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Friday, January 9, 2009

Economy More Bad Luck

Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 9:58 AM

Not since that last time a Bush left office has America had such bad luck. Unemployment, December numbers show, has hit a 16-year high:

With the recession in full swing, the nation’s employers shed 524,000 jobs in December, the government reported Friday, and a rapidly deteriorating economy promised more significant losses in the months ahead. December’s job losses brought the total for 2008 to 2.6 million, spanning a recession that started 12 months ago. [...]

“This is unprecedented,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com. “It’s coast to coast. It’s everywhere. There’s really no refuge in this job market. There’s no safe place.”

Any moment now, conservative pundits will spin this as the result of unforeseeable circumstances—a rogue finance industry and perilous times. Or, like Fox News’s Dick Morris, they might even blame the recession on Barack Obama.

Comments (7) RSS

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Everyone knows it's teh gays! They're all out pub crawling and getting married when they should be fixing the economy.

Posted by boxofbirds on January 9, 2009 at 10:06 AM

I'm getting a 4.5% raise this year. I think the federal gov't is the safe place to work that no one has mentioned yet.

Posted by fed in indy on January 9, 2009 at 10:13 AM

I work for Boeing and we just got word that 4500 layoffs are coming with 60 day notices starting Feb 20th.

Posted by J on January 9, 2009 at 10:23 AM

I read a week or two ago in the newspaper that The Mustang Ranch in Nevada had to lay off 30% of their girls due to business being so bad. Now that's when you KNOW the economy's in the crapper.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty on January 9, 2009 at 10:39 AM

@2 - the FBI is looking for a few new recruits.

Torturers need not apply.

Posted by Will in Seattle on January 9, 2009 at 10:55 AM

Low wage workers=good for China Walmart.
Unemployment=good for the Military Industrial Complex.(Mix with an enemy and you have a recipe for many more wars to come.)
There's a bunch of people in the world that will put a silver lining to all this depressing news, I know there is. There always is.

Posted by pollyJanus on January 9, 2009 at 12:41 PM

@ 4,

Too broke to fuck? Say it ain't so...

Posted by Original Andrew on January 9, 2009 at 1:58 PM