Tag: recession

It’s Time for a WPA — It’s Time to fix that Leaky Roof

The Problem: Unemployment, is just supposed to keep getting worse:

Unemployment rate rises to 10.2%

It’s the first time it has hit double digits since 1983.

By Don Lee and Jim Puzzanghera — Nov 7, 2009

Not since 1983, after a double-dip economic downturn had sent the auto, steel and housing industries plunging, has the jobless rate gone so high. And many economists predict that it will go higher still in coming months — and remain high for most if not all of next year.

Some 15.7 million workers now have no jobs, the government said in releasing its monthly unemployment report, and an estimated 5 million more are working fewer hours and drawing smaller paychecks than they were before the country fell into the worst recession in a generation.

http://www.latimes.com/busines…

Funny, you’d think that a Country with SO Much to Fix, in the Backlog, could find SOMETHING for ALL those Millions TO DO?

Legislative Worrywarts Need Not Apply

Two days have passed since the 2009 election cycle ended and the second-guessing and arm-chair quarterbacking has quite predictably arrived.  Everyone has a theory or a unique explanation and each is in the camp of either imminent demise or nonchalant shrugs.  I suppose I lean much more to the latter than to the former.  I have no alarmist, chilling words of caution to impart to any Democratic candidate up for re-election or election in a year’s time.  When some are questioning whether we should let up on the gas pedal, I advocate strongly for pressing down firmly and keeping it there.  We have a right to push our agenda just as strongly as Republicans pushed theirs when they were the majority, and skittish popular opinion will always exist in times where discomfort reigns and its end is not clearly visible.  That’s how humans are, particularly when they have been led to believe that good times are a birthright.  

Common Sense Health Care; Individualism or the Commonweal

CmmnSns

copyright © 2009 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

Democrats dance in the streets and declare success.  An ABC News-Washington Post poll released on October 18, 2009, found that only twenty percent of the population defines themselves Republican.  Progressive assert this result will work in the their favor if the public option is to pass.  However, the now ecstatic portion of the electorate discounts the “disconnect” discussed in the aforementioned study and also addressed in a Pew Research Center report published only a week earlier.  The overjoyed overlooked the Independents (42%), the leaner’s, Left and Right (39%), and the less than inspirational number who proclaim themselves proud Democrats (33%).   For these individuals, the topic of health care reform is a complex issue.  Trust in Congress is near nil.  People are engaged in the subject, albeit a bit overwhelmed.  Sixty-six percent (66%) say they do not understand the proposed policies.  Personal matters move most people, more so than Party politics does.  Possibly, that is the problem, or the predicament that precludes authentic medical insurance reform in America.

We Need a New WPA, to “Bridge” Workers with Hope

The Problem: Unemployment, is just supposed to keep getting worse:

U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose More Than Forecast

By Shobhana Chandra

Oct. 22, 2009  (Bloomberg) — More Americans than forecast filed claims for unemployment benefits last week, a reminder that the labor market will be slow to recover.

Initial jobless applications rose by 11,000 to 531,000 in the week ended Oct. 17

[…]

Economists project the unemployment rate will reach 10 percent by the first quarter of 2010, underscoring the risk to consumer spending, the biggest part of the economy. Companies cutting costs remain reluctant to hire, even as they’ve eased dismissals from levels seen earlier this year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…

I heard a news Report this weekend that the +10% is expecting to last throughout most of 2010 too … Uh Oh!

Bleak U.S. job market boosts military recruitment

There are many people benefitting from the current economic collapse.   Some of them are well known, such as Goldman Sachs, who is preparing to dole out 23 billion dollars in embezzlement “bonuses” to its co-conspirators in the high-tech looting it’s managed to pull off …. then of course there are the other “too big to fail” banks which are simply gobbling up the “too small to be saved” banks, and therefore growing even bigger.    Then of course there is the military industrial complex which I like to call “Corporate Welfare” because, well, that’s really all it is ….

