Across the U.S., Long Recovery Looks Like Recession

[groovedaddy]

"No wonder Americans are pessimistic and unhappy. The only way we are going to get in gear is to face up to the reality that we are entering a period of austerity."
ALLEN L. SINAI, chief global economist at the consulting firm Decision Economics.
(So working 2-3 jobs isn't "geared up" enough? After the rich spent the last few decades sucking up as much wealth as they could, we working people must be "austere!" Just exactly who is having a problem facing up to reality here!?! - gd)

In Atlanta, the Bank of America tower, the tallest in the Southeast, is nearly a fifth vacant, and bank officials just wrestled a rent cut from the developer. In Cherry Hill, N.J., 10 percent of the houses on the market are so-called short sales, in which sellers ask for less than they owe lenders. And in Arizona, in sun-blasted desert subdivisions, owners speak of hours cut, jobs lost and meals at soup kitchens.

Less than a month before November elections, the United States is mired in a grim New Normal that could last for years. That has policy makers, particularly the Federal Reserve, considering a range of ever more extreme measures, as noted in the minutes of its last meeting, released Tuesday. Call it recession or recovery, for tens of millions of Americans, there’s little difference.

Born of a record financial collapse, this recession has been more severe than any since the Great Depression and has left an enormous oversupply of houses and office buildings and crippling debt. The decision last week by leading mortgage lenders to freeze foreclosures, and calls for a national moratorium, could cast a long shadow of uncertainty over banks and the housing market. Put simply, the national economy has fallen so far that it could take years to climb back.

The math yields somber conclusions, with implications not just for this autumn’s elections but also — barring a policy surprise or economic upturn — for 2012 as well:

¶At the current rate of job creation, the nation would need nine more years to recapture the jobs lost during the recession. And that doesn’t even account for five million or six million jobs needed in that time to keep pace with an expanding population. Even top Obama officials concede the unemployment rate could climb higher still.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/business/economy/13econ.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[xchrom]

1. if this New Normal lasts for years --

it will drag us down to another recession or worse.

numbers like these won't stay static -- they'll erode things, suffocate things -- maybe not quickly or so that
somebody jumps up and notices -- but it will oh yeah -- it'll gather energy and look out then.

[jtuck004]

2. Amazing, The lack of basic mathematical skills among

the press.

We need about 125,000 jobs a month just to break even. That is NO new job creation, just picking up the people who are entering or re-entering the work force. To make any real impact on this inside of a decade we would have to have about 300,000 NEW jobs per month, and even Bill Clinton, who arguably had the best job creation record of any modern president with a term average of about 240K per month, couldn't get that.

Yet somehow they project that 68K jobs per month is going to bring us back an ADDITIONAL 8.3 million jobs, the ones we lost? Where did they get 68K starting point as shown in their graphic? The jobs report said we lost net jobs but created 64K private sector jobs.

2010 Net Jobs -

January 14,000
February 39,000
March 208,000 <--mostly part-time census, now laid off
April 313,000 <--mostly part-time census, now laid off
May 432,000
June -175,000
July -66,000
August -57,000
September -95,000

Oh, wait - There it is - at the bottom - "Recovery job growth rates are based on the periods Jan. 1993-Dec. 1999 and Jan. 2004-Dec. 2006". So if we have job growth as we did during Bill Clinton's administration this would work? Would the reporters care to share what they are smoking? Clinton raised taxes so we could pay our bills, and had the benefit of government investment in technology which took arpanet public.

Today we are spending our money to make sure billionaires on Wall Street can pay out their multi-million dollar bonuses, (because those people work so hard), arguing about taxes, and saying there is so much debt we just have to cut back, especially the old people. And we are likely to see 10% unemployment around Christmas, maybe a little later.

Feel good articles that tell us we can recover a few million jobs in 10 years like this one just completely miss the point. We are in much more trouble than they acknowledge. (And even if we did pull off what they suggest, the growth in jobs is in retail and home health care, replacing millions of $30K to $70K jobs with those that pay $7-$8/hr. That could translate to a loss of at least a third of our public sector jobs such as teachers, firefighters, police). And that doesn't include those that have already retired, because the pension scandals are likely to hit over the next few months - they were invested in the leveraged debt on Wall Street and that money evaporated.

The only hope we have is leaders that can acknowledge the hole we are in, believe in this country and our people, and will stand up and insist that we invest in it, not just send the wealthy more money.

Thank you for the article groove.

[clarence swinney]

3. net jobs per month

carter 218,000
reagan 175,000
clinton 237,000
bushII 31,000 lowest since Hoover

Bush watched 2,300,000 go to just China.

What happened?

2000 Financial Modernization
created CASINO DERIVATIVE OF AMERICA

Rich Investors got into a hissy to invest in it.
Quick Easy Big Profit if you win the bet
Ignored Stock market that build businesses and jobs.

$$$$$$$$$ to Gambling Tables

PROOF
Dow 11,720 in 2000---11,000 today ten years later
S&P lost 30% of value
Billionaires created off Hedge Funds etc

One 4000 Million profit one year
Two 2000


roll dem loaded dice
shuffle those marked cards
spin that controlled wheel
olduglymeanhonest mad mad mad

[clarence swinney]

4. JOB LOSS

Bush 31,000
100,000 needed to cover new entries

69,000 short per month

69,000 X 96= 6,624,000 not attained

[Crazy Dave]

9. A rate 68k jobs a month will take 10 - 12 years just to get below 6% unemployment n/t

[grasswire]

5. BOGUS

That's what they want us to think -- that a depression/recession is inevitable. Too big to stop without austerity from citizens.

BOGUS.

It could be stopped on a dime.

1. Tax the rich their fair share.

2. End corporate welfare.

3. Enact legislation that brings jobs back to America and discourages offshoring.

4. Pass a significant stimulus to every adult man and women earning less than $100,000 per year. Now.

We citizens are ALLOWING this turndown by not demanding action.

[jtuck004]

6. + n/t

[cutlassmama]

7. +1

[groovedaddy]

8. Amen! Don't just sit back and take it! n.t