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“The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA 10,524, -150.83, -1.41%) fell and risk-averse investors moved into Treasurys, with the yield on the 10-year note touching its lowest level in more than a year,” Peterson reports “The highly anticipated employment snapshot dealt a double blow to wary investors: The U.S. economy lost more jobs than expected last month and even more than previously thought in June. The Labor Department report added to a stream of economic data over the past few weeks that indicate the U.S. recovery continues to weaken, and stoked fears the country could still fall back into a recession.”
Peterson reports, “Compounding worries is that consumer spending, which makes up 70% of economic activity, could further erode in the face of persistently high unemployment rates.”
Read more in the full article here.
Ben Rooney reports for CNNMoney, ” The Labor Department reported that the economy lost 131,000 jobs last month, as the government shed 143,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census. Economists polled by Briefing.com were expecting 87,000 job losses during the month.”
“The report showed that private sector added 71,000 jobs, less than the 83,000 gain economists were looking for,” Rooney reports. “The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5%… Investors were also disappointed by the revision to the losses in June. The report showed that the economy lost 221,000 jobs in June, far more than the 125,000 the government previously reported.”
Rooney reports, “Fannie Mae said it lost $1.2 billion in the second quarter, down significantly from an $11.5 billion loss in the prior quarter. The government-run mortgage finance company said that its financial condition has vastly improved over previous quarters, but it still requested more government assistance.”
Read more in the full article here.
I thought it was a Jobs report.. Thanks for the panic attack!
1. “Common sense tells us that the government’s attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy.”
2. “Washington has got to, across the board, lower taxes for small businesses so that our mom and pops can reinvest and hire people, so that our businesses can thrive.”
3. “To reduce deficit spending and our enormous debt, you reign in spending. You cut the budget. You don’t take more from the private sector and grow government with it. And that’s exactly what Obama has in mind with this expiration of Bush tax cuts proposal of his. His commitment to let previous tax cuts expire are going to lead to even fewer job opportunities for Americans, because it’s the job creators who will be taxed. The fewer dollars that they have to reinvest in their own businesses and hire more people, the worse it is for all Americans… The Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress — they’re all wet on this idea. It’s idiotic to think about increasing taxes at a time like this.”
Who said all of the above?
@Fix the mistake!
Whoever said it is an idiot.
How’s that Hope & Change working out for you?
conshmillo,
Oh, really? So, tell us all what’s so “idiotic” about those quotes?
Is it the idea that lower taxes and less government spending will spur a real recovery or is it something else?
We tried trickle down, we tried spending, we tried everything. Face it, nobodies got a cure all for a crummy economy. Our problem is we killed the middle class in this country.
Before anybody goes and blames Obama for this mess you can’t get around who created it. Bush. There is no way to sugar coat it and lie about it, you can’t blame Clinton, he left Bush with a TRILLION DOLLAR SURPLUS and Bush blue it all.
Forget the politics of it, or your hatreds or whatever, simply look it at like this> Joe gave Tom a million dollars, Tom blew it all at some fancy restaurant and when Jack came by to join in, nothing was left but a huge bill that Jack got stuck with while Tom skipped out leaving Jack cleaning the dishes.
True, Obama is no saint, he’s not perfect and he’s no FDR.
But he’s the one stuck cleaning up the mess left by the dumbass who screwed us all, Republicans and Democrats.
I would vote for anybody who actually knew how to fix the economy without making things worse. Short term fixes are not the answer if they will create further problems down the road. The Republicans don’t want the economy to improve, that’s how you get their party elected. They will fight anything that might help things out NOW. The Democrats would do the same if the positions where reversed.
It’s sickening politics from people that put their own interests before their countries. They are not looking out for you, they are looking out for their themselves.
TERM LIMITS.
George Washington:
… I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
Parties will kill this country if they let them. They are their to serve us, not their party. They seem to have forgotten that or simply don’t care.
@Fix the mistake!
I’ll take a wild stab at who’s quotes you published:
Sarah Palin
Maul- trickle down has NOT been tried. Government recklessly spending money on union gifts is NOT trickle down economics. Obama has done nothing to help this situation and everything to amplify it.
W
Definitely Sarah Palin.
Google “It’s idiotic to think about increasing taxes at a time like this” and you’ll see it.
What happened to the jobs:
Globalization of manufacturing since 1965. Globalization of labor since 1990. Conversion to a service economy. Debt overburden since 1980. Debt funded govt programs. Debt funded tax cuts. Debt funded (unnecessary) wars. Debt funded banker welfare. In the meantime, there’ve been overlooked opportunities to deploy new technologies for renewable energy, transportation, and efficient medical treatments, especially stem cell therapies.
It IS idiotic to raise taxes. It will kill jobs and not increase revenue.