But guess what the Military Industrial Complex needs?    Cannon fodder, that’s what it needs.  Gullible young men who are seduced into believing that joining the military is just like playing that ubercool video game.   But this got a little tricky when in spite of the massive censorship imposed on our so-called “media” about how dangerous it actually was to join the military while we were raping invading two different countries that didn’t really want to be invaded, so recruitment sorta dropped off, to the point where recruiters were taking damn near anybody who could fog a mirror, including the mentally deficient, the morally deficient, the drugged, the mentally ill, you can pretty much name it.

Well all that has changed!   And this is GREAT NEWS for the military, because now the economy has tanked to the point where nobody can get a job.    And people need jobs.   So what are the poor slobs doing who can’t even get a job at the local diary queen or Wal Mart these days?    Why, they’re signing up with the Military!    

And the military couldn’t be happier.

Bleak U.S. job market boosts military recruitment


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Aided by a bleak job market, the U.S. military met all of its recruitment goals in the past year for the first time since it became an all-volunteer force in 1973, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Military services have been stretched thin by conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving added weight to recruitment efforts as President Barack Obama considers sending another 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year.

The United States already has 67,000 troops in Afghanistan and about 119,000 in Iraq.

Pentagon officials said recruitment gains were fueled by the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate nearing 10 percent.

“For the first time since the advent of the all-volunteer force, all of the military components, active and reserve, met their number as well as their quality goals,” said Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy.

Wow!  Let’s Par-TEE!   Woo hooo!   I mean, this is great news, because Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama sneaked 13,000 more troops into Afghanistan without telling anybody and where were those supposed to come from?


WASHINGTON (AFP) – In an unannounced move, President Barack Obama is dispatching an additional 13,000 US troops to Afghanistan beyond the 21,000 he announced publicly in March, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The additional forces are primarily support forces — such as engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police — the Post said, bringing the total buildup Obama has approved for the war-torn nation to 34,000.

“Obama authorized the whole thing. The only thing you saw announced in a press release was the 21,000,” a defense official familiar with the troop-approval process told the daily.

It is a DAMN GOOD THING that these men and women couldn’t get jobs anywhere else otherwise where would Obama have gotten these personnel?    

It almost makes you wonder if the people who really run things think that this “downturn” business is actually good for business.   I mean, the people in charge are doing just fine, and when else would you have a “buying opportunity” but during a downturn?    

 

Rachel Maddow breaks down Wall Street Deregulation into these simple Frames …

Way back in March of 2009, Rachel explained the “Highway Robbery” which happened on Wall Street, using a few simple word-pictures. (ie. simple Frames).  These perhaps deserve a quick review …

Rachel Maddow – Cops and Robbers

Link to Rachel’s very humorous  Clip

Great Framing Rachel! … I love it, when Progressive Talkers, make learning FUN! The simpler the Word-Pictures, the better the Frame!

“Is our childrens learning?” as George W. used to ask.  

Could be, … Maybe we just needed to “Turn the Page” …

Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” moment

I used to think that Obama was, at the very least, a very intelligent human being.

Now I’m starting to wonder.

How smart is it when the people you listen to are all Goldman Sacks employees or ex-employees (which means future employees)?

Sure, if you’re at Goldman Sachs, things are just ROSY.

For everybody else?   Well, is he fucking BLIND?


US President Barack Obama defended his administration’s response to the economic crisis over the last six months, declaring: “The fire is now out.”

“I think that we have stepped back from the abyss. I think we’ve put out the fire,” he said in an interview with PBS, according to a transcript released by the TV station.

No, Obama, you’re either a liar or a bonehead (or both).  

The fire is most certainly not “out”.  It’s more like one of those coal seam fires in coal country, those fires that burn and smoulder for years and years, and nobody ever knows how to put the damn things out.   I mean, do you think we’re gonna go back to “home loans for all my friends!” and CDO’s and McMansions and Cadillac Escalades and cheap gas?  No, of course we’re not going to.  And you damn well know it.  The new economy has yet to be built.   You wasting billions, TRILLIONS of goddamn dollars by handing it over to your Goldman Sacks buddies and giving it to your Pentagon buddies so we can keep slaughtering our own troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and slaughtering civilians in distant countries, well that is one of the big reasons WHY we do not, and WILL NOT, have a “new economy” here.

And when your own Fed Reserve Chairman doesn’t even know where half a trillion dollars went, and who he fucking GAVE IT TO, well that doesn’t exactly bode well.

