Saturday, April 10, 2010

Jobs? What Stinkin' Jobs?

A week ago the US government published statistics, which state that the US economy added 162,000 jobs in March.  The conventional propagandists make the absurd claim that the recession is over and that the Gilded age can continue again without interruption.   A huge hurrah could be heard in the financial district of New York as the DJI passed the 12 thousand mark; a level it hasn't reached since June 2008.  Once again, the divide between reality and Dr. Greenspan's imaginarium of useless financial gimmickry grows even larger.  An emerging view that has now become nearly axiomatic amongst those of us in the reality-based sciences, is that the study of economics has become little more than an ideological handmaiden to political forces and is polluted to the point of uselessness.

Those economists, on the other hand, who have been constantly critical of both the Bush and Obama administrations economic dissembling and the "green-sprouts" argument, have noted their objections to the over-simplified and intellectually dishonest statements of their peers who claim that the US economy is on the mend and jobs will soon abound.

Robert Reich, Dean Baker, and Mark Thoma, to name a few, outline the situation:
  • The positive news is that manufacturing has shown a brief but constant uptick in jobs over the past few months in the USA.  A total of 45,000 jobs since December 2009.  However, future growth is likely to be anemic.
  • The US census bureau added at least 48,000 new jobs for the 2010 census in March.  As many as a million jobs will be added alone for this endeavor in the following months. These jobs are temporary and only provide a short-term solution to those who are chronically unemployed; however.
  • Since the inception of the Great Recession, the US economy has lost 8.4 million jobs and failed to create an additional 2.7 million necessary as per population growth.  Thus, a total of at least 11 million jobs have either disappeared or failed to materialize.
  • Many of the jobs that have been lost were in construction, mortgage banking, appraisal, financial and legal services associated with the bubble market, and manufacturing.  Most of these service oriented jobs will not return and in the case of manufacturing, are permanently lost as long as the Chinese retain their slave-labor policies and currency manipulation practices.
  • State and local governments have shed 72,000 jobs since December, or 24,000 a month.  A trend that will accelerate as the federal stimulus program weans and state revenues continue to slump.
  • The federal government's spending on last year’s domestic stimulus is still near its peak, and the Fed continues to hold down interest rates.  Without these two factors, there would be no job growth to report.
  • Nominal wages fell in March for the sixth time since 1964. Dean Baker states that, "This is not a good sign for future income growth."
  • Consumer debt remains high, with those who are employed saving and paying off existing debts rather than engaging in further purchases.  If there is a permanent change in consumer demand, no recovery to pre-recession levels of economic activity will occur in the near future.
The obvious question that remains is what has the US government or the Fed done to prevent the big banks, which are now bigger than they ever were and were at the center of this recession, from engaging in the same activities that led to this current economic collapse?  Nothing.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Quote of the Day: Dawkins on the Corpulence of the Vatican


From Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, atheist, and professional shit-disturber when it comes to all things religious, speaks on the credibility gap of the current Pope and his personal involvement in concealing the pedophile epidemic within the Roman Catholic Church:

“Should the pope resign?”

No. As the College of Cardinals must have recognized when they elected him, he is perfectly – ideally – qualified to lead the Roman Catholic Church. A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence: in short, exactly the right man for the job.

He should not resign, moreover, because he is perfectly positioned to accelerate the downfall of the evil, corrupt organization whose character he fits like a glove, and of which he is the absolute and historically appropriate monarch.

No, Pope Ratzinger should not resign. He should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice – the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution – while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears.


If there isn't any doubt about the perversity of these deviants, take a look at the urinals found in the Vatican.  Nothing bizarre about urinating into the porcelain vagina of the Virgin Mary!