Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"

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The Jobless Summer
Why only one in four teens is employed..Article Comments (142) more in Opinion
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304447804576411903821123330.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop


Perhaps you've already noticed around the neighborhood, but this is a rotten summer for young Americans to find a job. The Department of Labor reported last week that a smaller share of 16-19 year-olds are working than at anytime since records began to be kept in 1948.

Only 24% of teens, one in four, have jobs, compared to 42% as recently as the summer of 2001. The nearby chart chronicles the teen employment percentage over time, including the notable plunge in the last decade. So instead of learning valuable job skills—getting out of bed before noon, showing up on time, being courteous to customers, operating a cash register or fork lift—millions of kids will spend the summer playing computer games or hanging out.

The lousy economic recovery explains much of this decline in teens working, and some is due to increases in teen summer school enrollment. Some is also cultural: Many parents don't put the same demands on teens as they once did to get out and work.



...But Congress has also contributed by passing one of the most ill-timed minimum wage increases in history. One of the first acts of the gone-but-not-forgotten Nancy Pelosi ascendancy was to raise the minimum wage in stages to $7.25 an hour in 2009 from $5.15 in 2007. Even liberals ought to understand that raising the cost of hiring the young and unskilled while employers are slashing payrolls is loopy economics.

Or maybe not. The Center for American Progress, often called the think tank for the Obama White House, recently recommended another increase to $8.25 an hour. Though the U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1%, the thinkers assert that a rising wage would "stimulate economic growth to the tune of 50,000 new jobs." So if the government orders employers to pay more to hire workers when they're already not hiring, they'll somehow hire more workers. By this logic, if we raised the minimum wage to $25 an hour we'd have full employment.

Back on planet Earth, the minimum wage increase has coincided with the plunge in the percentage of working teens. Before the most recent wage hikes, roughly seven million teens were working. Now there are closer to five million with a job and paycheck.

Black teens have had the worst of it, with their unemployment rate rising to 41.6% in April from 29% in 2007, faster than almost any other group. A 2010 study by economists William Even of Miami University of Ohio and David Macpherson of Trinity University found that as a result of the $2.10 increase in minimum wage, "teen employment dropped by 6.9 percent. . . . For the teen population with less than 12 years of education completed, teen employment dropped by 12.4 percent." For teens priced out of the labor market, their wage fell to zero.

The great tragedy is that even discussing the role of the minimum wage in teen unemployment seems to be a political taboo. The other day we saw ABC's George Stephanopoulos baiting Michele Bachmann on the minimum wage, as if refusing to raise it would be some epic political gaffe. Ms. Bachmann didn't back down from saying that the minimum wage has contributed to unemployment, though she didn't explain why.


The great tragedy is that even discussing the role of the minimum wage in teen unemployment seems to be a political taboo.
.What she or another candidate should do is stop playing defense and ask why Mr. Stephanopoulos doesn't seem to mind a black teen jobless rate of 41.6%. Someone truly brave would come out for a teenage sub-minimum wage of, say, $4 an hour. In certain circumstances employers can now pay teens a minimum of $4.25, but only for 90 days. This makes employers reluctant to hire at all. Make the case on moral grounds that a mandated wage that is too high blocks the young and unskilled from grabbing a place on the economic ladder.

Teenagers who work part-time while attending school generally make more money and have more successful careers as adults than kids who never work. As a 2006 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago put it: "The drop in teen labor force participation may also have implications for future productivity growth. In general, labor market experience tends to raise subsequent earnings."

The U.S. has long had a labor market flexible enough that when the economy grows, the jobless rate falls smartly. This time has been different, and the great danger is that Obamanomics has moved the U.S. to a permanently higher jobless rate as in so much of Europe. For America's teenagers this summer, that reality is already here.

   

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Wind-Turbine Maker That Obama Praised Files for Bankruptcy
IndustryWeek ^ | July 1, 2011 | Josh Cable

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Company is having trouble obtaining financing for working capital.

Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co., a Cleveland-based manufacturer of screws and bolts for wind turbines, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday.

Cardinal President John Grabner told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the bankruptcy filing is necessary because the company is having trouble obtaining "working-capital financing" from its primary lender, Wells Fargo.

Grabner also told the Plain Dealer that the company is profitable and its revenues are growing.

President Obama visited Cardinal, which is in Bedford Heights near Cleveland, in January 2009 before his inauguration.

"Renewable energy isn't something pie in the sky," Obama said during a speech at Cardinal. "It's not part of a far-off future. It's happening all across America right now.

" ... It can create millions of new jobs and entire new industries if we act right now."

Jeff Grabner, vice president and head of the company's wind business, told the Plain Dealer earlier in the week that Cardinal had been losing business to European suppliers who had underbid Cardinal, forcing the company to trim its workforce by 15 employees a year ago.


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FAIL 

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Krauthammer: "Middle-Aged May Never Get Employed Again"



"The problem is at the consumer level, confidence is low and that is because, as you showed, showed we had underemployment with one out of every six Americans. The worst element of that is that among the unemployed, against the American history, more than approaching half, have [been] unemployed for over six months. That is historically unprecedented in the United States. That is a phenomenon that is seen often in Europe, rarely seen here. In 2007 the average time to get a new job was five weeks. It's now near six months. And that implies a whole segment of the population, the more elderly or the middle-aged who may never get employed again," Charles Krauthammer said on FOX News this evening.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/04/krauthammer_middle-aged_may_never_get_employed_again.html




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FAIL 

[Soul Crusher]

Down on the Fourth of July: the United States of gloom
The Telegraph ^ | 07/04/2011 | Toby Harnden



Across America today, people will gather for barbecues in their backyards, parades through their towns and firework displays lighting up the night sky.

They’ll be celebrating Independence Day – the birthday of the United States and the 235th anniversary of shaking off the oppressive yoke of British rule.

On this day in 1776 a group of 13 colonies broke away to found a new nation free to govern itself as it saw fit, pledging that each citizen would have the unalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. A nation, as Americans are apt to declare without equivocation, which became the greatest on the face of the earth.

That’s the good news. On the flip side, however, a country whose hallmark has always been a sense of irrepressible optimism is in the grip of unprecedented uncertainty and self-doubt.

With the United States mired in three foreign wars, beaten down by an economy that shows few signs of emerging from deep recession and deeply disillusioned with President Barack Obama, his Republican challengers and Congress, the mood is dark.

The last comparable Fourth of July was probably in 1980, when there was a recession, skyrocketing petrol prices and an Iranian hostage crisis, with 53 Americans being held in Tehran.

