651K jobs lost in Feb

Wow. Another horrible month of job losses.

It is going to take quite a long time, apparently, to dig ourselves out of this hole that the Bush Gang dug for us. What regulatory agencies Bush did not destroy outright simply did not enforce many of their regulations. This is what can happen when you put your cronies in positions of power. Cronies that used to head up industries that they were suddenly supposed to regulate. That's not a good recipe. I lost track of all the foxes that Bush appointed to the nations henhouses.

And I won't go into detail on all the hundreds of billions of off-the-budget dollars that Bush wasted in Iraq.

We are still suffering from the horrible performance of Bush's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Christopher Cox will be remembered as the worst SEC chair ever. This once-powerful regulatory body was created after the Great Depression, to try and prevent such an occurrence from happening again, and it did a fair job of keeping a fair playing field for years.

But for many years now, Republicans have been whacking away at those regulations, and I think we see the result today. Democrats are not entirely blameless here, but let's not forget that Republicans had a lockstep majority on the Congress and White House for the first six years of the Bush Reign of (T)Error. For the last two years, when we finally had a Democratic majority again in both houses, Bush easily thwarted the Democrats, since there was no ability to override a Presidential veto. Indeed, Bush didn't veto one single bill until the Dems had re-taken the Congress, if memory serves.

Why the SEC is still allowing the uptick rule to languish in purgatory is beyond me. Short-sellers have been bear-raiding once-great names all the way to the bottom. One after another. Hedge funds (the respite for the wealthy's money) are still allowed to operate in mystery and secrecy. This has gone beyond Bush incompetence. It has passed into complicity. The dog-eat-dog, every man for himself mantra that characterizes the Republicans is coming home to roost.

I shudder to think what this country would look like after a couple of generations of Republican "leadership" without the Democrats to occasionally come back and patch up the messes that the Republicans make of things. How the Republicans EVER got the reputation of being better with money than the Democrats is a masterful example of deception and brainwashing the masses.

I hope you still have a job. The wife and I are still hanging onto ours.

U.S. jobless rate hits 8.1%; 651,000 jobs lost last month
By JEANNINE AVERSA Associated Press
March 6, 2009

WASHINGTON — The nation’s unemployment rate bolted to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs.

Both figures were worse than analysts expected and today's Labor Department’s report shows America’s workers being clobbered by a relentless wave of layoffs.

The net loss of 651,000 jobs in February came after even deeper payroll reductions in the prior two months, according to revised figures. The economy lost 681,000 jobs in December and another 655,000 in January.

Employers are shrinking their work forces at alarming clip and are turning to other ways to slash costs — including trimming workers’ hours, freezing wages or cutting pay — because the recession has eaten into their sales and profits. Customers at home and abroad are cutting back as other countries cope with their own economic problems.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost an astounding 4.4 million jobs, more than half of which occurred in the past four months.

With employers showing no appetite to hire, the unemployment jumped to 8.1 percent from 7.6 percent in January. That was the highest since December 1983, when the jobless rate was 8.3 percent.

All told, the number of unemployed people climbed to 12.5 million. In addition, the number of people forced to work part time for “economic reasons” rose by a sharp 787,000 to 8.6 million. That’s people who would like to work full time but whose hours were cut back or were unable to find full-time work.

Meanwhile, the average work week in February stayed at 33.3 hours, matching the record low set in December.

Job losses were widespread in February.

Construction companies eliminated 104,000 jobs. Factories axed 168,000. Retailers cut nearly 40,000. Professional and business services got rid of 180,000, with 78,000 jobs lost at temporary-help agencies. Financial companies reduced payrolls by 44,000. Leisure and hospitality firms chopped 33,000 positions.

The few areas spared: education and health services, as well as government, which boosted employment last month.

Disappearing jobs and evaporating wealth from tanking home values, 401(k)s and other investments have forced consumers to retrench, driving companies to lay off workers. It’s a vicious cycle in which all the economy’s negative problems feed on each other, worsening the downward spiral.

A new wave of layoffs hit this week.

General Dynamics Corp. said Thursday it will lay off 1,200 workers due partly to plummeting sales of business and personal jets that forced it to cut production. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp., and Tyco Electronics Ltd., which makes electronic components, undersea telecommunications systems and wireless equipment, also are trimming payrolls.

The country is getting bloodied by fallout from the housing, credit and financial crises— the worst since the 1930s. And there’s no easy fix for a quick turnaround, economists said.

President Barack Obama is counting on a multipronged assault to lift the country out of recession: a $787 billion stimulus package of increased federal spending and tax cuts; a revamped, multibillion-dollar bailout program for the nation’s troubled banks; and a $75 billion effort to stem home foreclosures.

Even in the best-case scenario that the relief efforts work and the recession ends later in 2009, the unemployment rate is expected to keep climbing, hitting 9 percent or higher this year. In fact, the Federal Reserve thinks the unemployment rate will stay elevated into 2011. Economists say the job market may not get back to normal — meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate — until 2013.

Businesses won’t be inclined to ramp up hiring until they are sure any economic recovery has staying power.

The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent in the final three months of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, and it will probably continue to shrink during the first six months of this year.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress earlier this week that recent economic barometers “show little sign of improvement” and suggest that “labor market conditions may have worsened further in recent weeks.”

I'm sure that Bush the Oblivious still is holding his head high. After all, he and his family are set for life. What do they care? The original story is here.