This is by Design but First we here that the recent big job losses are pointing to a deepening recession! Employers shed a worse-than-expected 533,000 jobs in November, the Labor Department reported Friday, the biggest monthly jobless number in 34 years and indisputable evidence that the U.S. recession is worsening. Adding insult to injury, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised upwards its previous jobless reports, noting employers in October actually sent 320,000 workers packing instead of the 240,000 first reported. And September job losses were actually 403,000 and not the 284,000 stated in that month's report.
November's numbers were the worst since December 1974, when employers lopped off 602,000 positions in response to tightening credit and government price controls designed to quash inflation. In a separate employment survey Friday, the government said the nation's unemployment rate ticked up to 6.7 percent in November, from 6.5 percent the prior month. This was slightly better than consensus expectations but reflected a large number of people no longer looking for work and thus out of the workforce. Still, the unemployment rate is now the highest in 15 years. Taken with weak holiday sales numbers, slowing exports and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, it's clear the U.S. economy is in deepening trouble.
they worry about more job lossesThis is just beginning, A reminder: The Great Depression of the 21st Century: Collapse of the Real Economy by Michel Chossudovsky: The financial crisis is deepening, with the risk of seriously disrupting the system of international payments. This crisis is far more serious than the Great Depression. All major sectors of the global economy are affected. Recent reports suggest that the system of Letters of Credit as well as international shipping, which constitute the lifeline of the international trading system, are potentially in jeopardy. The proposed bank "bailout" under the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is not a "solution" to the crisis but the "cause" of further collapse. The "bailout" contributes to a further process of destabilization of the financial architecture. It transfers large amounts of public money, at taxpayers expense, into the hands of private financiers. It leads to a spiraling public debt and an unprecedented centralization of banking power. Moreover, the bailout money is used by the financial giants to secure corporate acquisitions both in the financial sector and the real economy.
In turn, this unprecedented concentration of financial power spearheads entire sectors of industry and the services economy into bankruptcy, leading to the layoff of tens of thousands of workers. The upper spheres of Wall Street overshadow the real economy. The accumulation of large amounts of money wealth by a handful of Wall Street conglomerates and their associated hedge funds is reinvested in the acquisition of real assets. Paper wealth is transformed into the ownership and control of real productive assets, including industry, services, natural resources, infrastructure, etc. Collapse of Consumer Demand: The real economy is in crisis. The resulting increase in unemployment is conducive to a dramatic decline in consumer spending which in turn backlashes on the levels of production of goods and services. Exacerbated by neoliberal macro-economic policy, this downward spiral is cumulative, ultimately leading to an oversupply of commodities. Business enterprises cannot sell their products, because workers have been laid off. Consumers, namely working people, have been deprived of the purchasing power required to fuel economic growth. With their meager earnings, they cannot afford to acquire the goods produced.
Overproduction Triggers a String of Bankruptcies: Inventories of unsold goods pile up. Eventually, production collapses; the supply of commodities declines through the closing down of production facilities, including manufacturing assembly plants. In the process of plant closure, more workers become unemployed. Thousands of bankrupt firms are driven off the economic landscape, leading to a slump in production. Mass poverty and a Worldwide decline in living standards is the result of low wages and mass unemployment. It is the outcome of a preexisting global cheap labor economy, largely characterized by low wage assembly plants in Third World countries. The current crisis extends the geographic contours of the cheap labor economy, leading to the impoverishment of large sectors of the population in the so-called developed countries (including the middle classes).
We are dealing with a long-term process of economic and financial restructuring. In its earlier phase, starting in the 1980s during the Reagan Thatcher era, local and regional level enterprises, family farms and small businesses were displaced and destroyed. In turn, the merger and acquisition boom of the 1990s led to the concurrent consolidation of large corporate entities both in the real economy as well as in banking and financial services. In recent developments, however, the concentration of bank power has been at the expense of big business. What is distinct in this particular phase of the crisis, is the ability of the financial giants (through their overriding control over credit) not only to create havoc in the production of goods and services, but also to undermine and destroy large corporate entities of the real economy. Bankruptcies are occurring in all major sectors of activity: Manufacturing, telecoms, consumer retail outlets, shopping malls, airlines, hotels and tourism, not to mention real estate and the construction industry, victims of the subprime mortgage meltdown.
Bankruptcies and foreclosures just beginningJust a reminder! There’s no doubt now, that Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s plan to pump zillions of dollars into the system via “low interest rates” has created the biggest monster-bubble of all time and set the stage for a deep economic retrenchment. Greenspan’s inflationary policies were designed to expand the “wealth gap” and create greater economic polarization between the classes. A shrewd economist and student of history like Greenspan knew exactly what the consequences of his low interest rates would be. The trap was set to lure in unsuspecting borrowers who felt they could augment their stagnant wages by joining the housing gold rush. It was a great way to mask a deteriorating economy by expanding personal debt. The meltdown in housing will soon be felt in the stock market which appears to be lagging the real estate market by about 6 months. Soon, reality will set in on Wall Street just as it has in the housing sector and the “loose money” that Greenspan generated with his mighty printing press will flee to foreign shores. It looks as though this may already be happening even though the stock market is still flying high. On Friday, the government reported that net capital inflows reversed from the requisite $70 billion to AN OUTFLOW OF $11 BILLION! "That we know already happened" Some of us have tried to warn for years now! From 2/21/07
Michael Whitney the second great Depression* The so called experts profess incredulity at the job loss, the housing collapse, the Financial collapse, the loss of the manufacturing base, their is no surprise here and the timing of this so called perfect storm is no surprise either! Just think, put 2 and 2 together, this was all created by Greenspan for Bush and it is going to get much worse. There is no surprise here period!
James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
www.anaveragepatriot.com
