Recession Fear Heightened as 4-Year Growth in Jobs Ends

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The job market took a serious and unexpected turn for the worse in August, raising fears that the risks of a recession are greater than many economists had believed.

The economy shed 4,000 jobs between July and August, with industries that are connected to the housing market — like construction and manufacturing — making the deepest cuts, the Labor Department reported today. It was the first employment decline since 2003, when the job market was still struggling to emerge from a long slump in the wake of the 2001 recession.

...

“If the economy is not headed toward recession, it is very close to one,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.

...

... the percentage of adults with jobs fell to 62.8 percent, from 63 percent in July and a peak of 63.4 percent in December. The number of people who were neither working nor looking for work — and thus considered neither employed nor unemployed by the government — rose by almost 600,000 in August.

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The number of people with part-time jobs who said they would prefer to full time has also been rising in recent months. In August, the Labor Department classified 4.5 million workers as “part time for economic reasons,” up from 4.3 million in July.

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“The big question on all of our minds is whether the financial market contagion would reach the labor market,” said Jared Bernstein, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute. “And it appears it has with a vengeance.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/business...amp;oref=slogin

[peejay 327]

That is what eventually happens in contrived, plastic economies. They always go flat with a big bang and leave dead bodies behind. Enrons and WorldComs. Dot coms. S & L failure debacles. Oil booms. And now...the excesses in the mortgage and housing industries. The rich get richer and the chumps are left holding the bag of turds.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

That is what eventually happens in contrived, plastic economies. They always go flat with a big bang and leave dead bodies behind. Enrons and WorldComs. Dot coms. S & L failure debacles. Oil booms. And now...the excesses in the mortgage and housing industries. The rich get richer and the chumps are left holding the bag of turds.

So everyone's either 'the rich' or a 'chump'? Aah if only life were that simple.

[Jasman0717 9]

Remember that mess back in the 80s with double digit mortgage interest?

[peejay 327]

Remember that mess back in the 80s with double digit mortgage interest?

I remember the Savings & Loan fiasco where the US taxpayer ended up bailing out the industry's sleazy excesses to the tune of mega billions of $$$ through the F.S.L.I.C. I also remember the slimeballs that got away with looting these federally insured institutions with every loophole that they bought off Congress to provide. I remember the many Congressmen that eventually got burned for calling off the regulators that were supposed oversee the S & L's. The regulators would try to crack down and the crooks would whine to the Congressmen they contributed heavily to elect.

The American people have the best government that money can buy. Some things never change.