Payrolls expanded by 117,000 jobs in July as unemployment fell to 9.1 percent, a bit of good news in what has been a dismal series of economic reports this summer.
US stocks had been in a tailspin leading up this morning's Labor Department report. They closed down 9 of the last 10 trading days, capped by a 500-point loss on the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday. The Dow has fallen 1,300 points since July 21, erasing all its gains for the year.
The report "should lessen fears that the recovery is truly faltering," Jim O'Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global, told the Associated Press.
At the 9:30 a.m. ET opening of the markets, the Dow headed straight up, surging 170 points in the first two minutes of trading. Markets in Europe, which have been rattled by rising government debt in Italy and Spain, also rose after the jobs report.
Economists were expecting 85,000 jobs to be added in July and unemployment to stay steady at 9.2 percent. In June, private employers added just 18,000 jobs.
But in July, businesses added 154,000 jobs across many industries, the Labor Department said. Governments cut 37,000 jobs last month, though 23,000 of those losses were almost entirely because of the shutdown of Minnesota's state government.
We keep hearing over and over that NO President has ever successfully run for reelection with job numbers this low, which seems to be encouraging the Republicans to do everything in their power to keep Americans out of work simply for the sake of political expediency.
If they are successful they will have demonstrated how ignorant and uninformed the America voters are, and will once again have sacrificed the good of the country in service to their corporate masters.
I think that it behooves all of us to keep presenting charts like this one...
to our friends, and families. And reminding people that THIS is the result of giving corporations indefensible tax breaks, and allowing businesses to do what they want without Government oversights in place.
Yes the job growth is slow, but under this Democratic President at least it IS growing. What do the Republicans really offer us except more of the same policies that got us into the ditch that Obama is trying to drive us out of, with virtually NO help from the other party?
There are real people suffering here, and the idea that some politicians would play fast and loose with their lives solely in the interest of gaining or retaining power, really pisses me off!
O/T -Oh myyyyy, Stephen Bannon on Bill Maher tonight!
ReplyDelete"This week, the United States nearly allowed itself to succumb to economic disaster. Increasingly, the divided country has more in common with a failed state than a democracy. In the face of America's apparent political insanity, Europe must learn to take care of itself." — Jakob Augstein, Der Spiegel (Germany)
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Right wing nuts in Congress. We must do better at election time.
MF Global? Mmmm. . . what does the MF stand for? I know that it stands for Monetary Fund but my first thought was something else which sounded about right to describe Repubes.
ReplyDeleteAmericans might be better off electing a slate of common sense ten year olds than the reality detached Republican true believers who are currently in charge of the House of Representatives.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politicususa.com/en/rachel-maddow-gop-stupidity?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politicus+USA+%29
Even though many Democratic liberals don't like what Obama has done in the last two major negotiations ( I personally think that he needs to get rid of Geithner and get some new advisors and for Pete's sake start negotiating from the far left and then move to the center if you must!)the alternative to Obama would be catastrophic to the country. Just keep repeating SCOTUS appointments and look at what the Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Florida 2010 gubernatorial elections did for those states and remember that it is a foreshadowing of what the Republicans have in store for the entire US. We MUST keep hounding our representatives that 82% of us are REALLY angry at the Congress and that they need to bring back jobs to everyone and do their own DAMN JOBS! I don't care if China owns us, we need to quit buying all the Chinese crap that is sold everywhere such as Wal-Mart! Go to www.madeinUSAforever.com and try to buy only products made here by Americans. It's not much but it's a start.
ReplyDeleteIn the past, recoveries have been fueled by one or more growth sectors: government growth (not this time!), commercial real estate (not a chance), residential real estate (ha, ha, ha...), retail (doubtful), manufacturing (unlikely) and commercial capital investments (in China, perhaps, not here).
ReplyDeleteSo what sector is left that could ignite a resurgence in buying by insecure, credit-exposed, under-water, lay-off wary consumers or by businesses who sell to those consumers?
Henry Ford, arguably a pretty hateful, greedy bastard, paid his workers an above-standard wage because he realized that businesses like his would thrive as long as there was a comfortable middle-class with disposable incomes to buy his products.
The hateful, greedy bastards of today have decided that paring employment to the bone and/or outsourcing jobs could boost their profits aggressively. They simply hoped to let less savvy employers provide the solid middle class wages to fund the demand.
But once a critical mass of employers is happily cutting wages and employment AND reaping record profits there's no incentive to support the American middle class.
Andrew Sullivan wrote in the past few days that he doesnt see a way out. And it's a disaster underway completely indifferent to which party is in power.
It would be nice if he's wrong.
Thank you for that good chart, G-man. Yes, we must keep reminding everyone that Pres Obama is working on the solution, not creating the problem. How that could be confusing is beyond me, but it seems to be.
