Record job losses

[msmith198025]

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5303F820090401

[HDRoberts]

You see why I chose my avatar.

[msmith198025]

Yeah.
Sadly, we added a few to that number last month

[Bob Haller]

its really bad.

[vurbano]

yeah theres a soup line out my window.

[Bob Haller]

U.S. private sector axes 742,000 jobs in March

verb have a little compassion, not everyone has a government job like you

[vurbano]

Its a boom time for engineers here. Public or private. I was recommended by our director here to a headhunter the other day for a 95K job.

[Madtown HD Junkie]

It was sure a big numer this week.

[Carl]

its really bad.

It sure is. They need to let Obama fix Bush's mess.
The GOP had their chance and ruined it.

[fallout2600]

Its a boom time for engineers here. Public or private. I was recommended by our director here to a headhunter the other day for a 95K job.

I hear ya'. I just got my house appraised in Louisiana of all places and it increased 17K in value. This "crisis" is limited to several states, not the entire USA.

[Carl]

then you 2 are lucky. they are people getting booted out of even rentals here in Chicago, who have done nothing but pay the bum landlords.

[fallout2600]

That sucks. So, Carl, you a Cubs or White Sox fan?

[HDRoberts]

Yep, that's one of the biggest problems I see with this country right now. So much segmentation by geography. The economy is great in some areas, craptastic in others. $100k a year is big bucks in middle America, but a low wage in the business centers of New York, LA, San Fran, and others. Something needs to be done to even it out.

[fallout2600]

Something needs to be done to even it out.

Socialism.

[HDRoberts]

Socialism.

Um, I'm taking about the geographic irregularity, not demographic.

As a supply side economist likes to say, a rising tide floats all boats. That should be the case, but now, frequently, the rising tide only floats boats on the coasts.

[fallout2600]

Sounded like you hinting at trying to even out the cost of living in different areas.

[HDRoberts]

Sounded like you hinting at trying to even out the cost of living in different areas.

And what's wrong with that? To me, it stands as a huge barrier to our progressive tax system. How can you fairly tax someone in NYC and someone in Iowa who both make $100k? Even a flat tax is unfair to the guy in NYC.

All I'm saying is the health of our economy should be measured by how the worst region is doing, not the best.

[msmith198025]

The person in NY can move to Iowa:thumbup: Problem solved:)

[vurbano]

then you 2 are lucky. they are people getting booted out of even rentals here in Chicago, who have done nothing but pay the bum landlords.Why would anyone live in that loser place? Same for Detroit. If I lived there I'd start hitch hiking.

[fallout2600]

The person in NY can move to Iowa:thumbup: Problem solved:)

:thumbup::thumbup:

You beat me to the punch!!!

[Carl]

Why would anyone live in that loser place? Same for Detroit. If I lived there I'd start hitch hiking.

Chicago is great. It is home to our great president:)

I will agree with you on Detroit. it is a pit.

[HDRoberts]

Why would anyone live in that loser place? Same for Detroit. If I lived there I'd start hitch hiking.

Shockingly enough, it costs big bucks to move cites for many.

[vurbano]

its up to 8.5%. Obama is failing miserably.

[Carl]

Obam did not make this mess. Bush did. Obama is stuck with it and trying to clean it up.

[fallout2600]

Obam did not make this mess. Bush did. Obama is stuck with it and trying to clean it up.

The problems go beyound just Bush:


So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/09/the_bailout_and_the_elite.cfm), the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:



The Federal Reserve (http://www.business.cch.com/bankingfinance/focus/news/Subprime_WP_rev.pdf), which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.


Home buyers (http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1824), who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.


Congress (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d051009sp.pdf), which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.


Real estate agents (http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1824), most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.


The Clinton administration (http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/clinton-rejects-blame-for-financial-crisis-2008-09-25.html), which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.


Mortgage brokers (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec08/econtrouble_08-20.html), who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.


Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan (http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2004/20040223/), who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.


Wall Street firms (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec08/econtrouble_08-20.html), who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.


The Bush administration (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/20/business/prexy.php), which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.


An obscure accounting rule (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/07/mark_to_market.html) called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.


Collective delusion (http://www.business.cch.com/bankingfinance/focus/news/Subprime_WP_rev.pdf), or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.


The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) the crisis is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html