Another ‘first Friday of the month' is upon us and once again the unemployment figures are, er, ‘disappointing’.
So what do the pundits say (in a feeble attempt to turn a pig’s ear into a silk purse?)
That the number was ‘higher than expected’.
How fucking pathetic is that?
I don’t have any ‘hard figures’ on the kind of jobs created over the past thirty days but I can say with reasonable confidence that the vast majority of them paid minimum wage…it is the beginning of the holiday hiring season.
Which, interestingly enough, brings us to the other tiny bright spot on the economic horizon
“One of the questions as we go into holidays, frankly, is where margins end up,” said Chris Donnelly, an executive in the retail practice at Accenture, a consulting company. “I think you’re going to see more aggressive discounting to make sure they capture as much of the holiday sales as they can. And you’ve seen it in some of the folks that reported today, where they said sales have gone up but margin and average selling prices have gone down a little bit.”
Generally, stores that go after higher-end shoppers fared better than those focusing on middle- and low-end customers.
The top performers among department stores was Nordstrom, where same-store sales rose 10.7 percent, beating estimates by more than 5 percentage points. Shoppers seemed drawn to luxury purchases; Nordstrom said its top categories for the month were designer clothing, dresses and handbags.
The caveat I omitted from this headline is how ‘upscale stores’ lead the way during the recently passed ‘back to school’ shopping season.
What does this mean good citizen?
It means the rich are stupid!
I sure as fuck wouldn’t be ‘flaunting’ my wealth when everybody else was struggling…but these assholes are…and it is likely they will pay the price for their foolishness.
But the cluelessness doesn’t stop there!
Because Obama is ‘supposed to be’ a Democrat and the Occupy Wall Street movement is definitely not Republican/Tea Party based, the media has tried to, er, ‘align’ the rudderless ship with the progressive movement…and the occupiers are having none of it!
Which does my heart a world of good!
(It has long been my conviction that people aren’t nearly as stupid as the corporate owned media would have you believe they are!)
Which brings us to our next bit of ‘infotainment’
September’s number of new jobs was well more than analysts had expected — one consensus predicted a gain of 55,000 jobs — and the Labor Department also revised the August figure of zero job growth to a gain of 57,000 jobs.
Still, the report came on the heels of disappointing data about consumer confidence and the housing market. Economists have also grown increasingly concerned about a ballooning European debt crisis that could send ripples across the Atlantic.
In a news conference on Thursday, the president urged Congress to act to prevent weaker growth and more job losses. “There are too many people hurting in this country for us to do nothing,” Mr. Obama said. “And the economy is just too fragile for us to let politics get in the way of action.”
Remember good citizen, it takes 150,000 new jobs EVERY DAMN MONTH just to offset the number of new entrants into the labor force…so the ‘additions’ since Obama took office really represent the failure of capitalism to provide employment for all who need it.
Which is to point out there hasn’t been a SINGLE month since the incumbent took office that job creation has exceeded the number necessary to ‘break even’…which is why we have, young workers in the streets, protesting globalization that is DENYING them the ability to get on with their lives!
Switching mental gears here, we run the full spectrum of, er, ‘definitions’ concerning money. There are pundits who believe in a system of rational and finite money and there are those who realize a vast majority of what passes for money is in fact confetti!
The ‘we can’t pay’ crowd, like the ’deficit hawks’ don’t get it.
Money is the most ‘abused’ utility in existence, it is really only ‘useful’ to the ‘end user’.
Why is our civilization falling apart?
Understand good citizen, we DON’T have a MONEY PROBLEM…we have a LEGAL PROBLEM!
Here's one version of today's economic reality:
"CEOs Say U.S. Unlikely to Slip Back Into Recession" (Reuters)
Corporate America's chiefs do not expect the nation to slip back into recession, but say political gridlock in the United States and Europe could make for a long, slow recovery.
Top chief executives including General Electric Co's Jeff Immelt and ExxonMobil Corp's Rex Tillerson said on Thursday that the U.S. economy could remain sluggish but will likely avoid an outright double-dip downturn.
"Recovery is underway, but it's a long, slow recovery. Slower than we'd like," the head of GE (GE.N) told a group of about 500 executives from mid-sized U.S. companies.
While conditions are making executives nervous, the situation does not seem nearly as dire as it did during the credit crunch during the last recession.
"This is a lot different than 2008," said Immelt, chief executive of the largest U.S. conglomerate. "There's liquidity; there's pockets of growth."
And here's another:
"Is US Economy Flirting With 'Modern-Day Depression'?" (CNBC)
“Here we are today, with a severe recession (2007-09) followed by the weakest recovery on record and now on the precipice of another economic downturn,” David Rosenberg, senior economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff in Toronto wrote in a special analysis. “This is a modern-day depression, not entirely dissimilar to Japan’s post-bubble experience of the past two decades.”
As I has stated previously, for all of our financial woes, we don’t have a money problem, we have a huge ‘legal problem’…which is to say the situation won’t be addressed until the laws are changed.
And as the public is starting to realize, that isn’t going to happen until we alter HOW we go about making those laws…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
No comments:
Post a Comment