Bloomberg.com: Economy Peachy.
The U.S. lost more jobs in 2008 than in any year since 1945 as employers fired another 524,000 people in December, indicating a free-fall in the economy just days before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.
“Consumers are now going to get more and more scared at the prospect of losing their job,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. Obama’s proposed fiscal stimulus “needs to be big, needs to be bold, needs to be swift. If they can do something quickly we can limit the hemorrhage by mid-year.”
The Labor Department reported that the nation lost 2.589 million jobs in 2008, just shy of the 2.75 million decline at the end of World War II. The unemployment rate climbed more than economists forecast, to 7.2 percent in December, the highest level in almost 16 years.
When will they tax Out sourced CORPS as IF’ they had USA employees.
When will corps learn they OUT SOURCING the CEO and BOARD of directors could save THOUSANDS of jobs..
Many companies are cutting jobs in anticipation of Obama’s oppressive tax plan. On the bright side his promise to create jobs will introduce many to military service.
It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.
#2 contempt wrote “Many companies are cutting jobs in anticipation of Obama’s oppressive tax plan.”
Congratulations, contempt! I see you finally got the papers in the mail, and your divorce from reality is now final.
@#3: I do not know many small business owners, but 3 out of 4 I know started this year by letting go their complete legal workforce in anticipation of Obama’s non-small-business friendly “regulations” (most feared one: indirect taxation by requiring health coverage). All of them are entering shady side of hiring undocumented aliens instead… Present reality in NY.
#3 Gary
Who exactly do you think will be expected to pay for the promised 1 trillion dollar economic spending plan Obama promises.
Businesses are reacting by retreating into survival mode. Had Obama promised across the board tax cuts we would not be experiencing so many job cuts.
#2 – ‘tempt
Hey, buddy! How ya doin’? Good to see you’re putting on a brave face, and continuing to post after that mortification you suffered when you got caught telling tall tales about the Minnesota senate election. I cringed in shame for you! That must have been so embarrassing!!
>>Many companies are cutting jobs in
>>anticipation of Obama’s oppressive tax plan.
Got some data to back that up? I just know you do, otherwise you’d be making up falsehoods just to support your argument, and that would be immoral and unethical.
So. Bring it on! Accomplish that mission! Do a heckuva job!! Which companies are cutting jobs in anticipation of Obama’s oppressive tax plan?
#4 dusanmal, are you really alleging that these layoffs are completely a pre-emptive move in reaction to possible future regulations? And why do these employers feel the need to lay people off now, instead of waiting for reality to materialize? On the surface, it seems completely idiotic, but maybe there’s something that super-smart business owners understand about the need to lay off people today in anticipation of the future. Please enlighten us if you can.
Otherwise, it simply looks like a reaction to what has already taken place, with no signs yet of any reversal in the downward trend.
#4 – D-Mal
Wow! You must know some ballsy business owners! Letting go every single American citizen or valid visa holder, and filling the ranks completely with illegal aliens?
Man. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. The government doesn’t have much of a sense of humor about that shit.
#6 Mister Mustard
Still playing the fool… oh sorry you’re not playing.
If you require any data you are free to look it up yourself. It’s clear that any information must come from someone like Al Gore before you believe it.
#7 – GTDI
I think D-Mal is just pulling our leg. Unless the “businesses” he refers to are Ma baking the cookies and Pa making the deliveries, I’m not buying it.
Imagine 3 or 4 businesses with a hundred or so employees each, that let all 400 go on January 1, and continued business as usual with a johnny-come-lately little army of illegal Mexicans and Asian refugees.
What do you think the probability is that at least ONE disgruntled ex-employee would drop the dime on the boss? I’d say it’s so close to 100% as to be effectively a done deal.
#9 – ‘tempt
Oh ‘tempt! This is so tragicomic! You’re a latter-day Pagliacci, hiding your tears behind the smile of a clown!
And such fortitude it must take, such chutzpah, to be revealed as a scam, a charlatan, a fraud, a fake, a phony, a prevaricator, a liar in the Franken thread, and then come right back and do it again here! Oh, the audacity of hope! You think that someone will believe you. And when challenged, you retort “you are free to look it up yourself”. Titter titter titter! At least you learned enough from your last fanny-whacking not to give actual figures this time.
