks us to be grownups instead of telling us to go shopping and stuff ourselves with candy while he, Big Daddy, takes care of keeping the boogeyman away (but don't get too confident in him, he can't control you unless you're scared all the time).

I'm less convinced than some that Obama is going to be able to fix this mess; not because he's not up to the job, because he is. I'm just not convinced it can be fixed.