White House Adviser Austan Goolsbee: 'This Is Not A Double Dip'

The U.S. economy is not facing a double-dip recession, but weak job growth is "a call to arms" for policymakers to take steps to reinvigorate the private sector, a top White House adviser said on Friday.

"This is not a double dip," Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee told Reuters Insider after the government report showed the economy created only 18,000 jobs in June. "This is a reflection and reiteration that the growth rate slowed at the beginning of this year."

"This should be a call to action," he added. "We need to take bipartisan action to help the private sector stand up and start growing, hiring and investing," Goolsbee said.

He cited steps from passing free trade agreements to securing a deal on long-term deficit reduction.

(Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[atx888]

04:44 AM on 08/04/2011

Such statements can only come from an emperor with no clothes.

[Understandnu4u]

07:41 PM on 08/03/2011

Has anyone understood what was just written in this article? Haven't the government helped supply stimulus money to many organizations? Has anyone seen any jobs created as of yet?

More talk is all the Government is doing...instead of taking action.

Now let me ask everyone..."DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF THE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS MOUTH?"

They did not include the long term unemployed. Reality is that they still continue to IGNORE the REAL PROBLEM...Poverty, Debt. Long term unemployed, RECESSION plus DEPRESSION!

The Government really need to get it together...Oh...I almost forgot...

ACCORDING TO THEM...

THEY HAVE IT TOGETHER...(JUST FOR THEMSELVES).

[fortressfountain]

02:56 PM on 07/11/2011

Not a double dip? Unemployment is about 30% soon it will be a triple dip.

[Understandnu4u]

07:42 PM on 08/03/2011

THANK YOU...

I AGREE!

[bg66astoria]

07:58 AM on 07/11/2011

No upswing means we're still scraping the bottom. That's the only reason he's correct.

Thanks to LiteSleeper on the Depression history refresher!

[EnoughAlready555]

01:32 AM on 07/11/2011

We've heard the call to arms, and democrats have heard the call to arms, now who is missing from this picture...Oh that's right, the tea party and the republicans still haven't heard. As far as I know the tea party & republicans have not given an inch. Hardly bipartisan, and not likely to be.

It might be helpful if John Boehner and Eric Cantor took the Koch Brothers and Grover Norquist to do their bidding since they don't seem to be in the postion of making their own decisions.

Before negotiating a position, they could turn to Grover and the Kochs and very nicely say "Mother May I?"
Mr. Boehner...you are the leader, you know how important this is...do your job as majority leader and get the votes.

[LiteSleeper]

12:50 AM on 07/11/2011

It's not a dip when you never went on an upswing. So yes he's right. But how does more "free trade" INCREASE jobs instead of losing more? Never happened before.

[Eagleman]

11:20 PM on 07/10/2011

It is not a dip when you are already drowning

[Matt12]

11:01 PM on 07/10/2011

Because he is so smart and because he says so

[Understandnu4u]

07:45 PM on 08/03/2011

And some of us are so naive to believe him...

Guess what? Most of us has finally awaken and are not listening to the talk on talk any more. We want action!

[bobo5]

06:57 PM on 07/10/2011

This is much worse for young people than when I started out in 1982.

[Arts4u]

04:05 PM on 07/10/2011

Of course it's not a double-dip..... it's like Japans Lost Decade. Same deal. Run up your real estate, take on too much debt and this is what happens....

More than two decades after Japans' real estate debacle, the stock is still three-quarters off its peak. And the economy has been hit by blow after blow, from sagging property prices to mounting debts and intensifying competition from China. Add an aging population, a lack of jobs for college graduates and persistent deflation and you can see why Japan's so called lost decade is a misnomer Japan has lost decades - plural, not singular.

Welcome to America.

[LiteSleeper]

12:53 AM on 07/11/2011

Sadly yes. But they also did the same nonsense we're doing now: too small stimulus followed up by too fast monetary and fiscal tightening. So each time they had a stimulus, they never put enough stimulus in to get over the contraction and then tightened up too fast causing a fall back into recession. So now they have all of these public works project completed over the last 20 years but haven't been able to really benefit from them because they were spaced out over 20 years in stops and starts instead of doing that amount in 5.

[metaluna]

12:33 PM on 07/10/2011

I'm totally disgusted listening to this rubbish! Of course there's no double-dip... for Wall $treet. These guys should take their smug well fed faces and their thousand $ shoes down to Main Street to see the wreckage they've left in their wake!

[Brenda Starr]

11:24 AM on 07/10/2011

The only reason this is not an official "depression" is the fake manipulation of the markets to keep the numbers out of an official "depression" definition. But it is a depression and it's not going away anytime soon, no matter who gets into office in 2012.

[LiteSleeper]

12:54 AM on 07/11/2011

Yep. Exactly. People don't remember history class but in the Depression there were many false springs followed by even worse downturns.

[EnoughAlready555]

01:24 AM on 07/11/2011

You are so right.

[xpt2wndj]

10:37 AM on 07/10/2011

Hoax and Chains

[dayzee10]

10:04 AM on 07/10/2011

When are the Retealibanbaggericans in the House going to get around to helping Americans out with their promised job proprosals? Oh that's right they have to do everything in their power to stall and obstruct anything that would help 98% of Americans until the next election. The Retealibanbaggerican Party is the party of the top 2% and the corporate greed machine, as well as a bunch of lying hypocrites

[uneeda]

08:26 AM on 07/10/2011

it's a fricking depression