Tag: Great Recession

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Is it just me, or is the face of American Employment Opportunities, subtly changing?

Has the Dignity of an Honest Day’s Work — suddenly become a “Luxury”, that as a country, we can no longer afford?

Or is it simply that the Toothpaste of “Cheap Labor”, has been squeezed out of the Tube — and it’s such a mess now, there is no easy way to put it back to where it used to be.

Is the Job Market going through a permanent “structural change” — one where the employment landscape will look totally different, after the all the Great Recession dust has cleared?

The USA:

Jobs: Small Business Loans Are The Mountain Blocking Economic Recovery

Phillip Williams — Apr 17, 2010

Why Small Business Loans Are Important

The economy has lost 8.4 million jobs since the start of the recession. Small businesses employ the majority of the American workforce, although the largest single employer is still the federal government.

When the economy starts to recover small businesses rely on loans to bring up their inventory levels. Large banks and smaller institutions have been reluctant to introduce new loans after the failure of a large number banking institutions.

Small banks do not have the resources to start lending again, and the number of new loans have gone down since the start of the recession.

Banks that received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief program. The larger banks that were branded as too big to fail have also reduced the number of new loans they make to small businesses. They have reinvested the funds in lower-return, lower-risk treasury bonds instead.

Bill Gross, head of PIMCO, is credited with coining the term “Shadow Banking System”. A few years ago he warned about its reckless behavior and how they could wreck the Economy.

Bill Gross Calls it “Shadow Banking System”

Bill Bonner, The Daily Reckoning Australia — Jan 22, 2008

Banks recognize that not all their loans will be repaid. They operate on margins of safety, with reserves set aside for when things go wrong. But in the worlds of swaps, hedge funds and derivatives…slick operators can invest billions with no margins of safety…and no reserves. The result, Gross says, could be catastrophic.

Turns out this blunt-speaking Mutual Fund Manager — WAS Right!

A new study has been released by Lancet, The public health effect of economic crises and alternative policy responses in Europe: an empirical analysis, written by Dr. David Stuckler PhD et. al., which contends that the current economic crisis is having an adverse effect on public health. The findings from their research show that increased unemployment rates correlate to “significant short term increases in premature deaths from intentional violence.” The study also shows that labor market protection through government programs can reverse this terrible trend.

This scope of this study was the European Union nations. A brief google search didn’t reveal any similar recent studies conducted in the US, though there was an informal study conducted by a Doctor from Johns Hopkins, who reported his findings at a “After Peak Oil” Conference in the spring of this year.

More detail below