Frank Luntz, perhaps America’s pre-eminent pollster, argues that his countrymen are much more downbeat now than in 1980. “The assumption with the Carter years was that it was a failure of the elites, not the system. We thought the people in charge screwed up. We didn’t blame ourselves.” Remarkably, many Americans think things will only get worse and the good times will never return.


(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...

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FAIL 

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www.wsj.com
ECONOMY
JULY 5, 2011.
Inside the Disappointing Comeback 
By JON HILSENRATH And CONOR DOUGHERTY



Two years ago, officials said, the worst recession since the Great Depression ended. The stumbling recovery has also proven to be the worst since the economic disaster of the 1930s.

 The News Hub covers one of the slowest recoveries from economic recession on record. Also, the National Education Association endorses President Obama. Plus, mules put on a show in Missouri. AP Photo/Paul Sancya

.Across a wide range of measures—employment growth, unemployment levels, bank lending, economic output, income growth, home prices and household expectations for financial well-being—the economy's improvement since the recession's end in June 2009 has been the worst, or one of the worst, since the government started tracking these trends after World War II.

.In some ways the recovery is much like the 1991 and 2001 post-recession periods: All three are marked by gradual output growth rather than sharp snap-backs typical of earlier recoveries. But this recovery may remain lackluster for years, many economists say, because of heavy household debt, a financial system still damaged by the mortgage crisis, fragile confidence and a government with few good options for supporting growth.

There are bright spots. Exports, particularly of manufactured and agricultural goods, are improving, in part because of booming developing-country economies and the weaker dollar. They are expected to pick up in the second half of the year as the temporary shock fades from Japan's earthquake and tsunami. In a hint of this, the Institute of Supply Management on Friday reported an uptick in manufacturing for June. Higher corporate profits, stock prices and business investment also are supporting the expansion.

Disappointing Data

The economy's improvement since the recession's June 2009 end has been the worst, or among the worst, recorded across a wide range of measures since the government started tracking these trends after World War II.

View Interactive
.
.Still, broader problems are holding the economy back.

Banks are less able or willing to lend than before the recession. Since the recovery started, banks have reduced money they make available through credit card lines from $3.04 trillion to $2.69 trillion and have reduced home equity credit lines from $1.33 trillion to $1.15 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Policy makers, meanwhile, are reluctant to do more to stimulate economic growth. The Federal Reserve has already pushed short-term interest rates to near zero. Two rounds of quantitative easing that including purchasing $1.425 trillion in mortgage bonds and $900 billion in Treasury debt helped to stabilize the economy but failed to spur a vigorous recovery.

View Interactive

.Likewise, fiscal stimulus, either in the form of tax cuts favored by Republicans or spending increases favored by Democrats, looks unlikely given large federal deficits and the disappointing results of earlier efforts, including President Obama's $830 billion stimulus program of 2009.

The biggest problem may be household indebtedness. At the peak of the economic boom in the third quarter of 2007, U.S. households collectively had borrowed the equivalent of 127% of their annual incomes to fund purchases of homes, cars and other goods, up from an average of 84% in the 1990s. The money used to pay off that debt means less available for new spending. Households had worked their debt-to-income levels down to 112% by the first quarter, in part because banks have written off some debt as uncollectible.

Jurgen Schulz, owner of K-5, a San Diego area retailer that sells surfboards, skateboards and lifestyle apparel, sees more people living month-to-month. "Our sales trail way off the further it gets from pay period," he said. Mr. Schulz, in turn, didn't hire this year the six to eight seasonal workers his company usually brings on each summer.

Getting rid of debt could be a long and slow process.To get back to a 1990s debt-to-income ratio of 84%, households would either need to pay down another $3.3 trillion of debt, or see their incomes rise $3.9 trillion. That's equivalent to about nine years' worth of income growth in normal times, estimates Credit Suisse economist Dana Saporta.

Debt constraints are especially hard on consumers who before the crisis relied on credit cards or home equity lines to keep spending when they needed money. Now many of those lines have been limited or cut.

With less access to credit, many families are finding the only way to make ends meet is to cut spending.

"Every single month you're struggling, struggling, struggling," said Javier Toro, 49, a father of three. He makes $13 an hour as a customer service representative at a non-profit that administers a program offering free energy efficiency upgrades to homeowners. The program, funded by the 2009 stimulus law, ends in a few months as government funds dry up. He's paying about $100 a month to keep current on $3,000 in credit card debt, but making no headway paying down principal. To make ends meet, he's cut his cable and Internet service, and the fixed telephone line to his rented home.

He said, "You don't see when this is going to stop."

Debt and a dismal job market have hurt consumers' confidence, which further damps their willingness to spend. The University of Michigan finds that 24% of households expect to be better off financially within a year's time. That's the lowest this measure has been at this point in a recovery since World War II.

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said job growth had been "significantly faster" than the recovery in the 2000s, though there was a long way to go. He added that recovering from a bubble-based expansion driven by consumer spending and housing toward more exports and investment was tough work. "We can't just go back to what we did before," he said.

Write to Jon Hilsenrath at jon.hilsenrath@wsj.com and Conor Dougherty at conor.dougherty@wsj.com


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FAIL

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-06/u-s-job-gains-...

As bad as the U.S. employment picture looks, the official Labor Department figures understate the magnitude of the crisis.

Creating private-sector jobs -- not adding to government payrolls -- is the key to achieving a genuine recovery. But employment statistics define the private sector far too broadly. The numbers include too many industries in which demand, and therefore employment, depends heavily on subsidies.

Health care is responsible for most of the over-count -- which can be estimated with some confidence using Labor Department data -- with social-service providers and private education institutions also contributing to the problem.

The latest jobs report for May shows just how badly these sectors distort the employment figures. According to the Labor Department, private businesses added 83,000 jobs compared with April levels, falling far short of forecasts. (Figures for both months are still preliminary.) By subtracting the 34,000 jobs added in the health-care, social-service and education sectors, the number of new private-sector positions shrinks to just 49,000.

Since the recession officially ended in June 2009, the disparity has been much wider. Private-sector employment grew by a seasonally adjusted 980,000 in the last two years. That pales beside the 7.7 million private-sector jobs lost during the recession, but at least optimists can call it a start.

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Closed Factories Symbolize Obama's Economic Woes
Townhall.com ^ | July 6, 2011 | Donald Lambro

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WASHINGTON -- The likelihood that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner may resign from his post later this summer is the latest sign that President Obama's team of economic advisers is disintegrating as the economy grows weaker.

