Bloody Monday: Over 68,000 jobs lost

[sabra]

Source: CNN Money

Six companies announce massive job cuts in a scary start to the week.


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The final week of January began with a bloodbath for the job market, as over 68,000 more cuts were announced on Monday alone.

At least six companies from manufacturing and service industries announced cost-cutting initiatives that included slashing thousands of jobs.

More than 200,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year, according to company reports. Nearly 2.6 million jobs were lost over 2008, the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945.

"It's all about the consumer, and the consumer's been hit hard," said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. "It's a vicious circle as weakness begets layoffs, which beget more spending weakness."

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/26/news/economy/job_cuts/index.htm

[driver8]

1. When does our "recession" become a "depression"??

I'm depressed, already!!

[my2sense]

I think we've arrived

[Warpy]

4. Not quite. I'm sticking to March as the obvious date

I always define a recession as having no money to buy anything.

A depression is when there's noplace left to buy it.

[Xithras]

17. We're not close to a depression yet.

A recession happens when GDP declines for two quarters in a row. A depression happens when overall GDP declines by 10% or more. We've got a long way to go before we hit that mark.

I remember asking my grandfather during the early 1990's recession whether we were going into a depression. His response? "You'll know you're in a real depression when nobody has to ask whether you're in a depression. If you have to ask, you aren't in one."

[catrose]

20. In economics class, the teacher said

"A recession is when you don't have a job. A depression is when I don't have a job."

I knew there had to be more to it than that. (He did mention the 2 quarters' decline for a recession.)

[PassingFair]

29. Come here and ask...

It is spreading from the manufacturing base
to the rest of the country, but it IS here.

[alllyingwhores]

21. I know, let's create a trillion dollar stimulus package with most of the money going toward...

...tax cuts for everyone LOSING THEIR F__KING JOBS!

Seriously, WTF is he thinking about?. Tax cuts won't do shit in what's obviously a borderline depression. Tax cuts may work in milder recessions--but this is obviously much, much, worse.

What happened to the WPA idea of creating millions of new jobs rebuilding the infrastructure and creating new energy technologies??--so, at least when we give all of our future generation's money away we'll have something tangible left--even after all of the f__king lobbyist siphon off half of it for their greedy whorish clients.

[sarcasmo]

32. Soon, Obama is President, look for that word to be spoken this summer by the MSM.

Just my prediction.

[90-percent]

2. Nothing

Nothing another tax cut for the wealthiest 1/10 of 1% won't fix.

-90% Jimmy

[shraby]

3. What did they do? Hold off until * left office so

it could be attributed to Obama?

[kentauros]

5. That's how it's looking to me.

[man4allcats]

7. Everyone knows it's all the bickhead's fault.

"Bickhead?" That's "Bush the dickhead." I might have coined a new term. :7

[Deja Q]

18. Except for two things:

1. Jobs were hemorrhaging before January 20, 2009

2. Way too tinfoil, your theory

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

22. Believe what you want, but I think the big Cooperate CEO's held on because of the election

Remember all those big job losses are from giant Republican / Bush supporters.

[Dreamer Tatum]

27. Horseshit

Five elements are in alignment:

1. Employers resort to layoffs last, not first;
2. We are one month removed from Christmas, yet not too far into the first quarter, so that charges to income can be stated quickly;
3. Jobs have been lost for MONTHS now;
4. Many employers were waiting to see what the effect of TARP and stimulus would be;
5. Capital markets are even more frozen now than they were six months ago.

That's JUST five, each of which is more plausible than the stupid-assed view that boards and CEOs are in a bad mood because
Obama won.

[Skink]

6. Tuesday's just as bad.

Wednesday's worse....

[KillCapitalism]

8. 1933 unemployment levels, here we come. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

9. Look, why don't we just take over these companies, put people back to work and

get on with it? Doesn't have to be communism. Just worker-owned co-ops. I'd bet money that the janitors and cleaning women in most U.S. corporations could do a better job of running the business than any of the CEOs and COOs currently in charge. They don't understand the basic wisdom of even one of their own kind--Henry Ford. You cannot sell things if most people cannot buy them. You have to EMPLOY people. Lots of people. You have to pay them well--even if it cuts your profits. You have to CIRCULATE THE WEALTH.

