1.3 million to lose jobless benefits

[FluffyMcDeath]

It seems that while there is no job growth in sight yet, 1.3 million unemployed in the US are about to lose their benefits this month. There are another 5 million people behind them who will be losing benefits month after month heading out. I wonder how all those people will continue paying mortgages and go shopping to grow the consumer economy? Not at all, of course - and so the system will continue to eat itself without more intervention. With so much pain still in the pipeline it's surprising to hear that the IMF says the recession is over. Of course, they look at different metrics.

 

[cecilia]

this has been going on for years, nothing new at all

and people just do the best they can

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

this has been going on for years, nothing new at all

and people just do the best they can

The size of it is new. Who is affected is new and the amount of loans depending on these people is greater than ever. People will always do the best they can and some will always be poor. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a system that continues to hack away at what supports it. This is more like the difference between a campfire and a house fire. Same thing - but not.

 

[metalman]

The "Great Porkulus Bill" has saved us!!!
750,000 jobs “saved or created”
All Praise be Obama!!!
Green Shoots!!!
Invest For The Long Term!!!

 

[faethor]

The "Great Porkulus Bill" has saved us!!!
750,000 jobs “saved or created”
All Praise be Obama!!!
Green Shoots!!!
Invest For The Long Term!!!

Wow how wrong were those projections? With a bit more than 1/7 spent things are showing slight improvement in the economy. One can imagine how much worse it would be without the spending. We might avoid a 2nd Republican induced depression.

 

[cecilia]

this has been going on for years, nothing new at all

and people just do the best they can

The size of it is new. Who is affected is new and the amount of loans depending on these people is greater than ever. People will always do the best they can and some will always be poor. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a system that continues to hack away at what supports it. This is more like the difference between a campfire and a house fire. Same thing - but not.

that's right.
All the people who didn't believe me are now facing the music

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

I see that the graph has more data points than the last time you posted it here, but one thing hasn't changed - the fact that the graph was crap in the first place and remains crap now - it was produced by the same morons who couldn't see the problem coming and therefore don't the problem.

That being said, would we rather see the points on the chart without the plan (i.e. what they would REALLY be without the plan?).

In the end it doesn't matter. Something radical has to happen to sort out this mess. Either the government will have to take over the entire banking system and go back to something more like the pre-Fed system which despite cycles grew prosperity faster than the Fed system and maintained the value of the dollar for a couple of hundred years, or - everyone will have to become serfs and slaves and make do with eating grass and living in cardboard.

The real problems are:

Wars are expensive and unproductive unless you actually manage to capture natural resources or control of trading routes outright. Afghanistan will kill the US like it killed the USSR.

The financial industry is unproductive (doesn't actually make anything) and is infested with crooks.

The government is owned by money and the media is owned by money which means that the people with the money get to tell the government what to do and when the government tries to do something else then the media tells us that it isn't what we want.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

It turns out that the people still working are suffering too. Food stamp use is rising sharply indicating that people just can't make it on their income.

If the 700 billion dollar stimulus plan had just been sent out to households as $800 cheques each month for a year the economy would be better off than it is since just giving money to the banks to buy other banks with and give themselves bunuses.

 

[Speelgoedmannetje]

The "Great Porkulus Bill" has saved us!!!
750,000 jobs “saved or created”
All Praise be Obama!!!
Green Shoots!!!
Invest For The Long Term!!!

Fact is, after q3 2009 is pure bull.

 

[redrumloa]

It seems that while there is no job growth in sight yet, 1.3 million unemployed in the US are about to lose their benefits this month. There are another 5 million people behind them who will be losing benefits month after month heading out. I wonder how all those people will continue paying mortgages and go shopping to grow the consumer economy? Not at all, of course - and so the system will continue to eat itself without more intervention. With so much pain still in the pipeline it's surprising to hear that the IMF says the recession is over. Of course, they look at different metrics.

Of course, 1.3 million lose benefits and therefore are no longer counted as unemployed. Obama then touts the recession is over because the (phantom) unemployed number stays static (while in reality it climbs like crazy).

 

[redrumloa]

@FluffyMcDeath

Sorry Fluffy, I said in the beginning and I will say again now. They should have let the banks fail, period. Zombie banks fixed NOTHING!! All those billions(trillions?) of $$ thrown into a shredder and yet the FDIC is still going bankrupt. The porkulous bill was no better!! Expanding government with every liberal pork barrel project ever conceived is *NOT* stimulus!

