Real Unemployment at 15.8%: Highest Level Since ADA Began Tracking

The real unemployment rate released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is 15.8%, nearly 7 points higher than the rate officially reported.

Global Crisis: How Much Time do We Have? – Adrian Salbuchi

A good doctor is one who will tell his patient what ails him, no matter how bad the news… A good doctor begins by making a correct diagnosis of his patient’s condition. A bad doctor, however, either cannot make a proper diagnosis (because he lacks expertise) or, worst still, he hides the truth from his patient…

MSM: GM to cut 21,000 US factory jobs, shed Pontiac

General Motors Corp. could be majority owned by the federal government under a massive restructuring plan laid out Monday that will cut 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year and phase out the storied Pontiac brand.

MSM: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 640,000 Last Week

(Bloomberg) – The number of Americans filing first-time applications for unemployment insurance rose last week to 640,000 as forecast, while total benefit rolls reached a record, indicating the labor market continues to deteriorate.

Video: Top House Republican – Idea that CO2 is harmful is ‘comical’

In a boisterous exchange with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, the top House Republican said that declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant was “almost comical” and repeated denials that humans are responsible for global warming.

Video: Peter Schiff vs. Keynesian Economist

Peter Schiff talks about the markets and takes on the Keynesian Harvard professor and “economist” Greg Mankiw, who wrote a crazy op-ed for the New York Times. This is the April 20, 2009 edition of The Schiff Report.

Obama’s Cockeyed Optimism: “We are starting to see glimmers of hope across the economy.”

Bernanke’s financial rescue plan is a disaster. He should have spent a little less time with Milton Friedman and a little more with Karl Marx. It was Marx who uncovered the root of all financial crises. He summed it up like this:

“The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute consuming power of society constituted their limit.”

MSM: Stiglitz Says White House Ties to Wall Street Doom Bank Rescue

(Bloomberg) – The Obama administration’s bank- rescue efforts will probably fail because the programs have been designed to help Wall Street rather than create a viable financial system, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said.

MSM: LA school board votes to lay off 5,400 employees

The Los Angeles Board of Education has voted to lay off as many as 5,400 teachers and support personnel for the upcoming school year.

America’s Unemployment Rate

Measuring unemployment is an art that can result in widely varied rates. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Government uses a method that excludes millions of Americans seeking employment. This lower rate is used to prove that America’s economic system is superior to those in Europe. Their higher unemployment rates are blamed on unions and socialism, which guarantee workers health care and paid vacations. The implication is that while many American workers lack such benefits, at least they have jobs. This argument is faulty since unemployment is measured differently.

Secret DHS Doc Predicts Violence in Response to New Gun Restrictions

In the wake of the MIAC report and the Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment, another document issued by the Department of Homeland Security “for official use only” covering so-called “rightwing extremism” has surfaced. The document warns federal and local officials to expect “terrorism” in response to planned firearm restrictions and other points covered below.

MSM: North Carolina, Colorado Banks Shut as 2009 Failures Reach 23

(Bloomberg) – Banks in Colorado and North Carolina were shut as rising unemployment and a loss of jobs shrinks household wealth in the deepest recession in a quarter century, pushing the toll of U.S. bank failures to 23 this year.

The Economic Crisis: No, this will not be a Normal Cyclical Recovery

The Congress, at the behest of corporate lobbyists, wrote into legislation the rules that permitted companies to offshore jobs, reduce real wages, and permit risky financial practices. Therein lies the root cause of this crisis.

Sacramento Tent-City an Alternative to the Control Grid

As our government wages economic warfare against its own people, the existence of a middle class dwindles and disappears. Regardless of your political outlook, the situation has become obvious and the gap between rich and poor widens everyday. In this shifting socio-economic landscape, where will the middle class find themselves?

MSM: Toxic debts could reach $4 trillion, IMF to warn

Toxic debts racked up by banks and insurers could spiral to $4 trillion (£2.7 trillion), new forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are set to suggest.

