WP: Job Losses Could Drown Stimulus

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Job Losses Could Drown Stimulus
Unemployment Soars to 1983 Level, Testing U.S. Response

By Neil Irwin and Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 7, 2009; A01


The nation is losing jobs so quickly that the government, racing to deal with the crisis, is having trouble keeping up.

The U.S. unemployment rate last month leapt half a percentage point, to 8.1 percent, the highest level since 1983, according to data released yesterday. The stunning pace of job losses raises the possibility that, perhaps as early as this summer, one in 10 Americans will be out of a job even though they are actively looking for work. It also means that the government faces even more pressure to take further action to stabilize the economy and the financial system.

President Obama, speaking in Columbus, Ohio, to police cadets whose jobs were saved with money from the $787 billion stimulus package, called the new unemployment figures "astounding."

"We have a responsibility to act," he said, "and that's what I intend to do."

Analysts increasingly view the administration's actions so far as insufficient given the scope of the problem. The stimulus package was designed to "save or create" 3.5 million jobs, according to the administration. But the nation has already lost 4.4 million jobs since the start of the recession. Many banks and other financial institutions, whose health is critical to the economy, are teetering, and the Treasury Department has yet to finalize the details of its plans to remove from their balance sheets the toxic assets dragging them down.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[Triana]

1. nationalize the f-ing banks and insurance companies or let them die...

...get them OFF Bernanke's Treasury Bong - get REAL healthcare and get people back to work.

NOW.


Goddamned Geithner and Bernanke are useless - they're only priority is Wall St - while the rest of the nation is collapsing - they want Wall Street Welfare.

[grantcart]

3. The only insurance company in trouble is AIG which was insuring real estate derivatives

Nationalizing banks could involve transfering hundreds of billions to the rich by guaranteeing Bank Bonds, while FDIC bank takeovers achieve the same result without the government stepping in to save bank issued bonds.

[Kdillard]

4. I thought some of AIG's problems stemmed from toxic assets

in Britain.

[grantcart]

5. and the US

my point is that it doesn't come from their traditional insurance business but insuring the 'derivative' bundles of sub prime loans that were over rated.

My only point is that the insurance industry has been relatively very stable when compared to Wall Street or the Banks, although they are frequently maligned.

[Kdillard]

6. Thanks and I agree with a lot of what you have said on the matter.

My friend's husband works for AIG and he has been saying the same thing.

[Mojambo]

2. Trade policies. We have to change our ridiculously destructive trade policies. n/t

[TheBigotBasher]

7. Exactly why were they allowing the GOP

to get away with the story that the bill was too large and "porkulus" then?