UNEMPLOYMENT
DECEMBER 2009
Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. – As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery."
The key economics positions in the Obama presidency are in the hands of the very people that caused the crisis in the first place. The offered solutions border on insanity by amplifying Wall Street political power by institutionalizing the taxpayer’s role as a welfare provider for the financial services industry. Unemployment has jumped up 12 % -in actuality it is 17 %, because it leaves out 1. groups of people those who are underemployed 2. those who are working part time but would like full time and 3.those who have given up and not looking for work anymore. Inflation, increased government spending, and assaults on private savings combined with calls for profligacy is the Recovery plan for the 21 sty Century.
Congress must soon raise the debt ceiling, now at $12.1 trillion, so the Treasury can continue to borrow, and Democratic leaders are eyeing a new figure close to $14 trillion, pushing the issue past next November's election, thus creating more inflation and loss of the dollar value.
Emergency lending to troubled firms perpetuates the misallocation of resources and expands favoritism to firma enfaced in unsustainable activities at the expense of sound firms and the destruction of small business.
We have transferred most of our jobs abroad and placed our richness in the hands of other countries in the hope that they will get bigger stronger happier and will still keep our resources for us to profit.
More than half of the nation’s unemployed workers have borrowed money from friends or relatives since losing their jobs. An equal number have cut back on doctor visits or medical treatments because they are out of work.
Almost half have suffered from depression or anxiety. About 4 in 10 parents have noticed behavioral changes in their children that they attribute to their difficulties in finding work.
Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.
With unemployment driving foreclosures nationwide, a quarter of those polled said they had either lost their home or been threatened with foreclosure or eviction for not paying their mortgage or rent.
Almost half said unemployment had led to more conflicts or arguments with family members and friends; 55 percent have suffered from insomnia.
A quarter of those who experienced anxiety or depression said they had gone to see a mental health professional. Women were significantly more likely than men to acknowledge emotional issue
Nearly half of the adults surveyed admitted to feeling embarrassed or ashamed most of the time or sometimes as a result of being out of work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the traditional image of men as breadwinners, men were significantly more likely than women to report feeling ashamed most of the time.
Nearly half of respondents said they did not have health insurance, with the vast majority citing job loss as a reason, a notable finding given the tug of war in Congress over a health care overhaul. The poll offered a glimpse of the potential ripple effect of having no coverage. More than half characterized the cost of basic medical care as a hardship.
Even those who have stayed employed have not escaped the recession’s bite. According to a New York Times/CBS News nationwide poll conducted at the same time as the poll of unemployed adults, about 3 in 10 people said that in the past year, as a result of bad economic conditions, their pay had been cut.
Of the 787 billion dollars authorized by Congress, about 173 billion (22%) has been paid out. The bulk of that money went to entitlement programs such as Medicaid and unemployment.
The latest numbers show the federal government has spent $120 billion, or a little more than 20 percent of the $580 billion in actual spending included in the act. When you add the $63 billion in tax cuts already issued, the government has spent $183 billion since the Recovery Act was passed in February—just shy of a quarter of the total funds appropriated by Congress.
It takes a $200 billion investment to decrease unemployment 1%, it takes $300 billion in tax cuts to decrease unemployment 1%.
On the news we are only given statistics and data in order to distance ourselves from the truth. When the weight of reality is a somber picture painted in flesh and blood, in real people and real suffering. Across the country, store fronts sit vacant, houses abandoned, neighborhoods decaying, businesses closing. People who have been unemployed for over a year will now begin to fall into the welfare system.
We are now beginning to see in real time, from community to community across America, not just the cost of war, or the damaging financial effects on the economy but the cost of Corporate Globalization and the outsourcing of our labor. There is a powerful emergence of Transcontinental Corporations eroding our labor force by moving American jobs outside the country so they can retain a higher profit margin and disregard labor laws which safe guard employees.
According to the bureau of labor statistics Mass Layoff Data, there is a direct correlation between mass layoff and labor moved beyond our borders via outsourcing and offshoring by corporations. In June 2009, 144 metropolitan areas reported jobless rates of at least 10.0 percent, half of this percentage is due to the redistribution of labor moved from the United States to other countries. For the sixth consecutive month, all 372 metropolitan areas of the United States had over-the-year unemployment rate increases.
We should be probing into our government officials to discover exactly whose pockets are lined with the interests of transcontinental corporations. Questioning the connections between war profits of transcontinental corporations and their paid political interest of Government officials protecting the profitable businesses of military defense, while the rest of the nation goes bankrupt. Halliburton. KBR. Blackwater. Making billions off of war contracts, while the average American citizen struggles to make more than minimum wage and now trying to find a job.
If you want our jobs to remain in the United States, then you need to write to your State Senator and Representatives and DEMAND that every corporation incorporated within the United States be required to maintain 60% of their labor force and physical manufacturing facilities on United States soil or the corporation will be dissolved within 365 days. In addition, a request for the 'Made in America' labels must be made to be placed on products we manufacture
Who are the major foreign holders of US Securites as of September 2009?
Top Foreign holders of U.S. Treasuries
As of September 2009:
Holder Total
China $798.9 billion
Japan $751.5 billion
United Kingdom $249.3 billion
Oil Exporters $185.3 billion
Caribbean $171.7 billion
Brazil $144.9 billion
It is going to be extremely difficult to recover our financial recession unless drastic and forceful measures are undertaken. The main issue in financial recovery is that of creating jobs that have been lost.
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