Increasing the Degree of Difficulty

Obama's high-altitude swan dive is complicated by the swirling waters of the economy, whose shifts are barely visible far below his lofty height (think Bay of Acapulco, and the waves dramatically raising and lowering the water depth in the landing area).

Worries of a delay in the recovery are likely to run strong this summer, which will make it harder for fence-sitters to be persuaded to come over--or even just to vote to end debate and finalize something they're in favor of.

All the analysts who've discovered "the second derivative" in recent days haven't really pushed their studies of the differential far enough. How long does that second derivative have to stay positive--meaning improvement in the deterioration measure--before the trend itself turns positive?

The key statistic is net job loss/gain, and Obama and other key progressive voices have rightly looked at job creation as the driver of results in that category. Think of it this way: if you're going in reverse at high speed, braking--no matter how vigorous--isn't going to get you going forward again. I am a long-term pessimist on job growth through public policy, or indeed through any other method (topic for another day), but in the short run the means must be found (and hopefully they were through the stimulus package, and will be through the other domestic legislation on energy, health care, and education).

So, when is net job loss going to turn positive? To me, it looks like it could be quite a while. Worse, I think we are going to find that net job change could go positive for several straight months without any improvement whatsoever in the unemployment rate. Many of those who have given up looking for work--and many recent graduates will join their ranks shortly--will gradually return to the market when they see it beginning to improve.