With the nation's 9.1 percent unemployment rate worse than it was when Obama took office in 2009, and the economy slowing down to less than 2 percent growth, Geithner's signal that he wants out further diminishes whatever confidence the country still has in Obama's economic policies -- and polls show that isn't much.

The former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the chief architect of Obama's economic strategy, which is now under fierce attack from Republican presidential contenders and grumbling from Democrats on Capitol Hill who fear their party will suffer deeper losses if the economy doesn't recover this year or early in 2012.


Geithner is the last big-name adviser in Obama's original economic team. One by one, the rest have left in the past year, some of them with parting shots that the economy needs a much stronger stimulus than it got in 2009 if it is to get back on its feet before Election Day.

Gone are Larry Summers, who headed the National Economic Council (NEC); Christina Romer, who chaired the President's Council of Economic Advisers; and longtime Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee, who briefly took her place, only to return recently to the University of Chicago.

Should Geithner leave, as senior officials have intimated he will, that will leave a thin, faceless team of advisers at a time when the economy demands a team of heavy hitters who can command the respect of the business community and Wall Street, and recalibrate Obama's policies for the 2012 campaign.

Gene Sperling, who rose to become Treasury counselor under President Clinton, has moved into the NEC's directorship, but he is not a trained economist and knows less about creating jobs.


Geithner has indicated that he will remain onboard at least until he has wrapped up negotiations with Congress to raise the debt limit and cut spending over the next 10 years.

Few in the party's liberal base will shed tears if he leaves. He was one of the chief architects of the Bush administration's Wall Street bailout in 2008. He fought to protect big bonuses for financial traders. His prescriptions to deal with the tsunami of mortgage foreclosures and pull the housing industry out of its slump have been ineffective at best.

Should he leave by summer's end, that would precipitate a battle royal over his replacement and ignite new debate in Congress over Obama's economic policies just as he turns his full attention to his re-election bid.


"It's going to be an opening for the Republicans to put the Obama economic policies on a big public trial," economist Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute told The Washington Post.

The ongoing dismantlement of Obama's economic team comes at a time when there is little left in the government's shrinking bag of stimulus tricks.

The administration's infrastructure spending stimulus is slowing to a trickle. The Federal Reserve is pulling away from its ineffective QE 2 bond purchasing initiative to inject new capital into the nation's economy. The White House all but admits it's out of ideas to pump up the economy. Indeed, it's still pushing for higher taxation on industries and investors, which would further slow an already tepid growth rate.


In the meantime, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is aggressively stepping up his attacks on the Obama economy in major industrial states hit hard by high unemployment.

Last week, Romney went to the shuttered, barb-wired Allentown Metal Works plant in Pennsylvania that Obama visited with much bravado in 2009, saying it was the kind of factory that his $800 billion spending stimulus bill would keep open. It closed earlier this year, laying off all of its workers.

"Look around you: This is what he called the symbol of hope," a shirt-sleeved Romney said at a news conference in front of the factory's padlocked gates. "There are weeds, boarded-up windows. This was the stop he picked to symbolize the success of the stimulus. And my eyes tell me it ain't working."


Repeatedly calling Obama "a failure," Romney talked about his 25-year career in business investment, building start-up companies into job creators, a process he said Obama knows nothing about.

"He's out of his depth when it comes to getting the economy going. It's just not something he understands," he said.

Out of his depth -- and running out of qualified economic advisers who know what creates more employers and produces jobs.


In politics there is something called "critical mass," when an issue becomes so big within the nation's electorate that it overwhelms the incumbent's prospects. That's what is happening to Obama now.

There are lots of closed factories like the one in Allentown that tell of a failed economic recovery. You'll be seeing Romney speaking in front of them on the evening news.

[Soul Crusher]

Zero Hedge ^ | 07/08/2011 | Tyler Durden



Every time we update the projection chart of how many jobs have to be created by the end of Obama's now improbable second term, the number goes up. First it was 245,500 in April, then 250,000 in June, now it is 254,000: it seems to increase by 5,000 each month. As a reminder this chart looks for the breakeven number that has be attained to restore (not surpass) the jobs that the US economy had back in December 2007 as the Depression started, when accounting for the natural increase of 90,000 people/month in the labor force. Needless to say, there is no way in hell the US economy can create a quarter million jobs per month from now for the next 65 months, as long as the president continues to pander to Wall Street's "wealth creation" via asset returns instead of directing capital into actual economically viable projects that focus on wealth creation through labor.









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240, Blacken, Straw - lets talk about porn.   

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Navy to Cut Jobs Amid Recession-Driven Sailor Surplus
Fox News ^ | July 08, 2011 | Justin Fishel
Posted on July 8, 2011 8:47:31 PM EDT by Doofer

With more sailors staying in the military amid a slumping economic recovery, the U.S. Navy is taking the unprecedented step of firing low-ranking petty officers to help rein in spending. The Navy plans to let go of 3,000 young sailors after economic uncertainty put the service in the unusual position of having a manpower surplus. The move comes as a new government report shows that the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent -- marking 29 straight months that number has been over 8 percent and a record streak since the Great Depression.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...

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Real Unemployment Rises to 16.2% in June -- 25.3 Million People
 CNSNews ^



Real Unemployment Rises to 16.2% in June -- 25.3 Million People Friday, July 08, 2011 By Matt Cover

(CNSNews.com) – The real unemployment rate rose to 16.2 percent in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday, marking a return to levels not seen since January 2011.

The “real” unemployment rate is technically a combination of three measures of unemployment: the unemployment rate, the number of people working part-time who want full-time work, and the number of people “marginally attached” to the workforce.

Those who have left the workforce but would still like to be employed are considered marginally attached.

This figure is considered a more complete measure of unemployment because it captures a broader spectrum of those affected by the weak economy. Merely counting those who apply for unemployment benefits as “unemployed” does not fully account for everyone who is out of work or underemployed.

This real unemployment rate – known as the U6 rate – has been climbing since February 2011 when it was at 15.9 percent. Real unemployment peaked in October of 2009 at 17.4 percent, before falling into the 16 percent range for much of 2010.

It now appears that the real unemployment rate is returning to its 2010 levels, trending upward after staying slightly below 16 percent from February to May.

The total number of people who were truly unemployed in June was 25.3 million -- the 14.1 million who were unemployed, the 2.7 million who were marginally attached to the workforce and the 8.6 million who were underemployed.