There was a time when a man with a high school diploma could earn enough to buy a house and car and support a family all by himself. He worked in a steel mill or on an auto assembly line. He made widgets, built bridges, constructed roads and office buildings. He built houses or he ran his own farm.
Today, if those jobs are located in America at all, they are filled with illegal immigrants working at substandard wages, hired by the corporations who have been the beneficiaries of the massive Republican tax cuts. These are the same corporations who moved all the other decent paying factory jobs to Mexico, India, and China.
More tax cuts for the rapists of the American economy won’t help. Neither will more minimum wage, no benefit, no future jobs provided by that sacred cow of ours, “Small Business”. Our reliance on small business for jobs is the sole reason we need a universal health care plan, and small business’s squealing about the cost of providing benefits for employees is a demonstration of why. How many small business owners do without the medical coverage they expect their employees to get along without?
The idea that the fat cat large corporations will spend their untaxed profits in ways that will enrich the general economy is stupidity in the face of the demonstrated recent behavior of the banking industry and other corporations. Unfettered capitalism is no more beneficial to humanity than unregulated socialism. We need to reinstitute reasonable regulation and tax rates for large corporations and devise means of bringing high paying manufacturing jobs back to America. Whether they know it or not, small business owners and large corporations really do need a middle class, even if they are unwilling to support it.
@zeke
Most people work for small business owners. S corps and the like. These people aren’t rich fat cats. If you squeeze these people they’ll either raise prices or layoff workers or both. If small or med sized businesses have to lay off just 10 percent of their workers to pay all these new Obamataxes well that going to mean millions more unemployed.
Zeke,
Labor Unions priced themselves out of a job. Don’t blame the free market economy. Blame greedy labor. Almost $100 an hour for wages and perks just to employ an auto worker.
Is it any wonder cars are made elsewhere or in union free shops.
Cut and paste and not an original thought among them!
No jobs and yet corporate earnings are humming right along.
Apple is the immune from the forces that are squeezing the chicken shit out of the rest of corporate America.
Apple continues to sell products at a record pace while expanding its footprint across the globe in defiance of the very forces that have capped other sectors of American industry. Why?
Apple makes products people want! There’s no magic in what Apple does as a business, nor are their products created in a
vacuum.
Their formula for success is simple. Remove the complexity and strip away the over-hyped, half-baked features no one knows how to use, that their competitors insist is what makes the product seem so damn special.
If the rest of corporate America, and by that, I mean those industries who are in gridlock such as the banks, the auto industries, the housing markets, were using the proper tools for the job, they too good escape their self-imposed vault.
This shit storm were experiencing is not the government’s responsibility to resolve, it’s the Markets!
The government isn’t supposed to create the jobs, no more than they are supposed to step in and offer incentives to kick-start the economy.
The government is supposed to remain nuetral in a capitalistic society, so why is everyone, especially the Republicans, trying to use it as an instrument in, and for, the Market?
In a capitalistic society, our goverment should be taxing the shit out of Corporate America instead of its citizens. Why not, they’re already sending billions of dollars to Congess anyway. The trouble is, all of the money is being spent on themselves instead of being put to good use.
Because taxes are collected directly from the citizens and not from those who would employ
them, the system has become untenable, full of holes, and wide open for fraud, waste, and abuse.
We should be able to keep whatever we can scrounge from our employer. In a capitalistic society, especially in an upside down world where the government
gives handouts to rich corporate Americans, who use every instrument at their disposal to avoid paying any taxes at all, but squeezes its citizens for every last dime, to offset their generous welfare programs for the rich.
If corporate America is allowed to receive welfare, then the citizens of the United States shouldn’t have to pay taxes, at all.
I could go on but what would be the point?
@Figurative & Al: “Most people work for small business owners. S corps and the like. These people aren’t rich fat cats. If you squeeze these people they’ll either raise prices or layoff workers or both. If small or med sized businesses have to lay off just 10 percent of their workers to pay all these new Obamataxes well that going to mean millions more unemployed.”
You missed my point. Small business provides small employment. That is, generally part-time, no benefits, low wage, no future jobs. Expecting small business to power this economy is like throwing snow balls at a forest fire. Most small business people would sell their grandmother on the street corner to make an extra nickel. They are not in any way interested in anybody but #1. As far as I am concerned let them sink or swim. They are largely parasites on the economy, consuming more services and benefits than they provide.
“Labor Unions priced themselves out of a job. Don’t blame the free market economy. Blame greedy labor. Almost $100 an hour for wages and perks just to employ an auto worker.”