ReplyDeleteA contributor on Palingates just put this up (from IM! yes!) and it bears repeating, and it's going to change MY buying habits:
I found this comment from IM interesting as I like to support good businesses: "By the way -- co-founder of Home Depot, Frank Langone is friends with Madoff, and hates President Obama. When I read about this, I checked out Lowe's and decided to take my business to Lowe's. Here is a bit from wikipedia: Lowe's has won eight consecutive ENERGY STAR awards (2003–2010), including four ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year awards for educating consumers about the benefits of energy efficiency...Lowe’s was awarded for its outstanding contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through promoting energy-efficient products and educating consumers and employees on the value of the Energy Star program. In 2000, Lowe’s released a policy promising that all wood products sold would not be sourced from rainforests.
Republicans in Congress like to talk about how important creating jobs is but keep in mind that they wasted months early this year worrying about redefining rape and cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. We all would have been better off if they had supported President Obama's original stimulus program that would have created many jobs to rebuild our crumbling nationwide infrastructure - the kind of jobs that put money into the economy so that more jobs get created. No, our Republican friends worry about rape and abortion.
ReplyDeleteREMEMBER EVERYONE! It is called the TEA PARTY RECESSION OF 2011
ReplyDeleteFox and friends will continually try to change that to something that makes it sound like its all Obama's fault.
So, repeat that phrase every chance you get, in everything you say and write.
TEA PARTY RECESSION OF 2011
I just saw this by Sullivan:
ReplyDeleteI think Obama is . . . currently stupidly under-rated - and drowned out by all the noise in the conservative-media-industrial-complex.
Here are the political accomplishments: defeating the most heavily favored party machine in decades (the Clintons) while actually bringing his biggest rival into his cabinet, where she has performed extraordinarily well; helping to cement the GOP's broad identity as extremists opposed to compromise; entrenching black and Hispanic loyalty to his party; retaining solid favorables and not-too-shabby approval ratings during the worst recession since the 1930s. 44 percent of the country still (rightly) blame Bush for this mess, only 15 percent blame Obama.
On policy: ending the US torture regime; prevention of a second Great Depression; enacting universal healthcare; taking the first serious steps toward reining in healthcare costs; two new female Supreme Court Justices; ending the gay ban in the military; ending the Iraq war; justifying his Afghan Surge by killing bin Laden and now disentangling with face saved; firming up alliances with India, Indonesia and Japan as counter-weights to China; bailing out the banks and auto companies without massive losses (and surging GM profits); advancing (slowly) balanced debt reduction without drastic cuts during the recession; and financial re-regulation.
Yes, there have been failures. The election of Scott Brown; the 2010 mid-terms; the surrender to Netanyahu and AIPAC; the botched and ill-conceived war in Libya; the failure to embrace Bowles Simpson up-front; the collapse of cap and trade (maybe not such a bad thing anyway). But notice what hasn't happened. Where are all the scandals promised by Michelle Malkin? Where are his Katrinas and Monicas?
When I read commentaries expounding on the notion that this man is competely out of his depth, I just have to scratch my head. Given his inheritance, this has been the most substantive first term since Ronald Reagan's. And given Obama's long-game mentality, that is setting us up for a hell of a second one.
"and allowing businesses to do what they want without Government oversights in place."
ReplyDeleteThe previous phrase written by you just shows that you really lack knowledge about world history. What you are implying should happen in the United States is the same that happened in communist countries and we all know how well that works.
Let me relate a little story to you. I was born in a communist country. Utopia, it is not. My father was part owner of a relatively prosperous company. One day he came home and informed my mother that it had happened, his business had been nationalized that day. My father started working for this business at the age of fourteen and worked himself up by his hard work to be part owner. It was not given to him, it was not inherited but it was earned by his sweat and determination to make something of himself. He would travel to the US three or four times a year on buying and selling trips. His company was the premier company in its category. Well, the government decided that they could do better, this was a company that has celebrated its 100 year anniversary a few years before. It collapsed within 1-1/2 years because the government people they put in charge were incapable of running a lemonade stand, much less an international company.
My father, nor his partners, never exploited workers, paid fair wages and had a very small turnover of employees. Case in point, my father was able to own part of the company and he started as an errand boy at the age of 14.
Regarding the so called "wealth distribution" with which you seem to be so enamored. Let me tell you about how it works in communist countries. When my father applied to come to the US, he lost his job was unemployable and had to subsist from things given to him by his family. When the military came to take inventory of the things in the house to make sure that they would not be removed when they left, they said that our house was big enough to house five families. Before communism we had 6 people living in the house. When they took over the house, the five families that were planning on living there were surely disappointed when the house was given to a general, his wife and his sister-in-law. That was what they consider "wealth distribution".
Please read some books other than the communist manifesto and read history books of other countries that depict all sides. Communism and socialism in theory are good plans, but it has been proven by history that they do not work. Man needs to feel that they are accomplishing something and need to have the wherewithal to succeed. Productivity decreases when everybody receives the same thing whether they work hard or not. People need to have incentives in their lives and work towards a goal.
I would like to see the Democratic Party run a primary for the office of the President. He needs more incentive to act like he spoke back in 2008.
ReplyDelete7:10 Yea, get those asshole Republicans out of office in Congress, state and local levels during the next election cycle. Vote the Dems in - Congress especially - so, our good President Obama can get something done that benefits the nation as to jobs, jobs, jobs.
ReplyDeleteAmericans PAY ATTENTION and VOTE!