It is NOT "all about the consumer," as this idiotic "chief economist of Fact and Opinion Economics" alleges. It's all about THE WORKER. And it's also about THE EMPLOYER, and fuckwad profiteer attitudes like we're seen over the last forty years, whose purpose is to LOOT the wealth, not to CIRCULATE it. Because if they circulate it, they don't get it ALL.

So, you know, can we just fire this class of incompetent criminals who are pretending to run businesses? Make them be the janitors and housekeepers, and let the people who actually know how things work run the businesses.

[Moostache]

15. Kudos...I agree for the most part...

Except I think the criminals in charge now, the ass-munches like "$1,400-trashcan-Thain" (ex-CEO of Merril) and "$100 sale of $13.7M property to my wife to avoid being sued Fuld" (ex-CEO of Lehman) do not deserve to have a place in ANY business EVER again.

These people and their ilk - the ones who manufactured, executed and paid for this economic crash - and especially their financial backers in the back rooms and shadow government - all deserve to be brought low by the courts, punitively sued to pauper-status and restricted from ever again working in finance.

Two random things come to mind -

1) if pedophiles are treated as life-long pariahs; and are forced to register as sex-offenders AND announce their presence everywhere they go for the rest of their lives, then why the fuck aren't financial criminals of the last 8-years required to at least be held to account in some manner? They too should be forced to register as Financial Offenders and be placed under strict court supervision (and serve extended federal prison time in pound-you-in-the-ass prisons instead of white-collar executive country club prisons...

and

2) if these same cockroaches are allowed to keep ANY of the ill-gotten gains of the last decade (based on fictitious and illusory "profits" from trumped up balance sheets and risky gambles that lost but STILL paid out to their taskmasters), then justice in America is a dead concept and vigilantism is justified as a method of returning justice and society to an even keel (we are currently listing badly and taking on water by the head and an immediate remedy is needed).

There simply MUST be consequences for their behavior - either enforced by the courts or by the mob; but, one way or another, there is no way that the rape of so many and the theft of so much by so few can go unadressed forever. As the economy continues south, these 'men' - I am loathe to even accord them that much decency - the "masters of the universe", the Wall Street Whiz-kids, the barons of finance, will either be offered up as sacrificial lambs or they will be hunted down like the common rat-fuck criminals they are...but what they should not be given is a janitorial job that any number of real hard working and deserving people would be able to do and do better anyway...

[Peace Patriot]

33. How about cleaning bedpans in Veterans' hospitals?

That was my favorite fantasy punishment for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. With electronic thingees on their ankles, and constant surveillance.

They might not be too safe, though, in Veterans' hospitals. Even gravely wounded vets have more courage in whatever body parts they have left, than could be found in the entirety of the Bushwack government, so I'm not sure we could guarantee continued life--and continued punishment and recompense--for that crew. And I would want it to continue.

As for the financial ratfuckers, I stand corrected. Jobs as janitors and maids--even if the janitors and maids were raised to CEO--is, well, an insult to janitors and maids, for one thing, and the Jaguar crowd would be lousy at it, for sure, resulting in garbage and health hazards everywhere. I didn't mean to insult anyone. I've been a housekeeper myself. I only meant to point out the Mt. Everest-sized discrepancy in competence and salary. The ratfuckers should be getting $8 an hour, and the people who actually work, and create all the wealth--with their know-how, their smarts and their altruism--should be running things.

I've read a story--sorry, I don't have a url handy--about when Argentine got "shocked and awed" a few years ago, and factories and businesses were simply abandoned by their owners--of the workers taking the business over, and keeping it going--successfully. Examples were a tile factory, and a hotel. The ratfucking banks and financial barricudas tried to stop them. They prefer idle businesses! But I think the workers held on, and eventually triumphed. Not sure of their most recent status. One of the things that happened is that LEFTISTS were elected to run the government--Nestor Kirchner, and recently (when his term limit kicked in), his wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. And they would be likely to have helped resolve any legal issues.

But anyway, the story stayed in my head. Never thought WE would be in that spot. And here we are. Goods and services cannot be moved, because the financial scum prefer idle businesses. Probably to break the back of the work force, and kill good wages and benefits, pensions, Social Security and whatever else they can kill (as they did in Argentina).

