“It really just seems like the economy started faltering when petroleum did. It just really rattled people, and I’m not sure the economy has gotten over it yet. It kicked the crap out of everybody. Four bucks was unrealistic - $2.50 makes the most sense.’’
I'm not going to apologize anymore.
"Gas retailers face slow July Fourth; Rising prices and recession expected to keep consumers closer to home" by Erin Ailworth, Globe Staff | July 3, 2009
ACTON - That doesn’t mean business is great, however. The recession and rising gas prices have kept people off the roads and close to home, according to AAA. Add to that a slew of gray, rainy days, and Bursaw’s business is slower than usual in the period leading up to the Fourth of July, which AAA considers the busiest driving time of the year....
Still, not all is gloom....
I can't take it anymore, rah-rah!
--more--"
While on the subject of crap, let's talk economy:
WASHINGTON - Americans lucky enough to still have a job are noticing something unpleasant in their paychecks: They’re making less money.
Related: Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street
Feel better now, American?
Employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, and the jobless rate hit a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Just as worrisome, wages shrank to their lowest in nearly a year.
The bleak news yesterday from the Labor Department underscored one of the big threats to an economic turnaround: Rising joblessness and falling wages for those still working could send Americans back into spending hibernation and short-circuit any recovery....
My friend is down to a four-day week.
The falling wages come from furloughs, pay freezes, and pay cuts imposed by employers across the country. Many also have cut hours: The average work week in June fell to 33 hours, the lowest on records dating to 1964....
The bleak jobs news sent stocks sinking. All the major stock indexes finished down more than 2.5 percent, including a 223-point drop for the Dow Jones industrial average, its worst performance in more than two months.
Job losses had decreased every month since January, but they rose in June. The 467,000 job losses were up from 322,000 in May and far worse than the 363,000 economists were expecting. By comparison, the rise in the unemployment rate for June was small....
Sick of the double-talking s***-shovel yet?
Including laid-off workers who have given up looking for jobs or have settled for part-time work, the so-called underemployment rate was 16.5 percent in June, the highest on record dating to 1994.
They CAN'T EVEN TELL the TRUTH about THAT (see below)!!!
The recession has taken out 6.5 million jobs in about a year and a half.... “The job market will become the Achilles’ heel of the coming recovery,’’ said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University, Channel Islands.
See why I'm sick of MSM s***?
--more--"
Even the BIG BOYS are WORRIED!
"Unemployment report rattles the Street
A dour report on June’s job losses sent stocks down. Major indexes fell more than 2.5% after the government said the unemployment rate hit a 26-year high. As investors sold stocks amid fresh concerns about the economy, they moved into the safety of bonds, pushing Treasury yields lower. Shares of consumer products companies were among the hardest hit.--more--"
And the REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE?
"America's Effective Unemployment Rate at 18.7%?
Each month, I receive from Leo Hindery an update on "America's effective unemployment rate" which includes not only the official unemployment figures but other data points showing off-the-books unemployed or underemployed people.
The numbers are staggering and are aggregates of official data. They matter because various Obama administration officials including the President himself started off calling for huge stimulus packages to help generate "jobs, jobs, jobs!"
But now, I have been hearing more and more from senior Obama economic team members about the jobs they hoped for coming at the very tail end of an economic recovery. Others are talking about a GDP recovery -- but not a jobs recovery. They are admitting as well that they underestimated the severity of this recession and its impact on unemployment levels.
And all this while Goldman Sachs and other financial houses have seen their balance sheets get cleaned up and bonuses surge....
--MORE--"