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Geithner says hard times to continue for many (Til your gone)
Yahoo news ^ | July10,2011 | AP
Posted on July 10, 2011 6:42:11 PM EDT by Hojczyk

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (GYT'-nur) says many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.

He says President Barack Obama rescued the United States from a second Great Depression and will keep working to strengthen the economy. But Geithner says will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.

Geithner tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that it's a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people "it's going to feel very hard, harder than anything they've experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come."

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...

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Rampant Unemployment = The Death Of The Middle Class - The Working Class Is Being Wiped Out
The Economic Collapse ^ | 07/09/2011 | Michael Snyder
Posted on July 10, 2011 9:25:18 PM EDT by SeekAndFind

Without an abundance of good jobs, the middle class in the United States is going to shrivel up and die. Right now, rampant unemployment is absolutely killing communities all over America. Hopelessness and poverty are exploding and many are now wondering if we are actually witnessing the slow death of the middle class. There simply are not nearly enough "good jobs" to go around anymore, and even many in the mainstream media are referring to this as a "long-term structural problem" with the economy. The only thing that most working class Americans have to offer in the marketplace is their labor. If nobody will hire them they do not have any other ways to provide for their families. Well, there is a problem. Today wealth has become incredibly centralized. The big corporations and the big banks dominate everything. Thanks to incredible advances in technology and thanks to the globalization of our economic system, the people with all the money don't have to hire as many ordinary Americans anymore. They can hire all the labor they want on the other side of the globe for a fraction of the cost. So the rich don't really have that much use for the working class in America anymore. The only thing of value that the working class had to offer has now been tremendously devalued. The wealthy don't have to pay a lot for physical labor anymore. Thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas and they aren't coming back. The big corporations are thriving while tens of millions of ordinary Americans are deeply suffering. Almost all of the wealth being produced by our economy is going to a very centralized group of people at the very top of the food chain. The rich are getting richer and the working class is being systematically wiped out.

So the fact that we are facing rampant unemployment that never seems to go away should not be a surprise to anyone. Today, the "official" unemployment rate went up to 9.2 percent even though a whopping 272,000 Americans "dropped out of the labor force" in June. The government unemployment figure that includes "discouraged workers" went up from 15.8% to 16.2%. The mainstream media is proclaiming that this was "a horrific report" because most economists were expecting much better news.

Well, guess what?

Things are going to get a whole lot worse.

More job cuts are coming. One recently released report found that the number of job cuts being planned by U.S. employers increased by 11.6% in June.

It is also being projected that state and local governments across the U.S. will slash nearly half a million more jobs by the end of next year.

Needless to say, things don't look good.

Most people that still have jobs are desperately trying to hold on to them.

Employers know that most workers are easily replaceable these days, so wages are not moving up even though the cost of living is.

We are right in the middle of the worst employment downturn since World War 2. Jay-Z recently summed up the situation this way....

"Numbers don't lie. Unemployment is pretty high."

Jay-Z certainly has a way with words, eh?

If something is not done about the rampant unemployment in this nation, the death of the middle class will accelerate.

Most Americans just assume that the United States will always have a large middle class, but there is no guarantee that is going to happen. In fact, there is a whole lot of evidence that the middle class in America is rapidly shrinking.

Take a few moments to read over the facts compiled below. Taken together, they provide compelling evidence that the working class is being systematically wiped out....

#1 Right now, the U.S. government says that 14.1 million Americans are unemployed.

#2 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million people to the population since then.

#3 The number of Americans that are "not in the labor force" is at an all-time high.

#4 The United States has never had an employment downturn this deep and this prolonged since World War 2 ended.

#5 There are officially 6.3 million Americans that have been unemployed for more than 6 months. That number has risen by more than 3.5 million in just the past two years.

#6 It now takes the average unemployed worker in America about 40 weeks to find a new job. Just check out this chart....



#7 There are now about 7.25 million fewer jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.

#8 Back in 2000, the employment to population ratio was over 64 percent. Today, it is sitting at just 58.2%.

#9 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.

#10 During this economic downturn, employee compensation in the United States has been the lowest that it has been relative to gross domestic product in over 50 years.

#11 The number of "low income jobs" in the U.S. has risen steadily over the past 30 years and they now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States.

#12 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.

#13 According to a report released in February from the National Employment Law Project, higher wage industries are accounting for 40 percent of the job losses in America but only 14 percent of the job growth. Lower wage industries are accounting for just 23 percent of the job losses but 49 percent of the job growth.

#14 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#15 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.

#16 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.

#17 Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.

#18 In 2010, South Korea exported 12 times as many automobiles, trucks and parts to us as we exported to them.

#19 The United States now spends more than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.

#20 Since China entered the WTO in 2001, the U.S. trade deficit with China has grown by an average of 18% per year.

#21 The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#22 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#23 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in "advanced technology products" of $16 billion with the rest of the world. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.

#24 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry was actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#25 Since 2001, over 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed.

#26 There were more manufacturing jobs in the United States in 1950 than there are today.

#27 Since the year 2000, we have lost approximately 10% of our middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs. Meanwhile, our population has gotten significantly larger.

#28 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.

#29 One recent survey found that 9 out of 10 U.S. workers do not expect their wages to keep up with soaring food prices and soaring gas prices over the next 12 months.

#30 Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

#31 One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.

#32 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States were living below the poverty line in 2010.

#33 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#34 As 2007 began, there were 26 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than 44 million Americans on food stamps, which is an all-time record.

#35 Today, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#36 59 percent of all Americans now receive money from the federal government in one form or another.

#37 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.

#38 In the United States today, the richest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

#39 According to Moody's Analytics, the wealthiest 5% of all households in the United States now account for approximately 37% of all consumer spending.

#40 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the United States is experiencing a long-term economic decline.

Every single day, more American families fall out of the middle class and into poverty. There are millions of American families out there tonight that are just barely hanging on by their fingernails.

More Americans than ever are constantly borrowing more money just to stay afloat. Even as rampant unemployment plagues this nation and even as wages remain stagnant, middle class Americans are increasing their use of credit.

A CNBC article noted the increase in consumer borrowing that we have seen recently....

The Federal Reserve says consumer borrowing rose $5.1 billion following a revised gain of $5.7 billion in April. Borrowing in the category that covers credit cards increased, as did borrowing in the category for auto and student loans.

It is very hard to live "the American Dream" without going into huge amounts of debt these days.

But for an increasing number of Americans, "the American Dream" is just a distant memory.