Argentina recovered, by the way--with a strong leftist government, and some help from Venezuela (easy term loans, so Argentina could pay off its onerous World Bank/IMF debt; barters, like oil for beef, etc.--the seed of the Bank of the South--regional control of development financing, with social justice goals).

But the Bushwhacks* have arranged things so that there is no bailout for us, and no friends to bail us out, even if it could be done. And it's no wonder that they hate Hugo Chavez with a hatred bordering on psychosis, for his wise and progressive policy of helping his neighbors and seeing to the general economic welfare of the region. It's not just his 60% approval rating, and Venezuela's honest elections, and the Chavez government's socking away $40 billion in international cash reserves for a rainy day (meaning Venezuela will land on its feet, social programs in tact), that they hate him for. And they don't just stoke up hatred for him in a phony way, because they have bloody designs on Venezuela's oil. No, the hatred is genuine, and it's because he believes in fairness, and, what is more, has taken effective action to achieve it.

Above all, they don't want fairness. And they're willing to shut down the United States of America to keep it from ever gaining a foothold here again.

--------------


*(And it's not just the Bushwhacks. It's the Wall Street Journal. It's The Economist. It's the Washington Post. It's the New York Times. And brethren. And it's the DLC and their ilk, the "Blue Dog" Democrats. (You know who was the biggest "Blue Dog" of them all? Gary Condit.) They all hate, loathe, revile and constantly lie about Hugo Chavez, because they are in mortal fear of We, the People, in the north, getting any idea that government should serve us, and not the Super-rich.)

[AngryOldDem]

10. I don't think I'll see a true end to this mess in my lifetime.

At least not for the rest of my working life, anyway.

[llmart]

30. Me too.....

except for the rest of my working life ended sooner than I expected:)

[lazyriver]

11. How about tax penalties on all new corporate jets, re-decorations,

and other unnecessary excessive corporate spending and tax incentives for being frugal and keeping jobs?

My sister works for a pharm company that recently cut jobs to save money while redecorating all their conference rooms, executive offices and lobby with brand new (and very expensive) furniture (cherry mahogany & leather). She said they just announced at a recent department managers' meeting (while the managers were seated at the beautiful new conference table on the fine leather chairs) that more job cuts were likely in Q-1.

This shit has to stop.

[MilesColtrane]

12. That's on pace toward 3.5 million jobs lost by the end of the year.

So we're maybe looking at a 10%-12% national unemployment rate if things don't get any worse.

Those are Reagan era numbers.

Looks like the military won't have to reinstitute the draft to get their numbers back up. A lot of people will enlist just to get three squares a day.

[Pale Blue Dot]

14. I think it will be worse than that. I think it may be FAR worse.

This has been accelerating and there's nothing I can see that's going to slow it down.

[MilesColtrane]

16. Yup, once this thing starts rolling...

...it's going to be hard to reverse it.

People w/no jobs=no money to spend.
Nobody buys anything, so businesses revenue starts declining, so they fire more employees.
Rinse, repeat.

I was just thinking how, this time will be different from the Great Depression in that, people won't lose their life savings when the banks start failing thanks to the FDIC.
Only problem is that nobody HAS any savings this time around.

[alllyingwhores]

23. No...everyone will just lose their 401k money--which is where we were all convinced...

...was the best place to put what money we had to save.

[tclambert]

19. 10.2% in Michigan already.

Pretty soon the illegal immigrants are gonna head home 'cause they can't find work.

[llmart]

31. Pretty soon......

picking produce is going to look mighty good to some Michiganders.

[kenfrequed]

13. honesty

This feels like a bunch of corporations that owed Bush favors decided to hold off until after the inaugeration to dump the stats on Obamas doorstep.

Dirty Corporate bastards.

[jonmiller74]

24. latest figure 71,400 jobs lost on monday, link below

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/26/news/economy/job_cuts/index.htm

[Haole Girl]

26. It's awful

:-(

[CANDO]

25. I watched "The Grapes of Wrath" Saturday night.

Deja vu?

[Lorien]

28. Yep. My neighbor just had his hours cut in half today. He's panicking

a bit, but it sounds like he's one of the lucky ones. Most of his coworkers got pink slips. :-(