Heart-rending.
#5 contempt wrote “Businesses are reacting by retreating into survival mode. Had Obama promised across the board tax cuts we would not be experiencing so many job cuts.”
The “survival mode” you’re seeing businesses go into is a result of the receipts that came in during the last few months and the resulting trendline. When an employer struggles to make payroll, it’s not because of a tax plan or regulations that haven’t yet been introduced, and it’s certainly not because he’s afraid that his profits exceeding $250,000 will be taxed at 39% instead of 36%.
Obama’s proposed tax reductions weren’t across the board, as you say. Instead, they were targeted more toward the middle class. The biggest favor lawmakers can do for most businesses right now is to increase the ability of potential customers to buy products and services. Middle class tax cuts would do exactly that.
#11 Drama Queen Mustard
At least have the courtesy to take Barney Frank’s cock out of your mouth while insulting someone – I can’t understand what you are saying.
#13 – ‘tempt
>>At least have the courtesy to take Barney
>>Frank’s cock out of your mouth while
>>insulting someone
Wow. “At least have the courtesy to take Barney Frank’s cock out of your mouth while insulting someone“!!
I guess I didn’t know who I was messing with. I though you were just some shitheaded loser who made up “facts” to support his opinions, scampering like a cockroach back into the darkness when anyone questioned your “facts”.
MY BAD!!! Little did I know I was dealing with a deadly verbal ninja who could snap back with devastating repartee like “At least have the courtesy to take Barney Frank’s cock out of your mouth while insulting someone“!
You got a license for that keyboard? That thing is lethal!!
“The unemployment rate climbed more than economists forecast, to 7.2 percent in December, the highest level in almost 16 years.”
Wasn’t it about 16 years ago when we redefined the unemployment figures to not incluse people that have fallen of the rolls?
Its probably closer to “highest level in over 30 years”
Does no one take into acct that in 1945 the population of the country was about 130 million, there are now over 300 million. Why do the news people love to keep comparing apples to oranges, yes this economy is bad but were not in the great depression were not in the worst economy since the great depression we are simply in a recession and a real one at that, like we had in the Carter years. Quit all the doom and gloom tighten our belts and get through it.
Did you know they are still going to bring in about 1.3 million foreign workers this year if there are no changes in the law. That is without any amnesty program that some sectors will push for.
Call you congressman/senator ASAP to tell them they need to cut back on the various VISA and green card programs if they want to even tread water by adding two million jobs.
“Call you congressman/senator ASAP to tell them they need to cut back on the various VISA and green card programs….”
Cutback?! I think they should totally suspend the practice. Why even keep it going. Like these corps just can’t find enough qualified US citizens to employ? There will be a 1,000 jobless Americans showing up for each position they advertise (if they did advertise them). So there’s no excuse for the work VISA now! Except that Americans might still expect a few perks like health care coverage. The VISA’d workers probably get squat for they years here.
The same goes for the produce industry. They could easy get US citizens to pick the crops. But the employers wouldn’t get away with NOT paying them, like they often do with the illegals. And US workers generally expect better than sleeping in trees, at night, to near enough the job site to get chosen the next day. No records, no job security. What the produce industry gets away with is shameful. And that’s the only reason why they can’t get americans to work for them. Congress and the Administration should reign all this in, but they’re too into the pockets of Dole, and ADM, to do any reforming. I doubt that even Obama will.
As for the employment and economic numbers being the worst in decades. Well I certain Bush will Pardon himself from being considered the worst President since Truman. The reason the jobs fell after WW2, was that there was no more need for new war toys to be made. And soldiers came back to find that their old jobs were gone. It happened to my father. His job at the GM plant assembly line was gone. And they only offered him one carting engine blocks around. Basically it was a “If you don’t kill yourself doing this, you can work here. But you’re a fool if you do.” kind of job. So he quit and went to work for the Rail Road. But the lesson is that our economy should never be too dependent on war production. Because it requires inflationary deficit spending of tax dollars to maintain it. Which ultimately reduces the worth of all long term invested and saved moneys.