MSM: Americans Feel 15.6% Unemployment as Underemployment Surges

A measure of underemployment that counts those people has almost doubled over the past two years, to 15.6 percent, providing a more complete gauge of the labor market’s deterioration.

It was Never about Democracy

After 12 years of merciless US-backed sanctions, all Iraq needed was one small push to descend into total chaos. Yet many Iraqis still waited to see what the US would offer. What they got was complete absence of security, hundreds of thousands of jobs losses, and death and torture at the hands of US forces with the help of some ‘favoured’ Iraqis.

MSM: U.S. private sector axes 742,000 jobs in March

(Reuters) – Job losses in the U.S. private sector accelerated in March, more than economists’ expectations, according to a report by ADP Employer Services on Wednesday.

The Fed Did Indeed Cause the Housing Bubble

This text by Catherine Austin Fitts is a response to an article entitled “The Fed Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble” by Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, published in the Wall Street Journal

Destruction of Nature Dwarfs Economic Losses of World’s Financial Institutions

The economic cost of global deforestation far outstrips the money being lost from the current financial crisis, according to the findings of a study commissioned by the European Union.

Mammoth Financial Losses: Credit Default Swaps – Exercises in Surrealism

At the quantum level, the laws of classical physics alter in intriguing ways. In financial markets, at the derivative level, the rules of finance also operate differently.

MSM: Global Financial Assets Lost $50 Trillion Last Year

The value of global financial assets including stocks, bonds and currencies probably fell by more than $50 trillion in 2008, equivalent to a year of world gross domestic product, according to an Asian Development Bank report.

MSM: GM says it will go bust in days without new US bail-out

General Motors today warned it would go bust within 30 days unless the US treasury gives it a further multi-billion dollar loan.

MSM: Worst job losses in 60 years expected

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The recession tightened its grip on U.S. businesses and consumers in February, according to economists, who are predicting the largest one-month job loss in almost 60 years.
“Pink slips continue to fly,” said Meny Grauman, an economist for CIBC World Markets.

The Quadrillion Dollar Powder Keg Waiting To Blow

Derivatives at the heart of the crisis, catastrophic losses are inevitable, financial system headed for oblivion, the new world disorder, EU doomed, Credit Default Swaps at the heart of the problem, Plunge Protection Team history, coverups for globalization failures, Bloodbath for the Yen,

MSM: Russian stocks plunge by nearly 20 percent

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s leading stock markets suffered their biggest-ever one-day losses as shares went into free fall on the back of falling oil prices and deepening fears about the global economy despite the passage of a $700 billion U.S. bank bailout.

Trading on MICEX — the country’s largest index– was shut down three times, closing down 18.6 percent to 752 points. The benchmark RTS — where trading was halted twice — crashed to its lowest point since August 2005, falling by 19.1 percent to 866.4 points.

Wag the Dog: How to Conceal Massive Economic Collapse

Last week, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had just announced record losses, and so had most reporting corporations. Unemployment was mounting, the foreclosure crisis was deepening, state budgets were in shambles, and massive bailouts were everywhere.

Hundreds of banks will fail, Roubini tells Barron’s

(Reuters) – The United States is in the second inning of a recession that will last for at least 18 months and help kill off hundreds of banks, influential economist and New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini told Barron’s in Sunday’s edition.

Two troubled U.S. banks each post billions in losses

NEW YORK: Moving quickly to put an end to the constant spill of red ink, Wachovia, the banking giant, booked an $8.9 billion loss and slashed its dividend in its first quarter under new leadership.

Super Losses, Super Layoffs, Super Bailouts

Financial sector statements dont add up, FDIC reserves pounded hard from IndyMac debacle, bailouts will soon come at the expense of the consumer, bond market watch, realities of a debtor nation, financial institutions given protection from shorting

Wachovia loses $8.9B, cuts 6,350 workers, dividend

Wachovia slashes dividend, jobs, to shut mortgage unit after $8.86B loss in second quarter