While some people may not get in regards to unemployment numbers how bad it is out there. We have other indicators that are in my opinion better indicators. And to me unemployment numbers are not a good statiscal visual for the average person (at least not in the beginning,)  jobs have been going away since 2007 and some people have just stopped looking, so how do we see how bad it truly is?
 A good indicator is job creation (or payroll employment.) Since 2007 the rate of job creation has not kept up with the US population that needs jobs.
Last year while people were telling you to buy a car, buy a condo, spend money the people at the top knew it was bad, but yet in our local paper the LA Times, not too much of a comment on this until now and they wonder why no one reads them. Is that Sam Zell’s fault too?
In July 2008 our buddy Ben Bernanke (month seven of consecutive hemorrhaging of jobs) was telling us everything was going to be ok and in fact it would be getting BETTER and why would he lie?
Maybe twittering and getting a better web presence isn’t that important, but hey, what do I know. I’m just a blogger.
I am thinking info like this not be widely circulated to the general public is why we don’t really give shit about that LA Times anymore. I don’t need my living room redone and I don’t care about the newest bar on whatever side of town you’re calling the hip section these days, that’s what LA Metblogs is for. But feel free to go ahead and waste my fucking time making sure you label every neighborhood with its proper title and coming up with clever labels like the nouveaux poor (you changed the title, because it was in poor taste, but I remember the original one) because you know in the bigger scheme of things that’s some really important shit.
Job losses per month Jan 2008-Jan 2009 (Jan and Dec are preliminary, I expect it to be close or worse.)
2008
Jan -72,000 jobs lost
Feb -144,000 jobs lost
March 122 ,000 jobs lost
April-160,000 jobs lost
May-137 ,000 jobs lost
June-161 ,000 jobs lost
July-128 ,000 jobs lost
August-175,000 jobs lost
September-321,000 Â jobs lost
October-380,000 jobs lost
November-597,000 jobs lost
Dec-577,000 jobs lost preliminary
2009
Jan -598,000 jobs lost preliminary
For reference America needs 100,000 jobs to be created per month to absorb everyone that comes into the labor market, so even 60,000 jobs created would be bad, so losing jobs is pretty horrid. Losing jobs for twelve months straight is pretty horrific.
Browne Molyneux
Info gotten from the BLS
Thanks for doing the homework Browne!
I look forward to reading your posts on this subject cause no one else is breaking it down the way you are.
I was listening to some talking heads today and they were trying to be hopeful about the economy turning around and in particular the housing market. The housing market does not need to go back to where it was. It was completely out of control. Houses are still too expensive.
These economists were saying that we need new home construction (!) because it leads to new jobs. That’s ridiculous when they are a ton of vacant homes all over the place. And what about the so called green movement? Do we really need to be using more and more natural resources to build these brand new homes in sensitive ecological areas so that the fake middle class can have 5 bedrooms filled with useless crap?
Sorry for going on about this but I hate when people come up with “solutions” that only serve to prolong that dying gasps of late capitalism.
One of my biggest pet peeves with the greeny bastard movment is the LEED certification. I would like green certification to include human costs, you know how many poor and working class people did you throw out to build that greeny bastard condo. How many slimy schemes did you pull to get your capital? What kind of wage and benefits will you be paying the employees that clean the toilet and clean the windows of your greeny bastard building? How much human suffering have you caused? To me that should all be factored in with greeny bastard products.
Exploitation is not green. Capitalism is not green.
Who the hell needs five bedroom? The economy turning around is not happening this year, but of course these are from the same people who refused to say we were in a recession until December and didn’t say it with feeling until January and their is still this little, well it depends on how you look at it bullshit. People need to stop lying and acting like its all ok. I’m not trying to be negative, but it’s real obvious to me that things are pretty fucked up and they have been fucked up for a while.
Browne, good post and analysis on La Crisis. You and Chimatli IMO, are absolutely correct when you say that the Capitalist system is melting down. The Capitalist system of economics has a history of bubbles and bursts but this time it was a behemoth of a damn bubble that didn’t burst so much as implode.
The very rich won’t be affected as much as working people, they will still be yachting in Newport and Portofino this summer, they will still be skiing at Aspen and Gstaad this winter, and they will still be visiting their offshore accounts in the Caymans and Dubai when they need more chump change to support their “lifestyles”. They just won’t be as conspicuous as in the past, at least for a while, it’s not good to be ridiculed.
For the rest of us I see some rough times but yet some interesting times. As long as we have a roof over our heads and food on the table we’ll make it. My Grandmother and Bisabuela used to tell me that even as widow’s with children during the great depression they made it OK. They used to tell me “Jito, we were always poor and struggling so when the depression hit it wasn’t any different for us, we still had chickens even in Lincoln Hts., we still grew chile, tomatoes, corn and calabaza in the yard, when things got real tough we just put more water in the beans.
We as a people must help each other out as much as possible, cause what goes around comes around, and like my grandmother used to tell me “cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you twofold”, and in her case it was always true.
We are going to have to develop a new and improved system of economics and it will probably be similar to the Democratic Socialism that most European and civilized countries use. That is if we get off that easy.
But good riddance to monopoly Capitalism, the only way it ever succeeded was by exploitation and couldn’t exist without Imperialism and Colonialism.
Instead of spending lots of lana on stepping out, spend more time on the front porch or out in the street with your neighbors.
And just use some more water in the beans.
“But good riddance to monopoly Capitalism, the only way it ever succeeded was by exploitation and couldn’t exist without Imperialism and Colonialism.”
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq. Male, Writes From The Sunshine Coast : Queensland : Australia.
“Ah Colonialism. . . Being Intolerant and Judgmental, Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip, Playing the Game (and with a Straight Bat), Setting High Standards, Having Fine Discriminating Tastes, Knowing One’s Place, Giving Foreign Johnnies Some Stick, Looking Down One’s Nose at the Hoi polloi, Deferring to One’s Betters, Noblesse Oblige, Declaiming “O Tempora! O Mores!”, Bemoaning the Decline of The West, Fearing God and Honoring the King, Defending the British Empire, Jingoism, No Popery, Muscular Christianity, The Permanent Things, Condescending to the Fair Sex, Fighting the Red Menace!”
Drinking With Tony