Jobs and factory slowdown add to recovery fears

[iwishiwas]

Source: Reuters






Jobs and factory slowdown add to recovery fears


By Leah Schnurr

NEW YORK | Wed Jun 1, 2011 10:54am EDT

(Reuters) - Companies hired far fewer workers than expected in May and output in the manufacturing sector slowed to its lowest level since 2009, raising concerns that the U.S. recovery is running out of steam.

Economists slashed their forecasts for Friday's closely watched U.S. payrolls report after private-sector job growth tumbled to just 38,000, its lowest level in eight months.

Losses in U.S. stocks and the value of the dollar accelerated after the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its index of national factory activity fell to 53.5 in May from 60.4 the month before.
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"One has to wonder whether the U.S. recovery is starting to stumble. It draws a big bull's-eye on Friday's payrolls report," said Greg Salvaggio, vice president of trading at Tempus Consulting in Washington............................

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/01/us-usa-economy-idUSTRE7492P720110601

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We are a consumer society and we have little money to consume especially with new jobs that pay little.

[Newest Reality]

1. We may have to

consider what alternatives there are to what we have been fashioned into over many decades, despite the obsession that the PTB with sustaining their Status Quo.

Rather than living in a delusion of infinite resources with an infinite garbage dump planet, the time is ripe for a major shift from consumption to sustaining what we have. Otherwise, it looks like it is downhill from here for all of us but the small percentage who hold our wealth, power and futures tightly in their hands.

This transition will require us to resort to our adaptable nature rapidly in pragmatic ways. Throwing off the illusions and delusions about returning to the unsustainable model are in order, first.

[SkyDaddy7]

4. Totally Agree...But we won't do it...

We will continue making excuses & blaming our problems on other things like gay marriage or equal rights for woman, etc., SAD!!

I can see a very evil scenario shaping up for 2012...Hard right Republican President with control of a hard right Republican Senate & a hard right Republican House...Then you can bet the wealthy will get their +10% tax cut, Medicare & SS will be privatized, The new Health Care Law & Financial reform will be repealed & we the middle class will be fed religious based laws to get us closer to GAWD!!

[RKP5637]

6. Yeah, sadly I have similar nagging feelings. I often think/look at the worst parts

of life in the US today, the really unfortunate, those manipulated and excluded, the poverty, sickness, homelessness, disabled, etc. and that well might be the future of American in the 21st century with endless RW GAWD taking what little people have left while promising salvation. I really think the loony count is at an all time high in the US. We generally associate greed with money, but I see a lot of religious greed today sucking freedom from people.

[SkyDaddy7]

8. Yes, I could not agree more...And it becomes a...

snowball effect the worse things get the more calls for getting closer to GAWD...Then we wake up in the Christian Republic of America! A Corporate run Christian Theocracy! You know many on the Right want that scenario so bad but they don't come right out & say it...And if they actually got what they wanted gays & Agnostic/Atheist like myself would be in deep trouble! Not to mention women & other religions!

[RKP5637]

10. The marriage of a Christian Theocracy with a Corporate Plutocracy based on

the old testament. That should make a lovely place to live. Then they can gleefully start the inquisitions all over again to weed out the undesirables.

They can build more prisons, lots of money in that, as well as execute the ones they really deem undesirable. That should make for a beautiful 21st century.

Too bad their damn rapture didn't go off per plan. I'm beginning to think the only thing that's going to save this place is intergalactic intervention, whatever that means.

[SkyDaddy7]

18. I hear you on the "Intergalactic intervention"...

However, if things do get really bad like we have discussed there will be massive "Brain Drain" & then we will mirror the Middle East for sure.

That is warning I will be waiting on...If the scientist start leaving for Europe I will do everything in my powers to follow...The "Stupid" I hear & read coming from almost every person on the Right baffles me! The policies & ideas they claim will make America number one in the world are so fucking ridiculous yet the MSM media just reports it like they are equal to the ideas on the Left. WTF?!?!

The problem with the MSM was bubbled to the surface when the Egyptian Protest were at their peak & Anderson Cooper knew Mubarak & the Egyptian Government was telling lies & he said on live TV "Mubarak's regime is lying" & he was criticized by so many in the media! IT IS CALLED JOURNALISM!

WE ARE DOOMED! LOL!

[RKP5637]

5. IMO our current system is obsolete for the 21st century. By default, it's a

win/lose system. By default it rewards winners and punishes losers. Its chief engine is growth in a finite space and greed is handsomely rewarded. Cheating is handsomely rewarded.

If one climbs out of the box and looks at how our system functions it's doing what one would expect, eventually.

We need a major paradigm shift, but the problem is we've been brainwashed to believe this is the only model, those on the take have it too good to want anything to change, we have extreme greed, the masses are generally resistant to change, we might not have the ability to change. And the propaganda runs wide and deep.

[Newest Reality]

2. Dupe

[xchrom]

3. recommend

[okieinpain]

7. i'm so sick of seeing these statements, maybe it is time for

geitner to get another job.

[andym]

9. Needed a bigger stimulus--targeted to small business, not budget cuts

GOP ideological economics are leading the country to disaster, all for political gain. USA needed more stimulus money, preferably targeted to small business, not budget cuts during a tepid recovery. Long term debt is a threat, but must only be handled during a strong economy, not during recessions or weak recoveries. GOP ignores economics just as they ignore science.

[RKP5637]

11. Frankly IMO all they did was prop up a failed system with taxpayer money. The

overall structure is rotten to the piers and the same problems will occur again. A really major effort needed to be made to provide significant stimulus money targeted to small business. We're still doing trickle down voodoo economics and it ain't going to work. Not now and not in the future.

[andym]

12. Agree that small business should be targeted

As I wrote in my post as well. The stimulus should have been targeted to small business-- both to existing businesses to expand and to help potential entrepreneurs get started.

However, I don't believe the current system is completely corrupt, but it is definitely in need of some reform.

[RKP5637]

13. Yep, I agree, "I don't believe the current system is completely corrupt, but it

is definitely in need of some reform."

[BREMPRO]

14. it about energy.. gas prices. high prices at the pump depress consumer spending..confidence.

we will keep doing this until we wean ourselves off fossil fuels and move to a green energy based economy.. there is going to be pain in the transition, but there is no alternative.

[defendandprotect]

15. Anyone out there finding jobs ... getting interviews? Hello, Obama!!

[savalez]

16. Things starting regressing as soon as Republicans took over the house.

Gotta get that house back in 2012.

[unkachuck]

17. "...manufacturing sector slowed to its lowest level since 2009..."

....business never needed tax breaks, bailouts, subsidies, stimulus or loopholes, they needed customers....the tarp and stimulus was just a kick-back scheme to, for and by our corrupt politicians and corporations....

....as long as we keep electing the corrupt and sending our money/jobs to India and China, there won't be any customers here....China and India don't need or want our crap; haven't we figured that out by now....

....prices for just about everything are skyrocketing, no COLA for geezers, no raises for our workers, job creation hardly enough for new entries yet alone for the millions of unemployed, and no hope for any significant relief or change from our corrupt corporate government....

....we are pissed-off and tapped-out = no customers; business can go fuck itself