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Edited on Mon Jun-14-10 10:41 PM by jtuck004
no stinkin' credentials to realize the lost income from 31 million unemployed and underemployed people and the continuing increase in those that have been unemployed for 6 months or longer. Tens of thousands of people have seen their 50, 60, 80 thousand dollars a year jobs disappear only to be offered 20 and 30 thousand dollar a year jobs. That has had a devastating effect on the taxes that used to pay for teachers, fire protection, police and other municipal and state services. Many 5 and 10 year ARMs come up for reset in October to February (public record). Manufacturing's contribution to GNP has been halved over the past 20 years, replaced by the finance industry and the movement of wealth to a smaller and smaller percentage of people. It's a matter of public record that we need about 125,000 jobs each month just to stay even, yet months like May (more or less an average of this entire year so far) where private industry only created about 30 or 40 thousand simply keep us in or dig us deeper in the big hole we are already in. It's public record that people with $25,000 a year income or less are suffering from unemployment rates of 20 to 30%. And corporations such as Coke are reporting profits not from domestic sales but from sales overseas. Foreclosures have increased to record levels. A dozen state governments are unable to pay their bills (not to mention scores of municipalities) because tax revenues have simply dropped off a cliff.
With the advent of government assistance for food breadlines have all but gone away, but I can tell you the food banks are handing out food like never before, and state workers are reporting that thousands upon thousands of new people are applying for aid for food and heating assistance.
And now Obama wants 50 billion to help unions keep people employed. (Ignoring the other 30 million, perhaps?). Not more taxes from the 15% of people with 85% of the wealth (public information), no plan to assist private industry in creating more jobs to pay those taxes. Just write a check from the account.
The point is that we are in serious economic trouble, there is more coming, and there really is no light at the end of the tunnel, no plan, no real answers.
One doesn't need an economics degree to interpret this. Maybe leaving it up to people who are convinced that an economics degree is necessary to figure things out is where the problem is.
Maybe the reason your posts aren't in this forum any more is because there is nothing else to add, no other way to do this math?
I realize it might be pointless to you, but some of us enjoy getting the data (it's really hard to get a handle on the entirety of what's out there these days) and maybe, just maybe, it might motivate people to call their elected officials and insist that they pay a little more attention to jobs?
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