Tonight, there are large numbers of people living in the tunnels under the city of Las Vegas. As the wealthy live the high life in the casinos and hotels above them, an increasing number of desperate "tunnel people" are attempting to carve out an existence in the 200 mile long labyrinth of tunnels that stretches beneath Vegas. It is a nightmarish environment, but it is all those people have left.

Don't look down on them, because you never know who might be next.

If you lost your current job, how long would you be able to survive?

Unfortunately, as bad as things are now, the reality is that this is just the beginning.

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Do what you can to make sure that you and your family are not totally wiped out by the next wave of the economic collapse.

[Soul Crusher]

Skip to comments.

Economy faces a jolt as benefit checks run out (Hey Obama, how's that "stimulus" working out?)
MSNBC ^ | 7/11/2011 | MOTOKO RICH/NY Times
Posted on July 11, 2011 7:07:55 AM EDT by tobyhill

An extraordinary amount of personal income is coming directly from the government.

Close to $2 of every $10 that went into Americans’ wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. In states hit hard by the downturn, like Arizona, Florida, Michigan and Ohio, residents derived even more of their income from the government.

By the end of this year, however, many of those dollars are going to disappear, with the expiration of extended benefits intended to help people cope with the lingering effects of the recession. Moody’s Analytics estimates $37 billion will be drained from the nation’s pocketbooks this year.

In terms of economic impact, that is slightly less than the spending cuts Congress enacted to keep the government financed through September, averting a shutdown.

Unless hiring picks up sharply to compensate, economists fear that the lost income will further crimp consumer spending and act as a drag on a recovery that is still quite fragile. Among the other supports that are slipping away are federal aid to the states, the Federal Reserve’s program to pump money into the economy and the payroll tax cut, scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

“If we don’t get more job growth and gains in wages and salaries, then consumers just aren’t going to have the firepower to spend, and the economy is going to weaken,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, a macroeconomic consulting firm.

Job growth has remained elusive. There are 4.6 unemployed workers for every opening, according to the Labor Department, and Friday’s unemployment report showed that employers added an anemic 18,000 jobs in June.

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Little Hiring Seen by Small Business. The Nation's Jobs Engine Stalls.
Wall Street Journal ^ | 07/11/2011 | Siobhan Hughes



WASHINGTON—The U.S. labor market could stay sluggish for a while, with small-business executives reluctant to hire amid the murky economic outlook.

Almost two-thirds—64%—of small-business executives surveyed said they weren't expecting to add to their payrolls in the next year and another 12% planned to cut jobs, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report to be released Monday. Just 19% said they would expand their work forces.

This comes after a Labor Department report Friday showed employers added few jobs in June, and unemployment rose to 9.2%. The bleak figures joined other data showing the recovery losing momentum in recent months, which has caused many analysts and policy makers to lower their forecasts for economic growth in the second half of the year.

The Small Business Administration says small businesses, defined as companies with fewer than 500 workers, employ about half of the workers in the private sector. In the Chamber's survey of 1,409 executives, conducted by Harris Interactive, small businesses were defined as firms with revenue of $25 million or less.

More than half of the small-business executives in the June 27-30 survey cited economic uncertainty as the main reason for holding back on hiring. About a third blamed lack of sales, while just 7% pointed to problems getting credit.

"I think it's safer to stay on hold and not hire workers," said Harold Jackson, chief executive of Buffalo Supply, a Lafayette, Colo., distributor of high-tech medical equipment used in operating rooms

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


________________________ ________________________ _____

No kidding.    Like i said, until obama is ousted, things will only get worse and worse.  He is a black plague over the economy.     

[Soul Crusher]

The Food-Stamp Crime Wave
WSJ ^



The number of food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in 2007. Not surprisingly, fraud and abuse are rampant..Millionaires are now legally entitled to collect food stamps as long as they have little or no monthly income. Thirty-five states have abolished asset tests for most food-stamp recipients. These and similar "paperwork reduction" reforms advocated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are turning the food-stamp program into a magnet for abuses and absurdities.


(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Source: Bloomberg

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) may begin one of its largest workforce reductions in August by eliminating about 5,000 jobs, Gleacher & Co. said in a research report today.

Cisco Chief Executive Officer John Chambers said he planned to cut more jobs and drop less-profitable businesses after closing the Flip video-camera unit and firing 550 workers in May. The company will give an update “on the cost reductions, including layoffs, on our next earnings call,” Karen Tillman, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement today.

--CLIP
Cisco may eliminate positions in the consumer-product unit, which makes Linksys home-networking equipment, Marshall said. Some investors have said the company should exit consumer products entirely to focus on traditional enterprise offerings such as routers and switches. Cisco’s equipment is used by corporate networks and telephone and Internet service providers to direct Web traffic.

The company is also reorganizing management to streamline its business and focus on areas of growth, Cisco said in May. To speed decision making, the company organized field operations into three geographic regions and reformed a council-style management structure.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-11/cisco-may-cut-...

[Soul Crusher]

NEED TO KNOW: ECONOMY
The Glum and the Restless
Nearly one in five recent grads is out of work. Could that hurt Obama’s reelection bid?
By Jim Tankersley


http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/recent-grads-economic-struggles-could-hurt-obama-20110707





Boehner's Backpedal Moves D.C. Closer to the Brink

Here’s a fact that should give economists—and maybe President Obama’s political team—heartburn: Two years after the Great Recession officially ended, job prospects for young Americans remain historically grim. More than 17 percent of 16-to-24-year-olds who are looking for work can’t find a job, a rate that is close to a 30-year high. The employment-to-population ratio for that demographic—the percentage of young people who are working—has plunged to 45 percent. That’s the lowest level since the Labor Department began tracking the data in 1948. Taken together, the numbers suggest that the U.S. job market is struggling mightily to bring its next generation of workers into the fold.

This is a dangerous proposition, economically (for the United States as a whole) and politically (for the president).

As The Atlantic’s Don Peck wrote last year, citing a litany of research from Yale University’s Lisa Kahn, college graduates who enter the labor force during a recession make significantly less money—in their first year and over the course of their careers—than grads who walk into an economic boom. Workers stuck in the unemployment line for an extended period risk watching their skills atrophy and face increasing difficulty finding new jobs. That’s particularly true, though, for people waiting and waiting and waiting to land their first job. The longer a whole batch of fledgling workers sits waiting to be hired, the more the economy risks losing young employees with valuable, high-end skills at a time when global competition is increasingly fierce.

