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He's set to speak about quarter til, but he's always late.

Spain jobless rate surpasses 20 %

Unimaginable. I can't believe the people aren't rioting in the streets.

MADRID — Spain's jobless rate has surpassed 20 percent for the first time since 1997, the government said Friday as it offered more dismal news for a recession-plagued economy that is being dragged into Europe's debt crisis.

The National Statistics Institute said the rate rose 1.22 percentage points in the first quarter to 20.05 percent.

While other major economies in Europe and elsewhere have posted at least tepid growth as they fight to crawl out of recession, the eurozone's fourth-largest economy is still contracting after the collapse of a construction boom that had fueled years of expansion.

The agency said that as of the end of March, there were 4,612,700 people out of work in the country. The jobless rate is the highest since the last quarter of 1997, when it stood at 20.11 percent. Since Spain slipped into recession in 2008, the rate has roughly doubled, a dramatic development for a country that had been one of Europe's top job-creators.

Video- Fox & Friends Doocy says poll showing most believe recession is Bush's fault means people "bought into" Obama's argument

Oh that propagandizing Obama!! /shakes fist at sky

Audio- Limbaugh claims Obama is causing a recession on purpose

Some Death Panels Do Exist

By GottaLaff

This is utterly heartbreaking. I live near the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, always have. It's been a fixture, and I fully expected it would be around forever.

It is a cherished institution and has provided excellent care for countless luminaries, and many, many unknowns in "da biz". I'll let Robert J. Elisberg take it from here:

If one is truly concerned about institutional decisions that result in life and death, the below is the kind of situation where one's attention should be. Not the government, to be sure, but at one of the crown jewels of the private health care industry. And if it's happening here, it's impossible to not think it's happening all over. And therein lies the lesson.

The Motion Picture and Television Fund has announced it's closing health care for the renowned Motion Picture Home. Calling the board of directors a Death Panel might be a bit hyperbolic, to be sure. But after the first 15 residents were transferred out of the facility, five of them died within weeks -- in some cases, days.

You see, a facility like this is beyond a mere clinic, it is their home. When anyone moves from their home, it's emotionally painful. For the elderly, however, especially the most in need, those requiring long-term personal care, many in their 80s and 90s, it's a deeply traumatic experience. One bordering on life-or-death.

Since its first day, the motto of the MPTF has been "We Take Care of Our Own." Who'd have thought that this would one day sound like an order from a Mafia capo. [...]

As Richard Stellar told NPR about his 92-year-old mother, Mary: before full dementia took over "she felt she was back at the movie studio where she worked as a secretary for so many years, and it made her really happy to be there."

So it was with the 79 Long Term Care residents, and the 26 residents of the Alzheimer's unit.

This was their village. It was guaranteed. "We Take Care of Our Own."

Until they were sent pre-eviction notices. [...]

Without question, economic times are bad. But it would seem that a fund that made it through the Great Depression and has as its motto, "We Take Care of Our Own" would find options. After all, if one studio alone can figure out a way to spend $100 million making "Land of the Lost," you'd think that industry-wide fund could figure out how to keep open a facility for those who actually would be lost without it.

In some ways, the issue is at the heart of the demand for health care change in America. When left to private industry or charity, the requirements are overwhelming the needs. Something is deeply amiss in health care when a community of our most needy are evicted from their health care homes, whatever the reasons.

But if one is truly insistent on finding Death Panels, they're not hard to find. All you have to do is look where they actually exist.

They might exist against good intentions and better efforts, but the result is the same. They exist.

Please go read the whole thing.

H/t: David G.

Payrolls drop by just 247,000; jobless rate dip to 9.4%, sign of slump ending

My kind of breaking news. I love the way Joe Doucheborough just sounded befuddled at this.

WASHINGTON - Employers throttled back on layoffs in July, cutting just 247,000 jobs, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.4 percent. It was a better than expected showing that offered a strong signal that the recession is finally ending.

