Showdown in Chicago: Thousands Protest Bankers

by Seth Michaels, Oct 27, 2009

More than 5,000 people are packing the streets of downtown Chicago this morning, chanting, marching and rallying against Big Bankers and financial institutions that have taken taxpayer money and are using it to give big bonuses to CEOs and to lobby against financial reforms that would ensure they don’t go back on the public dole.

Posted with permission of Nicholas Benton, owner Editor of the Falls Church News Press.

by Nicholas Benton

As the unemployment rate approaches 10 percent in the U.S., prospects appear clearer that the world faces a deep and persisting economic malaise, the consequence of a combined on-going deflation of impossibly-bloated leveraging instruments and the demise, maybe forever, of frenzied consumer spending habits.

The Obama administration's concept of retooling economic fundamentals away from speculation and consumerism toward solid growth in infrastructure and education has been sound, but getting from here to there will hardly be quick or easy.

Bloomberg circulated a report this morning on the total size of the bail out facilities run through the Federal Reserve and Geithner's Treasury. They estimate the total to be $12.8 trillion, or $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the country, 14 times the amount of currency in circulation, and just $1.4 trillion less than the Gross Domestic Product, which is what economists call everything produced and sold in the country last year. Since last November when the facilities under both departments amounted to $7.4 trillion, the amount has increased by 73%. 

I think there is something wrong here. What do you think? Do you agree? Or do you think it is OK that the Federal Reserve Chief has accumulated this kind of power without feeling compelled to tell anyone exactly what he is doing or how?

A little back round. There once was a Huge Linen Factory, called Cannon than Pillow Tex {sp?}, than something else after I moved here of which the name eludes me. Well they closed it down a few years ago with thousands of job loses not only within but the supporting small companies. It was one of the biggest, if not thee biggest, collective job loss numbers in North Carolina.

Mesmerized by Melodic Rhetoric: Guns Versus Hope

Joel S. Hirschhorn

"I've been through Y2K and I've been through 9/11. I have never seen people so afraid as what we are seeing right now,” said gun shop owner Scott Moss recently.

 This was hard to put together because the charts were PDF so please excuse the appearance.

 The report, The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Investment Plan, has been  released as a PDF file and the link to it can be here. The report contains a table that shows how their estimate of how the recovery will work. One thing to note is that the composition of the jobs is such as to provide employment at the lowest-paid level (in service industry jobs) as well as for skilled professionals. See below the Krugmann commentary:

Wearing 'almost homeless' sign, ex-executive seeks work

Paul Nawrocki says he's beyond the point where he cares about humiliation.

Gee, this is just peachy:

Job cuts at highest level since '02
Planned payroll reductions surge 61% in November, according to an outplacement firm.

Combine this with the news that our status as being in a recession since December of 2007 that just came out:

Recession started in December 2007: panel

Now, take a look at the piece I'd posted (not much more than a pointer, really) from December of 2007:

The Official Republican Recession Has Begun

I got a lot of wingnuts screaming bloody murder about my statement -- some are likely still in denial, willing to claim that ~saying~ it was a recession turned it ~into~ a recession (several tried that one at the time) -- and one really has to wonder why and how the Republicans have ~ever~ been able to maintain the illusion (delusion?) that they know anything about economics. Aside from how to steal and how to protect the wealthiest top 1% of America's elite, of course.

They seem to know a ~lot~ about that.

...guess I shouldn't remind 'em about my take on the bailouts, either.

Reservists Face Rocky Return In Job Market

60 Minutes Report Also Examines Costs Borne By Employers Of Deployed Citizen Soldiers

Lesley Stahl could only talk to some of the thousands of reservists and guardsmen who have returned from active duty to find problems with their employers over their jobs.

The rest can call the assistant secretary of defense directly to complain after he broadcasts his phone number during her 60 Minutes report this Su

Read more

On Thursday, April 24th, Reuters carried a headline Jobless claims fall unexpectedly that provided an interesting contrast to the story from Friday April 18th entitled Wall St. braces for thousands of pink slips.

From the first article cited above, we get this lede:

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers filing initial claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell by 33,000 last week, the Labor Department said on Thursday, though the number of workers remaining on jobless benefits continued at a high level.
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Yet, the article from Friday April 18th was quite a bit more forboding:

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc, Merrill Lynch & Co and Wachovia Corp this week announced 12,400 job cuts, and the number of pink slips is likely to rise as losses mount and the economy works its way out of its malaise.

[...snip...]

Job losses will surge well beyond the current level, given that the latest data does not account for widely expected cuts among the 14,000 employees at Bear Stearns Cos following the investment bank's pending takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

[...snip...]

Global financial institutions have so far sustained well over $200 billion of write-downs and credit-related losses, with the ailing U.S. housing market a central catalyst.

[...snip...]

Already, Marenzi expects at least 100,000 job losses at U.S. commercial banks, or companies that lend or collect deposits. That figure could rise to between 150,000 and 200,000 in the next 12 to 18 months, he said.
_____

Without even having to look too closely, however, it's not difficult to determine why the recent report appears to clash with the earlier one: timing.

The article from 18 April talks about the future of the job market as the economy continues to spiral down and institutions post record losses; the article from today discusses the expectations that analysts had leading into the week of April 12 -- the week preceding the April 18 piece.

If these articles were to be placed in reverse order, they would paint an ever-darkening picture of our short and medium term economic and employment outlook.

An Aside to the Bush Administration and Bush Republicans: Yes, Mr. Bush, we are in a slowdown: a severe one. There's a term for it -- it's recession. If it gets much worse before it is addressed responsibly, it could become a worldwide depression. And because of your inability to properly comprehend it and the habit of denial and band-aid approaches that your Administration and the Congressional Republicans have taken in hopes of leaving the burgeoning mess in lap of the next (presumably Democratic) Administration, the problem is likely to get a whole lot worse before anything is done to address it intelligently.

Just like all the other problems that have been exacerbated by your criminal neglect and malfeasance.

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For further reference, you may want to check out Tony Wikrent's Euthanize Wall Street to save the economy and GreyHawk's Gouged Out: The Consumer and the Gas Station Operator.
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OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: In the latest monthly economic health profile issued Thursday by the Ohio Department of Budget and Management, the grim impact a decaying national economy is having on Ohio was evidenced by job losses in February and a turn down in personal income, consumer spending and consumer confidence.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: The Spring 2008 Akron Buckeye Poll released Wednesday covered an assessment of Ohio, government and politics and provided insight on baseline information for the 2008 general election in Ohio.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: In the week since Ohio Governor Ted Strickland gave his dazzling but dubious State of the State speech last Wednesday about his plans to create new jobs and commandeer control of the state’s education system, supporters and critics of the proposed $1.7 bond package have been busy working to give it liftoff or shoot it down before takeoff.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: The story ONB broke last week about the sudden and strange disappearance of Linda O’Connor from her high-profile, high-paying perch atop policy program at the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS)only grows more intriguing and mysterious with time.

ePluribus Media OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: When the respective chairmen of Ohio’s political delegations rise in 2008 at the presidential nominating conventions in Denver or Minneapolis and announce that the “great state of Ohio gives its 20 Electoral College votes to the next president of the United States…,” the great state they are referring to is considerably less great than it once was.