"Push stimulus forth, says president" by Associated Press | February 3, 2009
WASHINGTON - President Obama said.... he was taking full responsibility for rescuing the US economy.... more"
Okay, you can get started here:
WASHINGTON - Manufacturing in the United States shrank again last month and consumer spending recorded an unprecedented sixth monthly decline in December, offering no sign the economy has hit bottom....
Factories are likely to cut back further as the slump in household purchases leaves companies with stockpiles of unsold goods. General Motors Corp. plans to slash production at 15 plants through June in an effort to work off the surplus inventory, and Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co., and Toyota Motor Corp. are also cutting back.
Gee, after all those car companies got taxpayer funds, too.
Yesterday's construction report showed that the collapse in residential building may be spreading to commercial properties.... Consumers boosted savings in December as they sought to insulate themselves from the spreading US recession. The rate rose to 3.6 percent, the highest level since May, when it climbed with the receipt of tax rebates from a previous fiscal-stimulus effort. Personal incomes slipped 0.2 percent in the month.
The economic downturn continues to keep inflation at bay, while raising some risk of deflation - which would worsen the recession by making debts harder to pay and banks less likely to lend....
Well, they ain't lending anyway! I am so sick of that particular s*** fooley, readers, I can't tell you. It's repeated and repeated in damn near every article on the economy!
And notice how they are BLAMING YOU, consumer, for NOT SPENDING MONEY?!! I'm tired of WEALTHY ELITE SOPS and their propaganda servants in the MSM shoveling this garbage!
The world's largest economy may contract at a 5.5 percent annual pace this quarter after declining at a 3.8 percent rate in the last three months of 2008, according to a forecast by economists at Morgan Stanley. Last quarter's drop was the biggest since 1982.
WOW!
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Well, that's manufacturing; U.S. has already gutted that with tax breaks to corporations so they can off-shore and outsource.
Thank God we have retail here in AmeriKa!
"Macy's plans to eliminate 7,000 jobs" by Bloomberg News | February 3, 2009
WASHINGTON - Macy's Inc., the second-largest US department-store company, is eliminating 7,000 jobs, slashing its quarterly dividend, and buying back bonds to help manage its debt as sales drop....
Banks got everybody by the balls.
Macy's is reducing costs after discounts of 60 percent failed to stem revenue declines during the worst holiday season in 40 years. Profit in the year ending Jan. 30, 2010 will be about half of the prior year's, the retailer said.
Still made a profit though, huh?
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At least MY STATE is in good shape, huh?
"Recession pummels nation, state; Mass. economy shrinks 3.5% in latest quarter; business spending falls" by Robert Gavin, Globe Staff | January 31, 2009
Massachusetts, which entered the recession later than the rest of the nation, is quickly catching up. Economic activity in Massachusetts declined sharply in the last three months of 2008, mirroring the rapid deterioration of the US economy during the same period, the University of Massachusetts reported yesterday. The state economy shrunk at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of last year, a slightly better performance than the nation as a whole.
The US economy contracted at a 3.8 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the deepest decline since the recession of the early 1980s, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. Consumer and business spending plunged, and demand eroded at a quickening pace.
As a result, unsold goods piled up, suggesting another sharp decline for the economy as firms cut production while they reduce inventories, analysts said. Nigel Gault, chief US economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, said the economy could shrink by a 5 percent annual rate in the current quarter, which ends March 31. "The decline in spending in the fourth quarter was about as bad as expected," Gault wrote in an e-mailed analysis of the Commerce report.
On Wall Street, stocks fell to end a dismal January. The Dow Jones industrial average shed 148.15 to close at 8,000.86.... For Massachusetts, the Commerce Department report contained particularly bad news: Corporate investment in equipment and software fell at an annual rate of nearly 28 percent.
Massachusetts has a high concentration of tech firms that make products to sell to other firms, and the decline in corporate spending has led several to disclose layoffs in recent weeks. Just Wednesday, Teradyne Inc. of North Reading, which makes semiconductor test equipment, said it would cut more than 500 jobs worldwide in the face of declining orders. The company did not say how many jobs could be cut in Massachusetts....
Looks like I'd better hit job search firms:
"Job search firms draw attention, but not all see their benefit" by Nicole C. Wong, Globe Staff | February 1, 2009
In this tight labor market, some people are paying for the inside track.
With thousands of Massachusetts residents being laid off each week, some companies that help job hunters land work - after they shell out fees ranging from $10 to more than $6,900 - are benefiting from an influx of customers. But the companies, whose services range from providing simple job listings to the phone numbers of hiring managers, are getting mixed reviews from human resources professionals and clients....
WTF? I can't afford that!
Some HR specialists and customers say the services these companies offer aren't worth the money. In fact, the number of complaints customers filed with the Better Business Bureau against job listing and advisory services has nearly doubled in the past four years....
Some HR specialists say many of the resources that companies provide can be found for a lot less money - or even free. Job seekers can often get free help with resume writing and other components of job hunting from counselors at government-funded community centers. And much of the advice and services these companies offer is available at public libraries or online.
"Most often when people get jobs through networking, they're getting jobs through their own personal connections," who will vouch for their character and work, said Kathy Robinson, a Boston career counselor who previously worked in HR at an Internet start-up, a software company, and Gillette Co. "It's usually a friend of a friend."
Yeah, like it HAS ALWAYS BEEN!
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So monster.com, et al, are RIP-OFF OUTFITS, huh? Just as I suspected (and I hate their commercials).
So where, oh where, can an American find a job (had to get it from my local; why ignore your parent, NYT)?
"Despite layoffs, federal work force is growing
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Companies are cutting jobs by the tens of thousands. State and local governments are penny-pinching, too. So what about Uncle Sam? Tough times for him as well?