 

[metalman]

The "Great Porkulus Bill" has saved us!!!
750,000 jobs “saved or created”
All Praise be Obama!!!
Green Shoots!!!
Invest For The Long Term!!!

Wow how wrong were those projections? With a bit more than 1/7 spent things are showing slight improvement in the economy. One can imagine how much worse it would be without the spending. We might avoid a 2nd Republican induced depression.

Obama promised that his $787 billion Porkulus stimulus package would keep unemployment from getting above 8%
Obama promised that his administration would shave $2 trillion off of the projected ten-year deficit.
Obama promised that he would speed up stimulus spending this summer.
Obama campaigned saying he would be fiscally prudent, we got near $2 trillion deficits.

The teenage unemployment rate is now at 25.5 percent, its highest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping track of such data in 1948. I’m sure it’s just "coincidence" that this happened right after Congress raised the minimum wage. All Praise be Obama!!!

 

[faethor]

All Praise be Obama!!!

The fact remains this was a problem not created this year but created over the last 8, at least. (Personally I'd argue last 30.) It's simply not solveable within the last year. The answer to get Americans to work is to give us jobs. However, the manufacturing jobs which ran this country for 2 centuries are gone. Replaced by minimum wage Wal-Mart stock boys and cashiers.

And personally had McCain won we'd be in a much worse situation.

 

[faethor]

Of course, 1.3 million lose benefits and therefore are no longer counted as unemployed. Obama then touts the recession is over because the (phantom) unemployed number stays static (while in reality it climbs like crazy).

Thank you Republican President Reagan for changing the unemployment formula.

 

[metalman]

All Praise be Obama!!!

The answer to get Americans to work is to give us jobs.

hey, how's that Obamanomics workin' ?

The New Flyer bus factory became a symbol of the Obama stimulus. Joe Biden with several cabinet secretaries in tow, held a town-hall-style meeting at the factory, where he praised the company as “an example of the future” and said that it stood to get more orders for its hybrid electric buses thanks to the $8.4 billion that the stimulus law devotes to mass transit. But last month, the company that Obama administration officials had pictured as a stimulus success story began laying off 320 people, or 13 percent of its work force.

Sept 2, 2009: Vice President Joe Biden proclaimed success beyond expectations for the $787 billion economic stimulus.

How many times can one claim to have saved 20 gazillion jobs before even the math-challenged media realizes that the numbers don’t add up?

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

All Praise be Obama!!!

The answer to get Americans to work is to give us jobs.

hey, how's that Obamanomics workin' ?

Hmm. Federal Govt. reduces taxes and provides stimulus dollars. States suck up the stimulus dollars and cut their own contributions. Somehow what the states do is Obama's fault? (You do read these things before you post links, don't you?)

Much of the solution to the problem could actually exist in state hands. If states would just start banks like North Dakota has then they could create credit when others won't AND decide to create it only for productive purposes and not for speculation. California could save 5 billion a year in interest payments if it would just start its own state bank.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

@FluffyMcDeath

Sorry Fluffy, I said in the beginning and I will say again now. They should have let the banks fail, period. Zombie banks fixed NOTHING!!

No and yes, respectively.Letting the big banks fail would have been a total disaster. You think it's tough to get things done with the way credit is right now? It would have been impossible. There was and still is nothing that could step in and fill the need fast enough to avert a crisis. Within a week cities would run out of food. Three days without food and civilization ends. People like to think of societies being solid and stable but they don't last long if their needs aren't being met. You may almost never think about the breaths that you take in a day and life may seem a long and fairly sedate journey but being trapped underwater for 20 or 30 seconds will profoundly effect your outlook all of a sudden.

What SHOULD have been done is outright takeover of AIG and Goldman. You put that much money into a thing, you should get to own it - and since they are bound to fail anyway, you have all the bargaining power.

Once you own both sides of the problem then the worst of the derivatives can go to the shredder. In addition you now own a big machine that can push credit through the economy and get it to the places that do the most good.

Zombie banks are a non solution. A healthy government bank is a much better deal (and can save billions of dollars in interest which would reduce the need for taxes).

 

[metalman]

Hmm. Federal Govt. reduces taxes and provides stimulus dollars. States suck up the stimulus dollars and cut their own contributions. Somehow what the states do is Obama's fault? (You do read these things before you post links, don't you?)

All Praise be Obama!!!

 

[faethor]

All Praise be Obama!!!

If you really want to do this then post, so we can see, what states enacted tax increases during the Bush years. I know for a fact Minnesota did.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Remind me... which of those states is Obama the Governor of?