Snowballing youth unemployment feeds social unrest. Exhibit A is the Middle East. Exhibit B is Europe’s periphery; in such countries as Spain, Greece, and Croatia, more than one in three young people is unemployed, a problem that The Economist magazine warned this week is “as great a challenge for these governments as protecting their tottering banks and slashing their budget deficits.”


Not surprisingly, polls suggest that America’s young people have grown more pessimistic about the economy and their own future fortunes. Generation Opportunity, a nonpartisan, nonprofit youth-outreach group headed by former Bush administration official Paul Conway, compiled polling data this summer showing decayed economic confidence among the so-called millennials: More than half say that the United States is seriously on the wrong track, and a similar number say they are not optimistic about the nation’s economic future. More than half also assert that they’re not confident that the country will be the global economic leader in 10 years. More than three-quarters say that, given the current state of the economy, they have delayed or will delay buying a home, paying down student debt, obtaining more education, saving for retirement, changing jobs or cities, getting married, or making some other major life decision.

Young voters stampeded to the polls for candidate Obama in 2008, topping their 2004 turnout by more than 3 million and breaking, 2-to-1, in his favor. A drop in youth participation, or a shift toward a GOP candidate, could complicate Obama’s reelection dramatically.

Generation Opportunity’s pollster, Kellyanne Conway, who has worked for several national GOP politicians in the past, says that young voters will be tougher on Obama in 2012 than they were in 2008. “The big question for young people [in 2008] was, ‘How am I going to help you make history?’ ” says Conway, who is not related to the group’s president. “The big question from young people today is, ‘How are you going to help me find a good-paying job?’ ” This time, she adds, “they’re looking for tangibles.”

Conway’s polling suggests that young voters could sympathize with a Republican message on cutting federal spending and the budget deficit. Three-quarters of millennials want to see federal spending reduced, she says, and three in five want to reduce the deficit through spending cuts rather than tax increases. Two-thirds say that Social Security dollars are safer “under your pillow” than with the government. Paul Conway, the group’s president, says that’s “fair warning” to Obama about how young voters view his policies.

Other polls suggest more-favorable attitudes toward the president. In a late-June Gallup survey, 56 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 approved of Obama’s performance, the highest approval rating of any age bracket. Team Obama sounds unconcerned about losing young voters. Campaign officials note that thousands more of them applied to be summer campaign organizers this year than did in 2008. “In addition to what he has already accomplished on issues of importance to them—like establishing a tax credit to provide tuition relief to students and extending health insurance coverage to young adults up to the age of 26—young Americans have seen the president bring the economy back from the brink of depression and secure investments in education, research and development, and clean energy that are creating jobs today that will remain globally competitive in the future,” campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said in an e-mail.

Obama and Republicans alike should pay particular attention to youth optimism about the direction of the economy. In 2008, exit polls showed that 54 percent of young voters believed that the economy would improve over the next year, compared with 47 percent of the rest of the electorate. Obama probably needs millennials to be similarly upbeat in 2012. In other words, it’s all about confidence—like so much else in the economy these days.

Want the news first every morning? Sign up for National Journal's Need-to-Know Memo. Short items to prepare you for the day.

This article appeared in the Saturday, July 9, 2011 edition of National Journal.

[Soul Crusher]

Analyst: Even Dollar Stores Struggling In ‘Obama Depression’
July 11, 2011 9:19 AM
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/07/11/analyst-even-dollar-stores-struggling-in-obama-depression




2011 Celebrity DeathsLOS ANGELES (CBS) —  More stores across the U.S. that offer deeply-discounted products are seeing their sales decline after years of growth amid America’s “Great Recession” — and one analyst said on Monday it’s another sign of even deeper downturn.

While the demand at stores like the 99-Cent Store or Dollar Tree is still relatively high, the biggest chains in the nation have fallen short of Wall Street’s expectations for several months, a trend that may prove even more ominous for the economy at large.

“I think what’s going on in those stores is that we are in a depression for 80 percent of Americans,” top retail analyst Howard Davidowitz told KNX 1070.




America’s three largest discount chains — Dollar General Corp., Family Dollar Stores Inc. and Dollar Tree Inc. —  all recently missed their quarterly earnings targets.

Davidowitz pointed to the weakness of the dollar and a gloomy consumer outlook as some of the factors behind the stores’ slump.

“In those stores, somebody comes in with $12 to do all their shopping,” said Davidowitz. “The person who used to come in with $12 now comes in with $8.”

“In other words, the economy is continuing to be worse, the Obama depression continues to explode,” he added.

Analysts say rising food and transportation prices are likely eating into the profit margins of discount stores, which risk driving away price-sensitive customers with any potential price hikes.

Core customers at most U.S. discount chains typically have a household income of $40,000 or less.

[Soul Crusher]

Cisco Could Eliminate as Many as 10,000 Jobs: Report [Obama Wants More Taxes from Cisco?]
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/07/11/business/business-us-cisco-jobs.html?_r=1&hp ^ | July 10, 2011
Posted on July 11, 2011 11:59:25 PM EDT by Steelfish

Cisco Could Eliminate as Many as 10,000 Jobs: Report By REUTERS July 11, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Networking equipment company Cisco Systems Inc could eliminate as many as 10,000 jobs, or about 14 percent of its workforce, to revive profit growth, Bloomberg said, citing two people familiar with the matter.

As many as 7,000 jobs would be eliminated by the end of August, the people told the agency. Cisco is also providing early-retirement packages to about 3,000 workers who took buyouts, according to Bloomberg.

Early on Monday, Reuters reported that Cisco may slash about 5,000 jobs to meet Chief Executive John Chambers' goal of slashing costs by $1 billion. Reuters had cited Gleacher & Co analyst Brian Marshall.

A Cisco spokeswoman told Reuters on Monday that the company will provide details on cost reductions, including layoffs, during its earnings call on August 11.

Cisco was not immediately available to comment on the Bloomberg report late on Monday.

Cisco shares closed down about 2 percent at $15.43, in a market that was broadly lower due to concerns about the U.S. budget talks and the euro-zone debt crisis.

REVENUE GROWTH UNDER PRESSURE?

Chambers, who is set to speak at a company event in Las Vegas on Tuesday, is working to turn around the Silicon Valley bellwether. He has said the company's next fiscal year starting in August would not live up to the company's previous growth expectations.