The Labor Department's report was better than many analysts were expecting. They were forecasting job losses to slow to around 320,000 and the unemployment rate to tick up to 9.6 percent, from 9.5 percent in June.

Economy Watch-- AP Investigation: Main Street's soaring sour loans

By GottaLaff

I posted this a few days ago. I continue to hear the same thing over and over again, that there may be upticks, but we're in it for the longer haul. Here's the latest:

As the effects of the economic collapse began pouring down Main Street, the government last year was left holding a record $2.1 billion in write-offs of small business loans it had guaranteed. Officials expect the number of defaults to rise as the nation continues to climb out of the recession.

Records obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act show the public is paying to offset bank losses on small business loans across the country, from a convenience store in the tiny Canadian border town of Houlton, Maine, to a graphic arts design company on the island of Hawaii, more than 5,000 miles away.

Despite having loans written off, little companies such as Caffe Sportivo, an espresso shop and small gym in Redwood City, Calif., are barely scraping by. [...]

It's a sign that even as record profits re-emerge on Wall Street, thanks to massive government loans and guarantees for banks deemed too big to fail, the pain on Main Street is as profound as it's been in half a century. The companies that were not too big to fail are failing.

Their plight is a shift from previous recessions when small business bounced back ahead of big employers, said Todd McCracken, president of the lobby group National Small Business Association.

"This could be the first economic recovery we've seen in a long time that hits small business the hardest the longest," he said.

Much more here. Heavy sigh.

AUDIO-- Boss Limbaugh: "There’s supposedly a recession...Just don't participate"

By GottaLaff



Boss Limbaugh finds humor in Americans doing things like, oh I dunno, suffering through foreclosures, unemployment, starvation... Isn't that hilarious? Are we slapping our knees and guffawing yet?

Last night, Rush Limbaugh came to Washington, D.C. to address the President’s Club Dinner, a meeting of wealthy donors and supporters of the Heritage Foundation. The audience included Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), as well as various millionaire trustees of the Heritage Foundation, like Thomas Saunders. [...]

As he continued to gloat about his show’s success, Limbaugh mocked the idea that Americans are suffering, noting, “I’ve never had financially a down year” despite the “supposed” recession:

LIMBAUGH: But during all this growth I haven’t lost any audience. I’ve never had financially a down year. There’s supposedly a recession, but we’ve got - what is this May? Back in February we already had 102% of 2008 overbooked for 2009. [applause] So I always believed that if we’re going to have a recession, just don’t participate. [laughter]

Apparently his audience is just as unhinged as he is. Mocking mass misery is the tone-deaf Rushpublics' favorite pastime, quite the little diversion from reality.

And how about that Justice Thomas, folks? Once he takes off those robes, he really knows how to loosen up and have a good laugh, doesn't he?

The punch line: Sociopaths like these are currently condemning President Obama for holding his Supreme pick to an empathy standard.

Jim Cramer: "We are done with the depression"

By GottaLaff

Jim Cramer, on Hardball just now, came right out and said without reservation:

"We are done with the depression... It's just over!"

Dr. Ravi Batra begs to differ.

Oh, wait. What's that? Cramer just amended his statement:

"I said we were out of the depression. We're not out of the recession. I don't want to take that off the table... We're no longer in a 1929 scenario."

Glad he cleared that right up. Go for it, Jon Stewart. Make our day.

"60 Minutes" VIDEOS-- Bernanke: 2010 will be the year of recovery

By GottaLaff

Ben Bernanke says we've averted another Great Depression. Here's the interview from 60 Minutes:

Part One:


Part Two:

What Sells in a Recession: Canned Goods and Condoms

Makes sense to me.

What's the last thing people want in a recession? More kids, apparently. According to data-tracking firm the Nielsen Co., dollar sales of products in the "family planning" category, which include condoms and over-the-counter female contraceptives, were up 10.2% for the first two months of this year. Unit sales were up 1.5%, which indicates that consumers are willing to pay higher prices today to prevent crib expenses tomorrow.

