of data. you like to see the trend for markets and economics. after three months of 200,000 jobs created or more, people are saying, look, it's healing. things are going to get better. the rearview mirror is a slow jobs recovery. then you have a stall here. when your biggest customer has countries in it that are in recession, that doesn't mean if you're a big company in this country you wan to be adding a lot of workers. that could be a big bart of it. i want to look at the private sector of public sector jobs. 82,000 private sector jobs created. 13,000 public job sectors lost. there's the tug of war for the economy. the private sector trying to create jobs. the public sector losing jobs. you'll hear people in the gop say, look, this shows the president's policies aren't working. >> the problem is what is the answer to that? if the president's policies aren't working, how do those cutting spending fit into the equation? >> cutting spending will mean more public sector job loss, no question. which means you'll have another drag here. for the gop you have the kind of double-edged sword for them in these economic numbers, if you're talking about the politics of the jobs report. most people aren't talking about politics. they're talking about the personal economy and whether there are more opportunities. >> if this is going to swing into politics real fast. possibly within the next few minutes. diane is the chief economist at messero financial. what is wrong? why after seeing and feeling an kbhi that looked like it was chugging along quite nicely have we seen this? we saw the revision to the last couple of months. what has weakened? >> a couple of things are important. first we juice the economy with unseasonably warm winter weather. we had payback to that. these numbers go far behind payback to unseasonably warm winter weather. they're weak in a lot of areas that we need to take note of. it is important, too, you noted the deployment. that had narrowed. many people took on the gdp in the first quarter. with the first cut rising, that this would not be the head wind. yesterday the data was revised down. this week the data was revised down. now we're showing the state and local governments are continuing to cut the bulk of the public sector job losses were teachers. on the federal level you're getting postal worker reductions in payroll there. so mostly teachers at the state level, at the local level, and again the wedge. the public sector now beginning to play the headwind once again. also europe, let's face it. we're not an island. not only is europe weak, but china is weak. we saw news out of china to show china is weakening. china buys a lot of heavy manufacturing equipment. and we're not an island. this really matters. also uncertainty. we saw the buoyancy. the irrational exuberance of the 1990s when people invested, even in wasteful investment. now we're seeing a pullback where uncertainties about policies. this is the third year in a row we've kicked down policies in the u.s. and in europe. it accumulated and got worse. there's no reason to make it certain about feeling a bet in the future when you have those in front of you. >> you gave fantastic answers to all of us without invoking politics. it was moments after the unemployment report came out that you heard from everybody politically about what is wrong with this world politically. i argue to you, will, that this issue transcends the ability of barack obama or mitt romney to deal with it. these headwinds are global, as diane said. some of them are ciplical. nonetheless, it will fit into our equation. >> i love the way diane broke it down. china, europe and uncertainty. i would agree with you on two of the three factors. china and europe are largely outside of the president, and the policymakers' control in the country. uncertainty is not. if i have a criticism of barack obama, it lies in the realm of uncertainty. when businessmen across the country, don't know what the tax rate they will pay in the next year or what the regulatory environment might be or how the health care might be handled, that creates uncertainty. >> i want to bring in christine to complicate this a little more. >> it's not complicated, ali. >> no, it's not. you have a number. we're talking about underemployment. they say the unemployment rate has risen to 8.2%. people think i am flat out lying to them. >> yeah, you're not lying. there's a labor market that is measured. there's a people who are in the market, working or actively looking for a job, and the unemployment rate is 8.2% of the group. the underemployed is a bigger number. we saw it's 14.8%. those are people who are unemployed. they are margely attached to the workforce. they're working part time for economic reasons. they would like to be working full time, for example, but they just can't get that job. so this is the underemployment rate of 14.8%. that's a more troublesome number. people who throw in real unemployment rates bigger than that. they're throwing in people who aren't in the labor market. people who have been discouraged and dropped out for years. people who would like to be working but can't. you look at the population, the american population that's working, it's less than 60% of adults working. so there are a lot of different numbers to look at. >> you're in the same studio as me, but you can't see will's face. i'm not sure whether he just didn't eat good food or something is troubling him. >> nothing is troubling me. >> you're looking at christine, and you're looking at that like that doesn't make sense. >> no, it all makes sense. you can play the death star music. the guy in charge of the economy, no matter whether he's truly to blame for it or not, is going to pay the price for all of this bad news. >> hold that thought. coming up next we're going to continue the discussion with all of these folks. i gave will a piece of chewing tobacco and didn't let him spit it out. unemployment benefits are being pulled back. what happens when the safety net is gone? a lot of you tweet me about it. let's talk about it. later it was 40 years in the making. one of the largest public works projects in american history. i went