GM has an average 33 hours of labor per vehicle produced. The most efficient was Nissan at 28 hours. That includes all labor, clerical support, supervision, etc. Most direct labor is supported by 100 to 110% support costs, like supervision, payroll, HR, etc. So let’s say GM has 17 hours of labor in that $40K SUV. That’s $1700 at $100 per hour. That’s a bargain! Cut labor costs in half and you save what? Another $850 off the cost of the $40K vehicle? So no, it’s not the cost of paying labor that makes or breaks the auto industry. The main reason for being cheap about labor is that just like everything else, they might produce another $.02 on the bottom line for the investors. Understand this, corporations have no morals. They have no sense of public duty. They have no loyalty other than to their shareholders. Corporations are simply profit driven at any cost. They don’t care about this nation or its people at all.
Is it any wonder cars are made elsewhere or in union free shops.
When 1% of Americans have control of over 50% of all the wealth in this country, you are going to have a problem. What made America great in the past was it’s ever expanding middle class, now we have more people being tossed in to poverty, and the very few rich, are only getting richer. At some point, this will all have to cave in.
When the motive to become a doctor is to become rich, you have a problem. When we are indoctrinated that rich and famous are to be idolized, we have a problem. When we spend more on killing people in foreign countries than we do on educating our kids we have a big problem.
Corporate lobbing must be abolished and government must represent the majority of the populations interests. Just look at telecommunications. We rank 34th in the world as far as broad band. WTF. Look at healthcare, reserved for the elite. All I want is access to the same healthcare plan than congress members have. How about that.
We have no representation in government, regardless of who you vote for. The people really in charge, do not get elected!! Nothing will change because is up to us, the people to change this. Lets face it, we have the government/system/economy we deserve, because we all take it sitting down.
@Fix the mistake!
I could write 5 pages of my own reasoning on this subject. But in short – You can’t export money circulation to China and expect Americans to revive the economy if their paychecks are in Shanghai. No amount of tax cuts will do that. If you kill the only spender (US government) in times like these there will be no jobs whatsoever, and therefor no spending whatsoever, no recovery. i.e total downward spiral because Big corporations will NOT employ more Americans no matter how big tax cuts you’ll give them. They’ve got too sweat deal in China and world market to go after. They don’t need American worker. In other words giving tax cuts INDISCRIMINATELY will do you no good because it doesn’t ensure one single new job. Those tax cuts are not tied to any conditions.
If you manufacture products, although for less, in China, your american dollars will be circulating in larger quantities in China and there will be less dough circulating in US. In other words Chinese workers will be spending more on Chinese barbers, grocers and hookers all the while American barbers, American grocers and American hookers will be receiving (and therefor spending LESS)!
ONLY thing that can save American economy is to bring jobs and therefor money circulation back to USA! YOU DO THIS BY GIVING TAX CUTS ONLY TO AMERICANS THAT EMPLOY OTHER AMERICANS. PERIOD!
@zeke
“Understand this, corporations have no morals. They have no sense of public duty. They have no loyalty other than to their shareholders. Corporations are simply profit driven at any cost. They don’t care about this nation or its people at all.”
Spot on. That’s why you just don’t give them any breaks with no conditions. All this anti government talk doesn’t take in account that democratically elected government, as imperfect as it might be, is the only weapon individual has against clans (corporations) taking over and taking in us back to feudalism and a class society. More you vote for representatives that empower clans and not people, worse you are off as an individual.
This doesn’t negate existence of clans as some would like to argue that anything anti-clan is socialist. Those clans are part of society and are beneficial to society as long as they are kept in check and not hijacking and dominating that society SOLELY for their own selfish interests (monopoly). It merely recognizes that if you let them run wild they will eat us alive.
Isn’t amazing how Bubba keeps voting against his own interest?
MDN, if you don’t do something about this political crap on your website, then I am going elsewhere. I imagine that others will, too.
If the posts were even marginally reasonable from people open to discussion, then I could deal with it. But these people appear to be simply political puppets using cut-and-paste from party platforms, historical myopia, revisionist history, or outright fabrication.
Nothing in the federal, state, or local governments, absolutely nothing, is so simple that it can be solved with a few “all-purpose” solutions. Nor is hypocrisy a substitute for sound reasoning. Changing the leader will have very little real impact if the flawed process remains the same and people continue to accept promises of simple fixes that fail to materialize over decades.
The recent financial crisis that we are still experiencing and the larger financial and social crises that will occur in the future if we fail to get our act together are the responsibility of both parties. Bipartisanship is not just a buzzword – it is rapidly becoming our only hope of averting an unpleasant future.
Although I stand by my request for MDN to do something about the political discourse on a Mac site, I reacted in haste when I submitted my previous post.
As I read past the first set of posts that set me off, I encountered some very interesting and thoughtful debates regarding the state of our country. This gives me some hope that the weight of reason may yet overcome the inertia of ignorance and stupidity in this nation.