Dollars & Sense: Global Growth Is At Virtual Halt

[marmar]

Global Growth Is At Virtual Halt
by Dollars and Sense

From the International Herald Tribune

Around the world, a bleak jobs picture

Jobs are drying up around the world as the global economy enters its first overall downturn since the Great Depression, provoking social unrest in Europe and Asia along with calls to protect local workers from foreign competition.

From lawyers in Paris to kitchen workers in Taiwan and bodyguards in Colombia, the ranks of the jobless are swelling rapidly as even once fast-growing economies fall victim to a cascading global slowdown that has already claimed 3.6 million American jobs and millions more elsewhere.

From December 2007, when the recession began in the United States, to the end of 2009, worldwide job losses could hit a staggering 50 million, according to the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency based in Geneva.

High unemployment rates, especially among the youngest in the work force, have led to riots in Latvia, Lithuania, Greece and Bulgaria and contributed to major protests in Britain and France.

Meanwhile, as in Washington, stimulus packages elsewhere include protections for domestic companies, increasing the likelihood of protectionist trade battles.

"Nearly everybody has been caught by surprise at the speed in which unemployment is increasing, and are groping for a response," said Nicolas Véron, a fellow at Bruegel, a research center in Brussels that focuses on Europe's place in the global economy. "Until fairly recently, unemployment was not the biggest issue in Europe but it is now No. 1 and it will dominate the agenda."

While the number of jobs in the United States has been falling since the end of 2007, layoffs in Europe, Asia and the developing world have caught up only recently as companies that resisted deep cuts in the past follow the lead of their American counterparts.

"This is the worst we've had since 1929," said Laurent Wauquiez, France's employment minister. "The thing that is new is that it is global, and we are always talking about that. It is in every country, and it makes the whole difference."

According to the International Monetary Fund, global growth has come to "a virtual halt," with developed economies expected to shrink by 2 percent in 2009, the worst performance since the 1930s. Many other experts predict that worldwide economic activity will actually fall this year.

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/blog/2009/02/global-growth-is-at-virtual-halt.html

[izquierdista]

1. Ain't globalism wonderful!

Capitalism ALWAYS busts after a boom. This time EVERYONE gets to share in the misery.

Or maybe not. I wonder how the economy is treating the Kombai and the Mek in the jungles of New Guinea?

[opihimoimoi]

2. THANKs to BUSH it is.....his policies and decisions led to this mess....sort of sent it over the top

he did...

The uber rich backed up Bush to the point of nausea

They still want the deal to continue...hence the fierce attack on Obama by the Pubs and their Media....CNN, FOX, and some on MSNBC

They even said NO to the LifeLine Stim Bill....

In doing so...they complicate things just when we should be doing KISS...keep it simple stupid...

They do themselves evil...

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Smirk - Sneer." - xCommander AWOL & xVP Dickie 'Five Deferments' Cheney (R)

[opihimoimoi]

6. 2 spooky MFKrs who would stop a train with their evilness

[Callalily]

3. Yes, lean times

for everyone. So sad.

[KharmaTrain]

4. "Nearly Everyone Was Caught By Surprise"...

...and we all believed in magic fairies as well. What a pile of horseshit on a stick!

Paul Krugman won a Nobel Prize warning of the collapse that is occuring. Anyone who didn't have $$$$ in their eyes saw the massive debts building up, the many bubbles that turned the markets into gambling casinos and the growing imbalance of industry to service and could see how quickly this deck of cards would come down.

I've long said that without Americans consuming, the world halts. It was in the interest of China to keep us happy as we kept their factories busy and that kept the people off the streets. Thus they bought up debt. If you think we've got a ton of junk on our hands, the Chinese probably have enough to float one hell of a good size navy.

The sharp rise in oil prices (fueled by one last attempt to create a bubble to cover debts and losses) followed by the implosion of international markets have frozen credit and capital...without the money flowing, the machine, globally came to a halt. What surprise is there in that?