inside new york's new subway line. why no matter where you live, you're paying for a piece of this. there are a lot of warning lights and sounds vying for your attention. so we invented a warning.. you can feel. introducing the all new cadillac xts, available with the patented safety alert seat. when there is danger you might not see, you're warned by a pulse in the seat. it's technology you won't find in a mercedes e-class. the all new cadillac xts has arrived. and it's bringing the future forward. the economy needs manufacturing. machines, tools, people making stuff. companies have to invest in making things. infrastructure, construction, production. we need it now more than ever. chevron's putting more than $8 billion dollars back in the 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we can help you, not sell you. ttd# 1-800-345-2550 you know, christine said something interesting a few moments ago. this whole discussion about unemployment is not so important. what's important is how it affects you, what you see around you. i want to show you a map of the united states color coded into red, green and gray. the states in red have an unemployment percentage, an unemployment rate higher than the national average. those stays in green have an unemployment rate below the national average. those in gray, while there is not as many of them, they are heavily pop lated. everything east of the mississippi, there's a lot of gray there. you're at the national average of 8.2%. this is interesting. there's a big chunk of the country in the middle that is doing well. but this election, christine romans, this election is going to come down to votes that take place in a swing states. places like ohio. places like florida. polices where, you know, unemployment is going to matter. >> that's why you sthee the obama administration fine tune the attack on mitt romney's record as a job creator. his record in massachusetts. it started as an attack on bain capital and private equity and moved quickly into what kind of economy he really left in massachusetts. and they're going to keep hammering on that. they want to appeal to the lunch bucket democrats in towns and cities in battleground states who say, wow, the factory closed down the road. people like mitt romney who did that. and people like barack obama who saved the auto industry. the battleground states are really important this time around. >> i think this is an absolutely fascinating analysis. barack obama and the democratic machine have a tough pill here. they have a tough job. that's convincing the americans that the country is in the right direction. that's why they went for the bain capital attack. as that one different resonate. they have to attack the stewardship from the left. you're attacking health care and job production record. that's not a strong place to attack from, unless you can micro target that. well the national job creation isn't that great. in ohio, not that bad. i don't know if you can micro target. but that's interesting. >> diane, you pointed out in the last conversation that a lot of these jobs are teachers. they are state employees. as state employment rates improved, in the green stated has improved, they lost the ability to offer extended unemployment benefits. by the end of summer the extended unemployment benefits will be gone. states are scaling back on seasonal benefits. the checks that might go out to a school bus driver, for example, 5.4 million americans officially out of work for more than six months or longer, this is a doubly complicated issue now. we're going to pull back on some unemployment benefits. that's going to affect demand and unemployment further. >> one issue that isn't clear cut at all is many people thought once you pull back on the unemployment insurance, all the sudden the people on the sidelines would jump back into the lay fbor force and start working. in the last month, many of the workers dropped out. they ran out of benefits. nine states lost benefits in tp month of april. and many of those people, the long term unemployed fell. they stopped looking for a job for a month. now they started looking for a job, but there's no jobs to be had. that's where the difficulty is. even if they're looking for work, they're not getting jobs, and they're not getting paid now. we know many of the long term unempl unemployed, most of them have borrowed money from friends. have borrowed money from their families or are living with families, doubling up and putting additional financial stress on their families as well. that has collateral damage. the only silver lining is the weakness that we're seeing in the global economy has brought down oil prices. that's a de facto tax cut. prices at the pump are falling. right now oil prices are plummeting. that will help give consumers more disposable income that they didn't have earlier this year. as you pointed out before, the relatively mild winter also meant we didn't get to higher oil prices. so here's my question to you, diane. for all the people out there saying i'm going to vote for somebody and jobs is going to become a big issue, is there a logical solution to what is looking like the problem of our time of high unemployment and not fast enough job creation. >> i think will made a good point. if we were able -- our worst problems today, the economy is going to grow. we do that out of a financial crisis. that's a given. the extent to which that happens is manmade. i'm zis appointed. there's not enough women leaders, i believe. that's my own personal view. but at the end of the day the problems we have are political in europe, and they're political in the u.s. >> right. >> and until we move forward on the political road maps, additional uncertainty is exacerbating the problem. when you're on the margin, it really matters. it becomes more than noise. it overwhelms. and we don't want that dissidents. and the more we've kicked our problems down the road, kicked the can down the road, the more they've accumulated. we now have the fiscal cliff of both spending cuts that are substantial and retroactive along with tax hikes at the end of this year, beginning of next year, that need to deal