Feb 07 2009

How Bad? This Bad.

joblosses26091

If you are having trouble reading the fine print: The blue line shows job losses in the 1990 recession; the red line is 2001, and the green line is the path we are on now.

To clarify, these are not projections. This is actual job-loss data.

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    • Edger on February 7, 2009 at 17:40
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  2. how much I love Rachel Maddow. But last night, she really nailed it. This clip is 8 minutes and the whole thing is worth a look, but the last minute or so is when she really lets loose.

    • OPOL on February 7, 2009 at 19:45
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    it’s only going to get worse.  Nothing anyone can do (even if the venal repubs were trying to help, which of course they aren’t) will be able to avoid the consequences of 40 years of corruption, misrule and ideological idiocy.  Everything has changed, our economy has collapsed, and our government, rather than do something bold like nationalize the financial, energy, and armaments industries and canceling all debts, is locked in simple-minded denial thinking they can just throw play money at the problem and somehow magically prop up this house of cards.  At best this so-called stimulus will only kick the can a bit further down the road and not much further at that.  Stimulus II will be on us in no time flat, just watch.  It will be just as ineffectual.  Then we’ll have Stimulus III because we can’t bring ourselves to think outside the box that brought us here.  It’s a pity but it’s a fact.  We’re too stupid and selfish to save ourselves.

  4. Or maybe even more.

  5. in the first place.  The most sensible thing that should have been done when homeowners found themselves in trouble over their mortgages, due to loss of job, health or whatever the reason, would have been for the banks to re-negotiate their loans — that way, no one would have lost.  Bush prevented that with his re-enactment of an 1863 National Bank Law, which effectively removed the States’ control over their banks and, thus, removed the ability of banks to re-negotiate the loans.

    Listening to those Repugs’ arguments against the stimulus plan boils me in oil.  “We need to take our time,” “it’s no good,” and blah, blah, blah.  THEY are the ones that got us into this mess.  THEY are the ones who screamed bloody murder for the bailout money using the same fear tactics that we have known for the past eight years “the sky would cave in” if they didn’t get it.  

    And, oh, after the big banks “ate up” the lesser banks and investment companies, look what they did

    Pfizer’s $68 billion acquisition of rival pharmaceutical maker Wyeth is drawing criticism over the $22.5 billion in loans Pfizer received from major Wall Street banks to help close the deal.

    The Greenlining Institute, a California-based public policy group, says it has filed an action with the antitrust division of the Department of Justice in which it questioned whether the bank consortium that provided the loans was misusing the billions of dollars they received under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

    The group claims that the $22.5 billion would have been better spent on extending loans to the millions of small-business owners that are struggling because they cannot get credit from banks.

    Four of the banks that helped fund the Pfizer-Wyeth deal – Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs – received a collective $122 billion in TARP funds.

    So the combined $22.5 billion in loan guarantees makes up a significant portion of the cash they received from the government to shore up their balance sheets and spur lending to jump-start the economy. . . . .

    The stimulus bill probably isn’t the best, but that there is an urgency to do something is certainly no lie.

    And, here we are continuing to fund two wars and obscene Pentagon spending.  

    Those are some graphs for you.  

    The economy is BAD?  How the hell can an economy be good if over 50% of it is going toward two ill-begotten wars, and jobs having been created for over eight years now?  It doesn’t take an economist to figure that out!  M F’s!!!!

    • robodd on February 7, 2009 at 22:00
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    how does giving tax breaks to businesses who are already cutting employees help?

    If there is no demand, no hiring will take place.  

  7. unless the business is on the verge of going under, it still helps them — they just get richer off the backs of remaining employees who have to take on yet an even greater work load.  Working the pants off of workers has been going on for, at least, eight years plus now!



  8. The Hidden Cost of War: Watch How Fast $3 Trillion Adds Up

    Posted by ZP Heller, Brave New Films at 11:43 AM on October 3, 2008.

    In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld estimated a war with Iraq would cost $60 billion. Five years later, the cost of Iraq war operations is over 10 times that figure. And by the time the war is finished, it will be 50 times that much. . . . .

  9. Check out this column from Saturday’s NYT business section:

    All over Wall Street, that’s what you hear: a deal is a deal. Tough luck, Dow Chemical. You agreed to a lopsided contract just as we were entering a recession, and now you have to pay the price.

    snip

    But shouldn’t somebody be worrying about those problems? Dow Chemical employs around 45,000 people; Rohm & Haas employs more than 15,000. The American chemical industry – which was suffering even before the financial crisis because of the rise of commodity chemical companies in China and elsewhere – is going to be in a bad place for the foreseeable future. At a time when every job matters, and when the economy is holding on for dear life, does it really make sense that “shareholder value” should be the only value that counts? Many of the current shareholders are merger arbitrageurs, who dive into pending deals and bet on their outcome. I hear they’re passing around a new joke: “What is Liveris spelled backwards? Sir Evil.” That really makes you root for them, doesn’t it?

    snip

    Mr. Bernick, for his part, has put forth the argument that the judge should simply set aside the specific performance provision because of the damage it would do to the combined company. There is some slender legal precedent for this argument, and the judge does indeed have the right to do it – and Mr. Bernick is a persuasive fellow. Still, it’s a Hail Mary pass.

    But while it may not ultimately be the winning argument, it does have common sense on its side. Too bad that doesn’t count for much anymore.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02…

  10. http://solari.com/blog/?p=2058

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