[lbo-talk] US manufacturing output hits a six-year high

[Wojtek S]

[WS:]  It is nasty out there for ordinary grunts, no doubt.  The point I was
trying to make was a bit different, though - far from being on its knees,
capitalism got merely a black eye, a hiccup or temporary indigestion if you
will, but otherwise it is business as usual.  No change in sight.

Wojtek

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net>wrote:


> At 10:55 AM 4/1/2010, Wojtek S wrote:
>
>
>  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8599343.stm
>>
>> [WS:] So the 2008 recession turned out to be a storm in a teacup, after
>> all.
>>
>
>
> There's a link to another story on that page though:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8499693.stm
>
> US jobless numbers hide scale of problem
>
> By John Mervin
> Business reporter, BBC News, New York
>
> The headline number only reveals a small part of the problem.
>
> An official US unemployment rate that hit 10% last year, and seems set to
> stay there or thereabouts for months yet, already makes grim reading.
>
> Yet there's growing concern that even that large and unpleasant number
> doesn't do justice to the size and severity of America's problem with jobs,
> or the lack thereof.
>
> Dig beneath the headline figure on each monthly jobs report and there are
> now plenty of other horrors to be found.
>
> Take the problem of long-term unemployment. In the eyes of the Bureau of
> Labor Statistics, which does the counting, the long-term unemployed are
> people who have been unemployed for more than six months.
>
> They now make up roughly 40% of all unemployed. That's more than six
> million people who have been out work since last summer at least.
>
> Real deprivation
>
> As America's politicians and media have tried to grasp the full extent of
> the country's economic problems, they have inevitably looked for comparisons
> with previous periods of recession and slow growth.
>
> So a common comparison these days is the recession of 1982-83 - that's the
> last time America grappled with 10% unemployment.
>
> Which means it's chilling to note that it now takes twice as long (more
> than 20 weeks) as it did in 1982-83 for an unemployed person to find their
> next job.
>
> Unemployment is always nasty. But it's even worse when it's accompanied not
> just by stress and anxiety but by real deprivation.
>
> That is the experience of increasing numbers of Americans as unemployment
> benefits run out before the next job can be found.
>
> Yet even this doesn't do justice to the sheer scale of America's problem.
>
> [...]
>
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