(snip)

So what's outperforming on the shelves? A catch-all category called "seasonal general merchandise," which contains thawing salt, body warmers and gift packages with candy, was tops, with a 32% rise. Analysts explain this jump by pointing to the unusually cold and snowy winter, plus the folks who traded down their Valentine's Day purchases from fancy dinners and jewelry to smaller-ticket gift packages. Unit sales for canning and freezing supplies like jars, bags and containers were up 11.5% during the eight weeks ending on Feb. 21, making them the second best-performing category on Nielsen's list. This suggests that consumers are trying to increase the shelf life of their food purchases so they don't have to head back to the store.

Robert Reich's warning: Populist rightie rage is building

By GottaLaff

Rightie Rushpublican Rage: RRR. It seems to be building as the economy worsens, says Robert Reich (Two more Rs. This is getting redundant. Oops, there's another one).

So why all that RRR? Come on, you know the answer: The Obama Recession. That was pretty much smashed to smithereens here, but the RRR is growing anyway. Reich:

The argument that Obama is somehow responsible for the collapse of Wall Street is absurd. First, every major policy that led to this collapse occurred under George W.'s watch (or, more accurately, his failure to watch). The housing and financial bubbles were created under Bush and exploded under Bush. The stock market began to collapse under Bush.

Second, it's inevitable that stocks, led by the bloated financial sector, would lose their remaining hot air as the new administration begins "stress-testing" the big banks, many of which are technically insolvent. [...]

Finally, none of the financial wizards who are now charging Obama with leading America into the abyss have offered an alternative plan for getting us out of the mess that, not incidentally, many of these same wizards happily led us into. For years, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the financial gurus of cable news cheered as Wall Street leveraged its way into oblivion.

Republicans have made no secret of their wish to blame Obama for the bad economy, and to stir up as much populist rage against his so-called socialist tendencies as politically possible. History shows how effective demagogic ravings can be when a public is stressed economically. Make no mistake: Angry right-wing populism lurks just below the surface of the terrible American economy, ready to be launched not only at Obama but also at liberals, intellectuals, gays, blacks, Jews, the mainstream media, coastal elites, crypto socialists, and any other potential target of paranoid opportunity.

Just thought I'd brighten your day. Want some more good cheer? Then by all means, read this, which will take you to this. Let me know when you're done.

...

...

Finished? Good. Sorry to put you through such torture. One more thing:

Aren't you extremely glad we're not like them?

H/t: Hippie Cyndi

It's Bush's Recession, Bush's Stock Market

By GottaLaff

The L.A. Times did a piece on this today. A few excerpts:

Obama's critics also conveniently forget to mention that the U.S. stock market meltdown this year isn't happening in isolation. Major European stock markets also are down more than 20% since Jan. 1. In Japan, the Nikkei index hit a 26 1/2 -year low this week.

What's more, Obama isn't responsible for the cascade of securities-fraud cases that have come to light since December, when the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Wall Street veteran Bernie Madoff with running a $50-billion Ponzi scheme. [...]

Since Obama took office, the S&P 500 is down 20%. By contrast, the index jumped 34% in the first seven weeks after FDR was sworn in.

But it isn't a fair comparison. By the time Roosevelt came to power, the Great Depression and the accompanying stock market collapse were three years along.

And The Motley Moose lays it out in a way even Rushpublicans can understand:

It is time to push back against the claims being tossed out there by the Right and the investor class.

#1: The stock market is not the economy. It is only one indicator of how the economy is doing and not a very good indicator at that, since it is driven so much by emotions and the gambling instinct.

#2: This is not Obama's market. The market started to tank long before Obama was even considered a realistic candidate by most people. The movement since Obama took office is only a continuation of the current trend on the market.

#3: Economic policies aren't the major force on the market, yet. The biggest problem for the market is the global economy. It is still unknown how much the financial firms will lose from their lousy investments.