with within the context of long term deficit reduction. >> so when you leave, and i say thank you, i want you to go to the green room. and her book is called the spirit of compromise. and i want you to explain why this uncertainty gets blamed on democrats by republicans. nobody is compromising. >> i would say this. i'll take it up with amy f before you throw a parade. you can also have uncertainty as a result of aauthoritarianism. >> you've got to be kidding me. >> just because you have one person or party that could get through whatever policies they wanted doesn't mean you get certain certainty. >> i got it. that's a good point. the president of the university of pennsylvania will be coming up to talk about partisan zip. i tweeted you to see who is more to blame? is it the politics, or is it the voters who put them there? always great to talk to you. christine romans, the host of "your bottom line", which you watch on saturdays at 9:30 a.m. m next, how is the economy really doing? everyone has goals. take the steps to reach yours with us. with real advice for real goals. a u.s bank wealth management advisor can help you every step of the way. from big steps, to little steps. since 1863 we've helped guide our clients. so they can take the steps to help grow, preserve, and pass along there wealth. so there footsteps can help the next generation find there own path. all of us serving you. usbank what happens when classroom teachers get the training... ...and support they need? schools flourish and students blossom. that's why 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[ male announcer ] stop the uh-oh fast with kaopectate. all right, you can be forgiven if you're confused by the recent news on the economy. some indicators are looking up. others are looking down. as we've been discussing, the most important thing is jobs. this is all the way from the beginning of the recession -- well, almost the beginning of the recession. this is 2008 all the way through here. we've had 20 straight months of job creation. but any optimism there has been offset by a severe slowdown in the number of jobs added each month. let's look at how consumers feel. according to thompson reuters, they have consumer sentiment. in may consumer sentiment rose to the highest level since late 2007, before the recession, when the dow was at the all time high due to more favorable jobs and wage prospects. then a different body, the conference board, released its own report that says consumer confidence in may fell to its lowest level in five months because americans are less optimistic about jobs and business conditions. that sounds awfully pessimistic to me. this is all confusing. the latter report tends to be a bigger survey than the earlier one. why are they going in different directions. let's look at housing. the national association of realtors said exist home prices, most of the market, used homes, if you would like, they rose in april by 10.1% compared to the previous year. it showed back-to-back price increases from the year earlier for the first time in two years. however, that was quickly followed by the s&p case-shiller index. a negative trend showing prices at the lowest since 2002. you getting confused? why the disdiscrepancy? it's the way they track prices. the national association of realtors attack existing homes that sell each month. they compare the price a home sells for compared to what the same home sold for in the previous sale. whatever the ek pla nation, it's very confusing. are things looking up? are they looking down? a registered investment advisory. and he's the president and ceo of leader capital. a fund manager in portland, oregon. mike, let's start with you. you don't see mixed signals in the economy. >> jdp has been anemic. home sales have been very anemic. i tend to put more credence in the case-shiller index. look at payroll. the number of jobs created in may. and the most disturbing part of that ali, is that we lost, still, losing 15,000 goods producing jobs, even after the recession began in december of 2007, we are still not producing jobs in this country that can sell goods overseas. >> you're an investment editor. as far as you're concerned, things are not looking good. john, what's your take? >> we think things are getting better. nobody does anything until they have to. i agree with you. the numbers are confusing. let's talk about what is really important. let's talk about the bigger picture. what's going on in europe is the confidence in governments, to say the least, is waning. and to give you an example, the departments have issued 50% less debt in europe. corporations, however, have issued 300% more debt. and what you're seeing globally is a huge gravitation from institutions and people investing in governments to invest in corporations. they have their house in order. they run on gap accounting. so we're seeing borrowing costs for corporations coming in at all time levels. and you're seeing huge massive amounts of refinancings. that's going to set the table for large, large, you know profits and house in corporations. you completely see this differently. so my confusion going into this is validated. my question is, mike, or let me ask you, mike. let's take your view. what does my viewer do about this? if anything? >> well, we exited most of our equity positions in may of this year. we own some gold and mining shares have already priced in. and if you can believe that central bankers across the globe will sit on their hands and watch a deflation nar investment unfold, then the gold stocks are going to go down. but how far away is the ecb from another round of money printing. how far away is the federal reserve from another round of money printing? >> if you have a job and have a much more optimistic view of what's going on, your strategy is much more obvious. you are long. you are exposed to we canties. and you think this world gets a bit better. >> well, i'm a bond fund manager. so we produced a 4 to 5% return for the last five, six years. we beat the markets handedly without the volatility. in a short run i'm going to agree with the pessimistic view. in the short run it's going to remain v