Not exactly.
In fact the number of federal workers is on the rise.
That might seem strange to the 11 million people in the U.S. who are out of work -- and the millions more who fear they soon will be. Shouldn't Washington pare down too?
But it is unlikely that President Barack Obama will put any of the nearly 2 million federal civil servants out in the street in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. His proposed $800-plus billion economic aid plan, which includes heavy spending on public works, is expected to increase the ranks of federal workers, although mostly at the state and local level.
I'm sorry, but THIS COUNTRY has to STOP SPENDING KONEY it DOES NOT HAVE -- or GET IT FROM the PEOPLE THAT DO!!!
But THEY WON'T DO THAT because they are TOO BUSY SHOVELING TAXPAYER MONEY at those VERY SAME INTERESTS!
That measure is working its way through Congress just as Microsoft Corp., Pfizer, Caterpillar, Home Depot and scores of other companies are shedding workers, and governors are asking or ordering state workers to accept furloughs, salary reductions, truncated workweeks or reduced benefits.
"Federal belt-tightening would worsen the problem right now," said Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "Most economists agree that the federal government is a built-in stabilizer," said Hassett, a former adviser to GOP presidential campaigns.
Simply letting federal workers go is "penny-wise and pound foolish," said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that works to revitalize the government and its work force. "We had a situation where we had a single person monitoring toys coming in from abroad. End result: You get lead-tainted toys coming in to the country," Stier said. "We need people looking out for the public good."
Paul Light, professor of public service at New York University, also thinks more, not fewer, federal workers on needed on the front lines. He said other steps could be taken to trim costs....
More federal job openings are on the horizon.... Older workers are seeking federal jobs, which come with job security, health and life insurance, a federal retirement program, paid vacations and leave and other benefits.
Yeah, don't you wish YOU COULD GET the SAME DEAL that YOU OUTLAY for YOUR "SERVANTS," Amurkn taxpayers? Instead, you are getting the pink slip or a wage cut.
When the national job market began tightening in the first quarter of last year, FedJobs.com, a business that has been helping federal job hunters since 1974, started hearing from 50- to 65-year-olds instead of 25- to 40-year-olds.
"All of a sudden, it's a much older clientele calling up saying they're interested in government work because they lost their jobs, their companies merged, their companies went bankrupt and they're looking for stability," said Ross Harris, sales and marketing director for the site. "The perception is that federal work is more stable -- that there aren't as many layoffs."
Say HELLO to the FASCIST ECONOMY, 'eh? Time to SERVE, isn't it?
Rising unemployment and excitement about working for Obama combined to motivate about 350,000 people to apply for 3,000 to 4,000 political appointee positions in his new administration. Jumping to the federal payroll, however, doesn't necessarily mean moving to the nation's capital; more than 80 percent of federal civil workers are employed outside the Washington metro area.
"Workers in the private sector are being laid off at an alarming rate," said Richard Brown, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, one of the three largest unions representing federal civilian employees. "That is making the federal sector, where employment levels have been mostly stable, more attractive. Obama is calling American workers to public service and has said he wants to 'make government cool again.'"
As if it ever were....
Federal employment has not completely escaped the impact of the economic downturn, While no government-wide hiring freeze has gone into effect, some departments and agencies are taking belt-tightening moves. Obama, for example, froze the pay of some White House employees... But it was a symbolic move. The pay freeze only affects roughly 100 White House employees earning more than $100,000 a year.
Whoop-ee; another cosmetic non-change from the master.
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Of course, we all know what the problem is with the American economy, right?
Well, let the Boston Globe tell you about it:
.... Either way, it is going nowhere fast. Obama has far more important challenges to deal with now, and it's unclear how much political capital he may ever spend on the bill.
Hey, they can get in line with the broken promise crowd -- right behind the gay lobby (antiwar folks first in line).
Also at issue is whether it's a good time or a bad time to organize. Labor people point out that major union advances were made in the 1930s, when the economy was far worse than now. But it seems to me that a lot of workers, petrified of losing their jobs, would steer clear of the whole thing now.
We all know that Big Labor has lost a lot of its punch over the years. I grew up in a nest of lefties who lionized Walter Reuther and the progressive labor movement, and while my heart is with the working man, I've lost respect for many unions. That they have lost ground is no surprise to me.
Nice non-biased reporting from the pro-corporate, anti-worker (unless immigrants) Boston Globe!
But if unions didn't exist, someone would invent them. There must be a countervailing force to management. With notable enlightened exceptions, management has been dragged kicking and screaming into most advances in workers's rights. Mine safety, OSHA, the weekend, stuff like that. The good textile barons in Lowell saw nothing wrong for the longest time with kids working 12 hours a day, six days a week.
Yeah, that SELDOM if EVER comes up when talking about economics in the management-dominated corporate press, notice that?
And many forget that it is a basic right in America for workers to unionize. It's easy to lose sight after years of Reagan and Bushes, where union activity has been all but considered un-American.
"People need them more than ever," said Thomas Kochan, an MIT professor of work and employment relations and a strong union supporter who spoke at the meeting.
Things are looking up for labor here in other ways....
One plan is to strengthen the historic links between religion and workers' rights. The Observer braved the snow and freezing rain last Wednesday to drop in on a powwow at the Boston headquarters of SEIU Local 615 with church and labor groups. There was an abundance of posters that read, "All religions believe in justice."
Again, RELIGIONS do BETTER than a Zionist-controlled GOVERNMENT!
Who knows what, if anything, will come of this new drive in the American labor movement. One thing is clear - this is its best chance in years to pursue its goals. It is also the best time to prove it is part of the solution, not the problem.
Do I need even say it?
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