But, Barry, if you really want to go with the “fire is out” metaphor, fine.   But we’re on a ship.  And the fire is out.  But the ship is sinking.  

You’re like the captain of the Titanic saying “well at least we’re not smashing into that damn iceberg any more!  Things are looking up!”

Obama, you expect to have any credibility after this bullshit remark?

Well, you don’t.  Not any more.

You’re either a lying dumbass, or you think we’re all just fucking stupid.

Well we’re not.

We know when we’re being lied to, and you’re absolutely fucking lying to us right now.

Normalizing the Great Recession

It’s time to blog the future of our Great Recession, and it looks just beautiful. What America’s owners are coming to see is that our heavily narcotized population can be persuaded that 10% unemployment is the new normal, and that further concentration of wealth is just the new shape of economic recovery. As long as Goldman Sachs is breaking compensation and bonus records, our nation must be on the mend.

Proof of America’s pathological addiction to fantasy was the transformation of Michael Jackson, an emotionally disturbed sex offender who had been unemployed for 20 years, into “the greatest entertainer who ever lived” in an orgy of television revisionism that proved that the majority of the population will believe anything that is delivered with high TV production values.

Those who are curious about how the recession normalization process will work should look for these magical memes:

1. Unemployment “lags” the recovery, so we can have 20% of the population un- or under-employed for a few more years while the champagne flows on Wall Street. No worries.

2. People will help each other by taking in the children of relatives rather than having them go to homeless shelters. This is a great opportunity to celebrate America’s social conscience.

3. Military service is a wonderful way to earn a living while defending our great nation. Being a paycheck killer puts food on the table and dead insurgents in the ground.

4. Rich people are the best hope for America’s future. Their ability to prosper proves that our economy is strong, and if more people have to sink into poverty to feed money to the rich, then that is our patriotic duty.

5. Our government is doing the best that it can, and our President looks cool on TV. The First Lady is growing organic vegetables in the White House garden while negotiating her book deal. The Obamas share our pain.

6. If you are suffering economically, it is your fault. Working harder is the best way out of economic difficulty. As the Germans say: “Arbeit macht frei!”

Chinese official — “buy gold and American land”

To most people, it’s a recession, or even a depression.

To those with money, it’s a “buying opportunity”.  

For those who are financing the ridiculous debt this country is burying itself into, it might be a good time to cash out.

And by cashing out, I mean cashing out, as in getting out of cash and going for the hard stuff:  gold, and land.  And where better to buy the land, than in the country whose dollar is about to be utterly devalued, the good old United States of America.  

What a buying opportunity!

Chinese official urges buying of gold, U.S. land: report


Li Lianzhong, who is head of economics at the party’s policy research office, said the U.S. dollar is poised for a fall, making gold and land better investments for China’s $1.95 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, the report said.

Lobbyists up, voters down. Status quo kicking and screaming

Crosspsoted at daily kos

Top 5 Lobbyists for the First Quarter of 2009

1. Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A.: $9,996,000

2. Exxon Mobil: $9,320,000

3. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America: $6,910,000

4. Chevron U.S.A. Inc: $6,800,000

5. Lockheed Martin Corporation: $6,380,000

    No wonder there are so many alternatives to real reform and real change. If the buck stops in Washington the buck started in a lobbyists briefcase.

    Simply put, if they can afford to lobby, they can afford to change.

    This goes for every Special Interest and every Big Business. While they fight change and kick and scream we here in Real America are fucking dying. We are dying while fighting your wars, we are dying waiting for health care reform, we are going broke waiting for Wall St to clean up it’s act, to make a long point short, Americans know you have the money, and now it is time to ante up.

BREAKING!!! The.Sky.Is.Falling.



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Congressional Republicans on Sunday predicted a doomsday scenario of crushing debt and eventual federal bankruptcy if President Barack Obama’s massive spending blueprint wins passage.

Let’s see the “doomsday scenario,” which Republicans fear in a few years, is crushing debt and federal bankruptcy.

Hmm… …Wait a sec… …Oh.My.God… Doomsday is here already!!!

The Abyss

Economic freefall, environmental melt-down and political ponerology.



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