- As the US economy and jobs

remain a top issue in this election year,

the latest government numberstoday show a clear improvement

in the jobs picture as theunemployment rate fell to 8.4%,

by the way, far better than expectations,

and below the key level of 10%.

Today's numbers show theeconomy added 1.4 million jobs

in August, down from July,

as the pace of new hirings slowed down.

There will only be onemore unemployment report

before the presidentialelection in November.

Joining me to discuss all things financial

is our very own financialeditor, Drew Parkhill,

and he joins me now.

So the bottom line fromtoday's report is what?

- The bottom line is there area lot of components to this.

Okay, the first thing to remember, George,

that often gets overlooked in the media,

- Yeah.- is that it,

it wasn't so much the virus

that caused this unemploymentrate, it was the lockdowns.

- [George] Yeah.

- Okay, that's why you hearPresident Trump saying,

"I ain't gonna do this anymore."

That's why you've heard Joe Biden say,

as we're gonna see here in a few moments,

that, "Oh yeah, I would shut it down

if the scientists told me so,"

and then he said, "Nope, not gonna do it."

Okay, so the lockdowns arewhat's led to all of this.

Another thing is that a lotof people going back to work

is what helped bring theunemployment rate down.

It wasn't new jobs.

It was people being recalled to work.

I mean, there's still somedifficulties going on.

There's like, like PresidentTrump had predicted months ago,

he said, you know,there's a lot of stress,

a lot of depression and so forth

- Yeah.- among a lot of people,

so yeah.

But by and large, overall,the bottom line is,

as you asked, this is a positive report.

There are good, positive signals-

- Drew, you're watching the markets.

Yesterday and today, they took a big hit.

What's going on?

- The market was...

You know, you'll hear a lotof stuff, again, in the news

saying, "Well, it was because of this

and it was because of that."

No, the market wasoverdue for a correction.

- Yeah.- If you're a runner

and you can run, let's sayfive miles in 40 minutes

at eight minutes a mileand you start running

at six minutes a mile,you're gonna slow down.

Well that's what the market did.

It just got way ahead of itselfand a lot of people knew,

you could see this cominga couple weeks ago,

a week and a half ago.

I mean, I did.

I didn't know it would be this severe,

but it was clearly on its way.

But corrections arenormal. They're healthy.

We'll have to see how long this goes on.

It may be over, the worst of it.

- Yeah, and you look at thelows at the middle of March

and then all the way to today.

I mean it's a 57, 60% rise.- Exactly.

- You know, obviously,everybody's wanting to know

what's ahead for the economy and stocks.

- Okay, first of all,there's two different things,

and this, people, this is whatis important to understand.

You're talking short-term and long-term.

Now short-term, there are many variables.

You just talked about a vaccine.

Well when are we gonna get a vaccine?

We don't know.- Yeah.

- How effective will it be?

We don't know.

But it will be a big stepin the right direction.

So in the short-term, there'sstill some real uncertainty.

But George, longer-term, I mean, maybe,

maybe the worst will beover in the next few months.

Maybe it will be a couple years.

We don't know yet.

But longer-term...

Okay, the Dow right now is around 27,000.

Longer-term, you're gonna see the Dow,

over the next 15, 20 years,go well over 100,000.

That sounds like it's way outthere, but that's just normal.

You know, we've seenthat kind of move before.

We're going to see it again.

So the long-term future

- Yeah.- is still really good.

- All right, terrific.

Thank you so much. Appreciateyou coming on the show.

Be safe. Have a great weekend, man.

- You too.