Marshall's estimate for job cuts at Cisco is higher than the previous forecasts of up to 4,000 jobs that are in danger of being eliminated.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

15 Examples That Show Many Americans Have Become So Desperate That They Will Do Just About Anything For Money

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/15-examples-that-show-many-americans-have-become-so-desperate-that-they-will-do-just-about-anything-for-money



More Americans than ever are desperate for money and many of them will do just about anything to get it.  The crumbling U.S. economy has pushed millions of ordinary Americans to the brink of utter desperation.  When it comes time to choose between being able to survive or breaking the law, many people are choosing to break the law.  These days it seems like Americans will do just about anything for money.  All over the country, there are areas where just about anything that is not bolted down is being stolen.  A lot of people have resorted to making money however they can - selling drugs, selling their bodies, shoplifting, invading homes, taking bribes, running credit card scams and even stealing from their own family members.  You will have a hard time believing some of the things that you are about to read below.  When people have their backs pushed up against the wall, often they find that they are willing to do things that they never imagined that they would do.  Things are getting crazy out there on the streets of America, and as the economy continues to decline things are going to get a lot crazier.

The following are 15 examples that show many Americans have become so desperate that they will do just about anything for money....

#1 In Utah, one unemployed 28 year old man is offering to be "human prey" for hunters for the bargain price of $10,000.  For an additional $2,000, he will let people hunt him down while he is running around naked.

#2 The Huffington Post is reporting that there has been an epidemic of air conditioning thefts all over the United States....

Across the country, in states like Illinois, Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Florida, there have been reports of thieves stealing unsecured air conditioning units weighing as much as 125 pounds.

#3 In Corpus Christi, Texas thieves have actually been breaking into funeral homes in order to steal the embalming fluid.

#4 Even police officers are committing desperate acts these days.  Just check out what one police officer in Chicago is charged with doing....

A Chicago Police officer stole $50,000 from his ailing elderly father to pay off his bills and gambling debts and unsuccessfully attempted to swipe his dad’s retirement savings by impersonating him
#5 Nothing is off limits to thieves these days.  Criminals recently broke into a southwest Atlanta beauty supply store and took off with $30,000 in hair extensions.

#6 In another area of Atlanta, thieves have been breaking down walls and busting bathroom fixtures with sledgehammers in order to get their hands on copper, brass and steel....

Kids in two Atlanta communities won’t have their neighborhood pools to help beat the summer heat, at least for now. Thieves used what is believed to be sledge hammers to bust walls and break fixtures in bathrooms at Adams and South Bend parks to steal copper, brass and steel.
#7 One grandmother in Florida has been accused of trying to sell her newborn grandson for $75,000.

#8 In Antioch, California a total of approximately 300 power poles were recently knocked down by thieves and stripped of their copper wiring.

#9 In Minnesota recently, a mob of teen girls brutally pummeled a mother and her two daughters until they were black and blue.  Apparently the mob of teen girls was enraged over a pair of missing sunglasses.

#10 In Asheville, North Carolina thieves recently took off with 4 metal tables and 16 metal chairs that were sitting outside a pizzeria.

#11 In Florida, thieves have actually been stealing storm drain covers.

#12 In Oregon, thieves recently broke into a Salvation Army community center and stole 3 large air conditioning units.  Now all the people that come to that facility for help and for community programs this summer will be absolutely sweltering.

#13 In the Cleveland area, two young boys that had set up a lemonade stand were robbed in broad daylight.  The crooks got away with approximately 12 dollars.

#14 In Oklahoma, thieves recently broke into a church and stole "arts and crafts supplies meant to help teach bible stories to children".

#15 A 59 year old man from North Carolina named Richard James Verone was so desperate for money that he actually robbed a bank and got caught on purpose so that he could be put in prison and be given free health care.

One day Verone walked into an RBC Bank in North Carolina, handed a clerk a note demanding exactly one dollar and sat down and waited for the police to arrive and arrest him.

Verone has a growth on his chest and two ruptured disks but he does not have any health insurance.  He is hoping that in prison he will get the medical treatment that he needs.

As society continues to unravel, prison is going to look like an appealing option for more and more people.

At least in prison you get fed, you have a roof over your head and they will take care of your medical needs.

For a whole lot of Americans, that would be a major step up.

Have you noticed that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear?

America is becoming a cold, cruel place and lawlessness is everywhere.

For many more signs that our society is starting to crumble, please see these two articles....

*"18 Signs The Collapse Of Society Is Accelerating"

*"12 More Signs That Society Is Collapsing"

For ages, Americans have looked down on the crime and the depravity that goes on in other areas of the world.

Well, now America has all of the crime and depravity it can handle and it is going to get a lot worse as millions of formerly middle class Americans descend into poverty.

A regular commenter on my website who identifies himself as "El Pollo de Oro" recently described the kind of chaos that he believes is coming to the streets of America....

I live in Philadelphia, a city that used to have a ton of blue-collar manufacturing jobs as well as a great deal of white-collar employment, but the blue-collar manufacturing jobs have disappeared–and on the white-collar side, a college degree isn’t necessarily the ticket to prosperity it once was. Philly has its share of nasty, dangerous ghetto areas as well as ritzy, upscale areas like Rittenhouse Square. But then, there are parts of Mexico City that look like Beverly Hills except that the signs are en espańol. A minority of Chilangos are filthy rich, which is what you expect in a Third World country: an uber-rich minority and a poor majority. And when The Banana Republic of America (formerly the USA) signed on for globalism and ignored Ross Perot’s warning, it opted to become a Third World country—which means that you can kiss the American middle class goodbye.

But there will be some growth industries in The Banana Republic of America: kidnapping, drug smuggling, murder for hire, carjacking, armed robbery. And if you want a taste of what life will be like in American cities in the future, just spend a few weeks in Guatemala City, Johannesburg or Caracas—all of which have the type of horrible crime rates that BRA cities can look forward to in the future. Desperate people do desperate things, and hardcore desperation will be in the norm in the BRA. It won’t be fun (unless, of course, being robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight is one’s idea of a good time).

Welcome to life in a rotting, decaying Third World hellhole. Welcome to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Welcome to life in The Banana Republic of America, formerly the USA.
America is changing.  The safe, secure environment that we all used to take for granted is dying.  The number of truly desperate people rises by the day, and many of those desperate people are willing to do just about anything for money.

The United States used to have a thriving middle class, but our economic system has been so manipulated over the decades that now almost all of the economic rewards go to the very top of the food chain.

25 years ago, the wealthiest 12 percent of all Americans controlled 33 percent of all the wealth.  Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans control 40 percent of all the wealth.