#4: The economy under G. W. Bush was inflated by easy credit. Now that home equity has been wiped out and credit card debt is difficult and expensive the average person has little money to invest. What little they do have sure isn't going to go into a falling stock market.

#5: The investor class has taken a huge hit from the Bush recession (depression?). They have also been taking hits from fraudulent investments like the Maddof fund or Stanford's fund. They are justifiably leery of investing at this time.

It is really quite simple. This is George W. Bush's bear market, just as it is his recession. The market won't reverse course until the economic factors that are driving its downward trend start to reverse. The change to a new bull market won't be driven by any policies or announcements by Barack Obama. The market wouldn't reverse tomorrow even if Obama announced a 100% reduction in corporate taxes. The fundamentals just aren't there. [...]

Don't let the Right own this argument. Push back every chance you get.

Clear? Clear.

The Chart

Good lord. Via Think Progress.

In February, employers cut 651,000 jobs , and the national unemployment rate soared to 8.1 percent — the worst since December 1983. The Gavel provides a graph comparing recent job losses to the 1990-1991 and 2001 recessions, showing just how dire the economic situation is today:

By comparison, we lost a total of 1.6 million jobs in the 1990-1991 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing; and we lost a total of 2.7 million jobs in the 2001 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing.

Sneak Peak at NBC/WSJ poll

Republican Epic Fail. Wow, they (and the media) are totally out of the loop.

From NBC's Mark Murray
Here's one set of numbers we're releasing before the entire NBC/WSJ poll comes out at 6:30 pm ET: By a 48-20 percent margin, Americans believe the Democratic Party would do a better job of getting the U.S. out of recession than the Republican Party.

When this same question was asked back in 1990, the public was essentially split. In an October 1990 poll, 36 percent said Republicans would do a better job, versus 31 percent who picked the Democrats. And in December of that year, an equal number -- 33 percent -- sided with the Democrats and Republicans.

Frank Rich: What We Don’t Know Will Hurt Us

By GottaLaff

Brace yourselves:

“I don’t want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic problems,” the president said on Tuesday at the signing ceremony in Denver. He added, hopefully: “But today does mark the beginning of the end.”

Does it?

No one knows, of course, but a bigger question may be whether we really want to know. One of the most persistent cultural tics of the early 21st century is Americans’ reluctance to absorb, let alone prepare for, bad news. We are plugged into more information sources than anyone could have imagined even 15 years ago. The cruel ambush of 9/11 supposedly “changed everything,” slapping us back to reality. Yet we are constantly shocked, shocked by the foreseeable. Obama’s toughest political problem may not be coping with the increasingly marginalized G.O.P. but with an America-in-denial that must hear warning signs repeatedly, for months and sometimes years, before believing the wolf is actually at the door. [...]

This cultural pattern of denial is hardly limited to the economic crisis. Anyone with eyes could have seen that Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire resembled Macy’s parade balloons in their 1998 home-run derby, but it took years for many fans (not to mention Major League Baseball) to accept the sorry truth. It wasn’t until the Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame saga caught fire in summer 2003, months after “Mission Accomplished,” that we began to confront the reality that we had gone to war in Iraq over imaginary W.M.D. Weapons inspectors and even some journalists (especially at Knight-Ridder newspapers) had been telling us exactly that for almost a year. [...]

[T]he notion that torture was official American policy didn’t start to sink in until after the Abu Ghraib photos emerged in April 2004. [...]

Steroids, torture, lies from the White House, civil war in Iraq, even recession: that’s just a partial glossary of the bad-news vocabulary that some of the country, sometimes in tandem with a passive news media, resisted for months on end before bowing to the obvious or the inevitable. [...]

For all the gloomy headlines we’ve absorbed since the fall, we still can’t quite accept the full depth of our economic abyss either. Nicole Gelinas, a financial analyst at the conservative Manhattan Institute, sees denial at play over a wide swath of America, reaching from the loftiest economic strata of Wall Street to the foreclosure-decimated boom developments in the Sun Belt. [...]