Beldar,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Sully isn't wrong, and the War Machine sector of the economy is unable to carry the load even though it's working over time these days.
After the copratocracy gets done looting the country, our pensions and food stamps gone, 401ks dissolved by market manipulation, medicare, SS, and medicaid kaput, unions dissolved, people starving and rioting. Don't tell me I'm being negative, this is what's always happened in history. Read history, French revolution. Martial law (Napolean), Reforms, uniting Church and State, (cuz religion is opiate for the masses). They are driving us into poverty on our knees to God.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we need more countries to wage war on, you know, for job growth. Doesn't Egypt need more tear gas cannisters marked with Made in USA? Remember Sbrenika (sorry, I'm pissed), 8,000 men murdered under NATO watch. 1995, it wasn't yesterday, Our taxes going to wage war as our nation crumbles. This countries government sucks,and if voting ever mattered, it wouldn't have come to this. Cromwell killed Charles 1 over this shit. Sharpen the Fuckin' guillitines, cuz that's what we need. Hello, Napolean, we need you now, baby, though we will hate you in ten years. Sarah, you aren't a Napolean, and I think that shiny lip gloss thing is gross.
ReplyDeleteSo QE 2 didn't work and they're gonn a call it a double-dipped recession. Maybe I can get a job in Health Care insurance, or processing student loan applications. Oh, by the way, people with degrees are having a very hard time getting jobs. But lets get into debt getting a degree, cuz student loans are the next slave indentured device. Doesn't your child have a student credit card? Don't they need to learn how to get in debt early in life? How are they going to keep up without a new iphone (I mean, getting Bill Gates richer); is your child Left Behind?
ReplyDeleteSadly, because of the self fullfilling prphecy the media has put into place by blowing the downturn in the stock market and laying the blame on Obama's feet- Standard and Poores downgraded the credit rating, unfairly, from a flawless triple a to a double a "plus" with a very negative prognosis.
ReplyDeleteRachael Maddow had it on her show, and Barney Franks explained the problem most eloquently. President Obama had better fight this injustice and set the record straight.
Great Comments on this thread! We need to educate ourselves the best we can as consumers, and vote with our dollars for american made goods or good with a great percent of american made parts. We need to hire as many union backed service providers, but sadly, even doing that will put a small dent in our dependence on imports.
ReplyDelete10:29
Thank you for sharing your story about communism and socialism. Your point is well taken and educational. But (and there's always a but) let me relay a little story of my own.
My Family came from a Fascist country, utopia it was not, but utopia doesn't exist anywhere except as a concept. My Great Grandfather owned a lot of land in an agricultural community in southern Italy during the Mousselini years, and employed and supported hundreds of decent, hard working people. Then the war came, his wealth literally evaporated overnight. This wasn't all handed down to him, but he used what he had to build a business and a life for hundreds of families for many years. He passed away and my grandfather inherited what little that was left. To make a very long story short, his politics didn't line up perfectly with Benny Moussellini, he saw the writing on the wall, somehow got his children on a boat to America before being stripped of his worldly goods, being dragged out in the middle of the day, hung from a tree and shot in front of my Grandmother and the hundreds of people who reaffirmed their alliegience to Facism. My Grandmother wasn't the first this happened to, nor the last, and life as a widow in those days had a very bad social connotation. She lost everything and eventually died without communicating with her kids. Why? Because women weren't educated, they depended totally on their husbands for every aspect of survival.
Life isn't fair, and everyone has a story in their background. There's no such thing a a pure communism, socialism, facism, democracy, there's no pure form of anything.
America is the great equalizer. No matter where anyone came from, they all start at sqare one and work their way from there. My father had to learn the language (there was no "press two for Italian" option, and very few resources for immigrants from all countries.)
The only people who have the right to bitch and play their violins are our native american and african american brothers and sisters, and women, because their land and way of life were stolen from them, they had no right to own property and achieve the american dream. They didn't have the level playing field nor the right to vote that everyone else had for "the american dream" until much much later, and even today the cards are stacked against them.
Heart wrenching propaganda to your website. WOW, emotional control.
ReplyDelete10:29 I feel frustrated hearing someone like you who takes the bait of manipulative power plays instilling fear by those who brandish extreme terms like communism.
ReplyDeleteIt is fair and prudent to appeal that people learn from history. I appeal to you in kind to inform your self of what is intended, meant, and factual in the present. It is not the fear inducing tactic of extreme rhetoric to induce terror of others.
Bernie Madoff was successful. His success came at the expense of others. He acted unlawfully and immorally breaking rules and regulations. Those involved in real estate transactions practiced agreeing to lie for commissions now oblivious to long term consequences also making record profits and their means brought the market crashing, devaluation, major economic repercussions also breaking the standards and rules.
There is a middleground of rules, industry standards and regulations to prohibit illegal, unethical, pillaging, outright lying for profit bringing the ruin and downfall of others or extremes of devastating the economy.
The rhetoric of extreme right spewing fear tactics the government is taking over, take away your desserts, is doing what Moussolini did, etc etc is not tethered to reality in the present.
I feel sick witnessing persons like your self manipulated by unethical persons to obtain power at others expense that is only self serving for them.