#17-&18==EXCELLENT CAUTION. What with the argument that “illegal immigration” is a human rights issue, it will be of concern/interestng to see if Congress ever stumbles on the work Visa programs. Will they care with special corporate interests like Bill Gates clamoring for more/unlimited Visas?
Yes, can anything be more clear that during a job loss recession we don’t need to import lower cost wage slaves?
I’ll be a chart showing the number of approved work visas over the years just goes steadily UP–no reaction to market forces.
We are the authors of our own destruction.
# 2 contempt said, in part:
“Many companies are cutting jobs in anticipation of Obama’s oppressive tax plan.”
Oh woe! Oh woe! The universe is spiraling down into the black hole of a 39% tax rate! Whatever shall we do?
Wimps.
That’s not a tax rate. Remember the Beatles’ song Taxman? “One for you, nineteen for me”? Yes, that’s right, that’s a 95% tax rate. Ninety-five percent. There was a story going around in the ’70s about how Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish filmmaker one year had an income tax rate of 105%. Yes, that’s right, his income tax was higher than his income for the year. Not THAT is a tax rate. Yet I don’t read about millions of wealthy Swedes abandoning their homeland for tax havens in the Caribbean. Swedish business and industry are doing just fine, thank you. (At least they were until the collapse of the American financial house of cards brought down the whole international financial ball of wax.) As I recall, right here in the Good Ol’ U S of A we used to have a 90% tax rate for the top earners. And that was just about the time that we built ourselves into the industrial and financial giant of the world.
So I’m not afraid of a little thing like a 39% or 45% or even 75% tax rate. But I _am_ afraid of not being able to find a job, any job, anywhere, or afford health insurance or a place to live. Those things scare the living daylights out of me, and I think they scare the living daylights out of most sane people. I think not having the U.S.A. turn into Haiti is worth the inconvenience of paying a few taxes.
I’m looking forward to some time off!
Hey do you have to pay estimated taxes if you don’t have any income anymore?
That graphic looks like it came from Word 2k.
I think It’s complete.
W has fucked up everything !
I wish I could lose my job. I had the same problem in the early 70s. Everybody I knew was looking for work. I was working two jobs. Of corse they were not “good” jobs. But I kept the family fed and a roof over our head.
At best we are going to see a nasty recession worse than the Carter era. I will throw a party if this is all that happens.
At near worst we are going to see a depression, protests, riots, and breakdown of the republic. Ever see the movie “Children of Men”? It may look something like that.
The US numbers don’t lie… 10.5 dollars trillion in national debt, millions losing their jobs, Banks have walked away with over 8.5 trillion dollars (and counting) without any real oversight… The GDP is going down… so yeah, we’re in deep trouble and it will probably be global.
Someone please tell me I’m wrong. (I really wouldn’t mind being wrong).
Well, it looks like Obama has a novel plan to “fix” the economy; massive deficit spending coupled with large tax breaks. That’ll fix it.
Oops. Repubs already tried & failed using that approach…
#20 Uncle Patso
>>I’m not afraid of a little thing like a 39% or 45% or even 75% tax rate.
That avenue of thinking usually comes from someone who pays little or no taxes.
The problem is not that the government doesn’t receive enough tax payments, it’s that they have this uncontrollable tendency to waste what they get.
Yep. The toilet was flushed in late 2000 and again in late 2004.
What we need is government spending on infrastructure to put people back to work. There is no other way to recover the economy.
Tax cuts for average Americans will not help as they will merely pay down debt or save it. Tax cuts for businesses make sense.
As for Republican ideas – STFU. You fucking clowns have no ideas and don’t have a fucking clue. Get out of the fucking way.
# 29 Dallas said, “As for Republican ideas – STFU. You fucking clowns have no ideas and don’t have a fucking clue. Get out of the fucking way.”
I too am upset that Obama has chosen to imitate the Repug ecom strat.
#30 Not so fast.
The Repug strategy has been as follows:
(1) Government spending on projects that benefit the few (war comes to mind)
(2) Products produced from that spending are worthless (war also comes to mind)
(3) Dollars borrowed for the above useless spending is shipped to China.
Obama spending is about creating jobs in infrastructure that stays here.
So.. get out of the fucking way. You MF’s lost the election so STFU and move to China.