In states like Nevada, Florida and Arizona, Gelinas sees “huge neighborhoods that will become ghettos” as half their populations lose or abandon their homes, with an attendant collapse of public services and social order. “It will be like after Katrina,” she says, “but it’s no longer just the Lower Ninth Ward’s problem.” Writing in the current issue of The Atlantic, the urban theorist Richard Florida suggests we could be seeing “the end of a whole way of life.” The link between the American dream and home ownership, fostered by years of bipartisan public policy, may be irreparably broken. [...]

Pity our new president. As he rolls out one recovery package after another, he can’t know for sure what will work. If he tells the whole story of what might be around the corner, he risks instilling fear itself among Americans who are already panicked. [...] But if the president airbrushes the picture too much, the country could be as angry about ensuing calamities as it was when the Bush administration’s repeated assertion of “success” in Iraq proved a sham. Managing America’s future shock is a task that will call for every last ounce of Obama’s brains, temperament and oratorical gifts. [...]

Nationalization would likely mean wiping out the big banks’ managements and shareholders. It’s because that reckoning has mostly been avoided so far that those bankers may be the Americans in the greatest denial of all. Wall Street’s last barons still seem to believe that they can hang on to their old culture by scuttling corporate jets, rejecting bonuses or sounding contrite in public. [...]

We are now waiting to learn if Obama’s economic team, much of it drawn from the Wonderful World of Citi and Goldman Sachs, will have the will to make its own former cohort face the truth. But at a certain point, as in every other turn of our culture of denial, outside events will force the recognition of harsh realities. Nationalization, unmentionable only yesterday, has entered common usage not least because an even scarier word — depression — is next on America’s list to avoid.

No wealth creation at all since 2001

By GottaLaff

Who was president from 2001-2008 again? Oh yeah...

The borrow and spend decade.

Paul Krugman: "Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households. The bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium: the net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001."

But remember: It's the Obama Recession. Bush was just a passive observer of the events that befell him.

Pre-depression depression

By GottaLaff

Let's get that recovery package going, okay?

(via)

(click on image to enlarge)

Postmaster General: Mail delivery may be cut by one day

By GottaLaff

Through rain or snow or sleet or hail, but not through a recession:

Postmaster General John Potter says the massive deficits facing the post office could force the agency to cut out one day of mail delivery per week.

Look at the bright side: That's one less day to receive bills.

The ones I really pity are the dogs. Curtailing action-packed, barky fun makes Fido a bored pup. Woof.

Rainbow Room to close restaurant, citing economy

By GottaLaff

I hate to see these venerable businesses shutter, one by one-- or in the case of our Big Recession-- 12 by 12, at the very least:

The recession has reached the ritzy Rainbow Room, the special-occasion spot that overlooks midtown Manhattan from high above the tourist-attracting Rockefeller Center skating rink.

With business slowing and an ongoing lease dispute, the venue's Italian-themed Rainbow Grill restaurant plans to shutter as of Jan. 12, a spokesman said Saturday. Its bar, banquet space and the weekend dinner-dancing sessions that reflect its glamorous history will continue on the 65th floor. [...]

The Rainbow Room has symbolized cosmopolitan elegance since it opened in 1934, during the Great Depression. It is located above NBC's studios at Rockefeller Center, offering Art Deco ambiance and glittering vistas of the city skyline.

Generations of celebrities have performed and partied there. Frank Sinatra once showed up on the same night as Bob Dylan. Famously unruly Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards even donned a tie to see a Marianne Faithfull show there.

The venue's periodic dinner and dancing nights still call for suits and dresses — if not tuxedos and evening gowns — and feature a big-band orchestra.

There are no plans to convert the space, and it's unclear how long it will remain closed.

I've never been there, but it's still like saying good-bye to an old friend.