The American Economy and Labor Market are Completely Dead in the Oil

Editorial Notes
While the focus of this site was much more on the health system failure and much less on the labor market failure in the early days (2009 and the first three months of 2010) this will reverse for the rest of the year. But rest assured, I will continue to report on the failure of “Obama Care”; for example, I’ll be focused on the roughly half dozen states that have laws in opposition, and as another example, I’ll be focused on every last detail regarding the penalty for not having health insurance.

Although the majority of “bloggers” and the vast majority of celebrity bloggers (who get all of the traffic) make numerous, very short postings, I generally make fewer but more valuable and much longer postings. But Unity-Progress is my one site where I mix short and long posts up. This is one of those short but very timely postings....

DEAD IN THE OIL
Aside from the dolphins, the pelicans, and numerous other fish and birds, the US economy is also dead in the oil slick as of summer 2010. The Obama administration’s “Recovery Summer” has become a sick joke. As I said before, Obama is Herbert Hoover on steroids because, not only does he like Hoover mistakenly assume that the private sector will automatically rescue the labor market, he has outdone Hoover in the "I am completely wrong department" by going from “recovery is just around the corner” to “recovery is here and now”. Whereas of course there is no recovery.

The July 2, 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics “Jobs Report” shows that the private sector created only about 83,000 jobs in May; this is little more than a trivial number. It is a pathetic number that reveals the US economy as nothing more than a pathetic and lame excuse for an economy. More than two and a half times that many is needed just to keep all those who have a job employed. Triple that number would be needed just to begin to very, very slightly cut in to the roughly 25 million unemployed. Five times that number would be needed for there to be a real "recovery".

The bottom line is that for the great majority of people, if you don’t have a job, you are not going to be getting a job. You read that correctly: If you don't have a job, you most likely will not be getting a job unless you have someone who has hiring influence or power to show gross favoritism to you and to pull you up into the status of employed. If you don't have someone who directly "pulls you up into a job" and yet you get a job through your own efforts, you deserve an award and a medal (or at least an Obama pin, laugh out loud) in this economy.

The economy is really that ruined by the super greedy “banksters” and investment shysters.

I’ll have far, far more regarding the collapse of the labor market in the months ahead. You just have to be patient because Unity Progress is only a small percentage of the totality of the work I do, and so only a small amount of time can be apportioned to it. On the other hand, this means that I will only cover the absolutely most important topics with the time that I have.

Remember, always ignore the unemployment rate; it is a meaningless, garbage statistic. See the recent reports about that.

As I said recently, this is a depression, not a recession. It will last at least a decade, through about 2017 at least. There will be up and down fluctuations within it (which will have millions of fools thinking the depression is over when it really is not) but the overall primary theme will be at best stagnation at a level leaving roughly 25 million unemployed, or quite slowly down from there (toward 30 million unemployed) at worst.

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Where is the Mandatory Oil Slick Insurance?

Regarding the peasants losing their fishing businesses and jobs, why didn't Oilbomba get a mandatory oil slick insurance law passed by now so that these losers would not be leeching off BP and off the public dole after they lose their fishing businesses and jobs. These fishermen are irresponsible for not having bought oil slick insurance from a bailed out mega corporation, and/or Oilbomba is irresponsible for not making this a requirement already, as he did with the health insurance.

If this sounds funny to you, forgive me; I'm only trying to look at this in the way that Oilbomba looks at it: there is a solution to be found for every problem from the very well off executives and engineers of huge, bailed out mega corporations. According to Oilbomba, they have all the answers simply because in general people who have almost all of the money must have all the answers.

The above was in response to this article at Common Dreams.
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A Depression Doesn't Magically Turn Around in a Couple of Years

The US far right economy has failed yet the arrogant, mega wealthy elites refuse to recognize this, thus their pretending that a recovery exists. Specifically, the 2.7 percent growth rate of the first quarter, about one third of what is needed were there an actual recovery, and the trivial job gains reveal that the "recovery" is nothing more than propaganda and fantasy. Not to mention that even the 2.7 percent is mostly in sectors (especially finance and health care) where a majority of the players are extremely high income and very wealthy elites who technically don't need a job to survive. Meanwhile, those who have to have a job to survive work in sectors many of which have not yet seen even a mini recovery, sectors such as construction and education.

Some things never change. The rich are still getting richer and the poor are still getting poorer despite the changed economic circumstances from a few years ago to today. This process is seemingly all that really matters in the States anymore. As long as many of the rich are getting richer and regardless of how many tens of millions are getting poorer, the US economy is considered to be a success by the powers that be.

Many elites have conveniently forgotten that there have always been (for many hundreds of years at least) small and ultimately insignificant mini "recoveries" within overall depressions. Depressions simply don't magically reverse themselves after a year or two; they end only when sufficiently large scale counter forces are brought to bear. Things have to change on a scale commensurate with the scale of the depression or it will most likely both in theory and in fact never end the way American recessions used to end for about fifty years after World War 2. Instead, the depression will evolve into stagnation and it will be at least a decade, more likely many decades, and very possibly never before the economy gets back to where it was before the depression started in terms of income opportunities (jobs and business opportunities) available for the masses of unemployed.

Check any number of third world countries for further details about how big economic downturns are not automatically followed by strong recoveries. Roughly but accurately speaking, third world countries are essentially countries that are permanently depressed.

When Paul Krugman pointed out that Obama's stimulus was not going to be sufficient, he was of course exactly correct.

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We love our readers and comments are very much appreciated. Comments are moderated but all comments will be approved except for those that do not belong on Unity-Progress. For example, comments that contain any commercial advertising and ones that contain objectionable hatred will not be approved. Many comments that appear will receive a return comment by Unity-Progress. To comment click the green "comments" link at the bottom of this post. You can also send an email. The email address for Unity-Progress is unity.progress.mail at gmail. Use this address for all communications, including requests for link exchange if you have a good economics or political site.