Spending Stalls and Businesses Slash U.S. Jobs

Source: NY Times

October 26, 2008
Spending Stalls and Businesses Slash U.S. Jobs

By LOUIS UCHITELLE
As the financial crisis crimps demand for American goods and services, the workers who produce them are losing their jobs by the tens of thousands.

Layoffs have arrived in force, like a wrenching second act in the unfolding crisis. In just the last two weeks, the list of companies announcing their intention to cut workers has read like a Who’s Who of corporate America: Merck, Yahoo, General Electric, Xerox, Pratt & Whitney, Goldman Sachs, Whirlpool, Bank of America, Alcoa, Coca-Cola, the Detroit automakers and nearly all the airlines.

When October’s job losses are announced on Nov. 7, three days after the presidential election, many economists expect the number to exceed 200,000. The current unemployment rate of 6.1 percent is likely to rise, perhaps significantly.

“My view is that it will be near 8 or 8.5 percent by the end of next year,” said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist at Global Insight, offering a forecast others share. That would be the highest unemployment rate since the deep recession of the early 1980s.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/business/26layoffs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

will show up sometime soon! But!

much of our income just to pay that mess off so if they think we are going to be buying anything we don't absolutely need any time soon they are crazy. Even Christmas.

The damage done by the past year of exorbitant gas prices will be long lasting and has all but destroyed our economy Families have been stretched to the max between filling up the family car to get back and forth to work, higher utility bills and the effect of high fuel on every consumer product we need to purchase. Between all those there is little left over to save or invest. Most have had to dip into savings to get by as of late. Jobs and homes are being lost at an alarming rate.We need to wake up and realize how much our dependence on foreign oil and our slavery to OPEC has hurt our economy. Just as gas prices have come down a tad OPEC is planning to cut production again. We have so much available to us between free energy such as wind and solar to technologies such as hybrid and electric plug in cars that it is just ridiculous to continue on the path we are on. The cost of charging and driving an electric car would be equal to paying 60 cents per gallon of gas. The problem is electric cars cost too much for the average Joe ( pun intended ) :) Our government tries to stimulate our economy by handing out 168 BILLION dollars in stimulus checks. How much good did that do our economy really? And now Bernake wants to hand out another stimulus check. Wouldn't it do us all more good if they would invest in making these technologies more affordable to us? Jeff Wilson just published a new book called THE MANHATTAN PROJECT OF 2009. Very interesting read. All of our elected officials need to read up on the subject of renewable energy and the impact of our dependence foreign oil on our society and economy.