Economic Recovery Stalling? May Jobs Reports Disappointing
BALDWIN: If you can see a silver lining in the economic news, then congratulations. You are a capital-O optimist. Here's the latest. Have a look at the chart with me. You see the little blue nub at the end of that row? That is the job growth for the month of May, anemic, 54,000 new jobs. That is it, only about a fourth as many new jobs as we saw the previous month in April. So, you have lousy jobs numbers, the unemployment rate rising just a smidge to 9.1 percent, manufacturing slowing down, consumer confidence jitters. And to top it all off, the decline in the housing prices seems to know no end. Alison Kosik is on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for us today. Alison, to you.</s>ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the jobs numbers definitely put that exclamation point on the fact that the economy seems to be slowing down even more. Want to talk with one trader here, Joe Greco with Meridian Equity Partners. He's been processing this report all day. Joe, what does this set up for us at this point?</s>JOE GRECO, MERIDIAN EQUITY PARTNERS: Well, right now, I think everyone is very concerned that what we thought was maybe a slowdown of the pace that we had, which was a nice recovery pace, is now maybe a halting of the recovery pace. And I think people are concerned that the economy is actually going to go in reverse and perhaps we will have a double-dip recession. And that is a big concern for not only traders, but of course everyone. There is a lot of uncertainty as to what is going to happen going into next year with a presidential election. And there are a lot of people in Washington who right now seem to be wavering on making a good decision that is in the best interest of the country.</s>KOSIK: But this is the first sort of really bad jobs report compared to what we have had let's say the past several months, where we have seen job additions of at least 200,000, 250,000 per month. Does one bad report really make a trend?</s>GRECO: I don't -- no, it definitely does not make a trend, but I think the concern here is that there's been a lot of talk, more than just whispers, a lot of actual talk for the last few weeks that the economy is not going to be able to sustain the pace. And that, being that we have only really been on a good, strong recovery for the last three quarters, towards the end of last year, I think that is a little concerning. People are concerned that there really can't be any more growth to revenues for companies and that stocks are going to start to dwindle and give back some of those nice returns you have had for the last year-and-a-half.</s>KOSIK: All right, Joe Greco, thanks very much. And, Brooke, that is why we do see the Dow right now down over 100 points on this dour jobs report -- Brooke, back to you.</s>BALDWIN: Alison, thank you so much. President Obama was in Toledo, Ohio, today to salute the recovery of the big three automakers and also to congratulate Chrysler in particular for paying back the loan it got from the government -- government bailout. On the overall economy, the president said it needs more time to mend.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Even though the economy is growing, even though it's created more than two million jobs over the past 15 months, we still face some tough times. We still face some challenges. You know, this economy took a big hit. You know, it's just like, if -- if you had a bad illness, if you got hit by a -- by a truck, you know, it's going to take a while for you to mend. That is what has happened to the economy, it is taking a while to mend.</s>BALDWIN: President Obama today refers to the week's-worth of dour economic reports as quote, unquote "a bump in the road." And it sure does look like Uncle Sam has champagne taste and a beer salary just like your own household perhaps, and we had huge bills to pay down, but the funds to cover them are stretched or borrowed. So Moody's may decide to drop our country's sterling credit rating. And that leads me to the next guest, a Republican congressman who knows just how pressure is on folks there in Washington to come up with a solution to the debt issue before time runs out on that crucial, crucial rating. We will talk, next.