In the United States today, we are actually witnessing the death of the middle class.  Our jobs have been shipped overseas, the banks have enslaved us to debt, the government keeps finding more ways to tax us and the Federal Reserve keeps debasing our currency.

Everywhere you go, despair is in the air.  According to a brand new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 63 percent of Americans believe that the nation is on the wrong track.

Fortunately, many Americans are responding to these signs of trouble by preparing.

One local Oklahoma newspaper recently did an article that profiled a few of the growing number of Americans that are preparing for hard times....

Rod and Lauretta Smith estimate they could survive a year without going to the grocery store.

A large garden on their 5-acre property in south Tulsa produces hundreds of quarts of canned and frozen beans, tomatoes and other vegetables. Chickens provide eggs.

The Smiths are among a small but growing number of people stocking up on food to become more self-reliant in a time marked by natural disasters and economic uncertainty.
The truth is that all of us should try to become less dependent on the system.  The Democrats, the Republicans, the Federal Reserve and the big corporations are not there to help you.  They are not going to come riding to the rescue if you lose your job and your home.

We all need to do what we can to become more independent and to prepare ourselves and our families for the incredibly difficult economic times that are inevitably coming.  Those that have faith that their jobs will always be there or that the government will always take care of them will be deeply disappointed.

The system is dying and society is coming apart.

The only rational thing to do is to prepare for what is coming.

[dario73]

Cisco Could Eliminate as Many as 10,000 Jobs: Report [Obama Wants More Taxes from Cisco?]
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/07/11/business/business-us-cisco-jobs.html?_r=1&hp ^ | July 10, 2011
Posted on July 11, 2011 11:59:25 PM EDT by Steelfish

Cisco Could Eliminate as Many as 10,000 Jobs: Report By REUTERS July 11, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Networking equipment company Cisco Systems Inc could eliminate as many as 10,000 jobs, or about 14 percent of its workforce, to revive profit growth, Bloomberg said, citing two people familiar with the matter.

As many as 7,000 jobs would be eliminated by the end of August, the people told the agency. Cisco is also providing early-retirement packages to about 3,000 workers who took buyouts, according to Bloomberg.

Early on Monday, Reuters reported that Cisco may slash about 5,000 jobs to meet Chief Executive John Chambers' goal of slashing costs by $1 billion. Reuters had cited Gleacher & Co analyst Brian Marshall.

A Cisco spokeswoman told Reuters on Monday that the company will provide details on cost reductions, including layoffs, during its earnings call on August 11.

Cisco was not immediately available to comment on the Bloomberg report late on Monday.

Cisco shares closed down about 2 percent at $15.43, in a market that was broadly lower due to concerns about the U.S. budget talks and the euro-zone debt crisis.

REVENUE GROWTH UNDER PRESSURE?

Chambers, who is set to speak at a company event in Las Vegas on Tuesday, is working to turn around the Silicon Valley bellwether. He has said the company's next fiscal year starting in August would not live up to the company's previous growth expectations.

Marshall's estimate for job cuts at Cisco is higher than the previous forecasts of up to 4,000 jobs that are in danger of being eliminated.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

Scary. This is scary. And it's happening.

[Soul Crusher]

Doesnt matter.   Bachmann made a gaffe. 

[Soul Crusher]

Manufacturing weakens in New York in July
Marketwatch ^ | 7.15.11 | Greg Robb


WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Manufacturers in the New York region said business activity had weakened slightly in early July, according to a report released Friday by the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

The Empire State index remained below zero for the second straight month, rising only to negative 3.8 in July from negative 7.8 in June.

The index has fallen dramatically the past three months after hitting a 12-month high of 21.7 in April.

Readings below zero indicate more firms said business was worsening than said it was improving.


(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

US Consumer Sentiment Falls To Lowest Level in Two Years
Published: Friday, 15 Jul 2011 | 10:07 AM ET Text Size By: Reuters
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U.S. consumer sentiment deteriorated in early July to the lowest level since March 2009 on increasing pessimism over falling income and rising unemployment, a survey released Friday showed.

 

Confidence in government economic policies also curdled, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey showed.

U.S. lawmakers are wrangling over a budget deal that would allow the government to raise the debt ceiling—needed so the United States can fund its obligations next month.

The preliminary reading for the consumer sentiment index dropped to 63.8 in July from 71.5 the month before, falling far short of expectations of an increase to 72.5, according to a Reuters poll of economists.

The survey's barometer of current economic conditions fell to 76.3, the lowest since November 2009, from 82.0. The gauge of consumer expectations was also at its lowest since March 2009, tumbling to 55.8 from 64.8.

"Whenever the Expectations Index has been this low in the past, the economy has been in recession," survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement. "Nonetheless, one month's data is insufficient to signal a renewed downturn, particularly if a last-minute agreement on the debt ceiling results in a partial restoration of confidence."

Overall, the data suggests real consumer spending in the second half of the year may be barely higher than the first half, the survey said.

The proportion of consumers that rated government economic policies as poor rose to 52 percent in early July, up from 40 percent in June.

The inflation outlook improved with the survey's one-year inflation expectation easing to 3.4 percent from 3.8. The five-to-10-year inflation outlook was at 2.8 percent from 3.0 percent.

The report follows a poll released earlier this week that Americans are deeply pessimistic about the future.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday showed the number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track rose to 63 percent this month, up from 60 percent in June, with stubbornly high unemployment and prolonged gridlock in Washington dashing hopes of a swift economic recovery.

But voters do not appear to be holding President Barack Obama responsible for the problems so far. Obama's approval rating held relatively steady at 49 percent, down 1 percentage point from June. His approval rating among independents—a group Obama needs to win re-election—fell to 39 percent from 44 percent.

Obama's standing could deteriorate quickly if the economy does not begin to generate jobs and if Washington cannot show it is capable of solving problems, Ipsos pollster Julie Clark said.

"If those things don't happen, Obama will be in for a real challenge in getting re-elected next year," Clark said.

Obama and Republicans have hit an impasse in negotiations to raise America's borrowing limit before the government runs out of money to pay all of its bills on Aug. 2. That could force the government to try to prioritize its payments.

Asked what bills the government should stop paying if the debt limit is not raised, 36 percent listed international creditors like banks and 12 percent listed government departments like agriculture and education.

The sputtering economy and high unemployment are certain to dominate the race for the White House in 2012, and the Republican candidates for the nomination to challenge Obama repeatedly have criticized his economic leadership.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43768567