Those are some forceful words from Senator Byrd. What did President Clinton do? Clinton acknowledged that Senator Byrd was correct, and dropped the pursuit of Reconciliation to pass Healthcare back in the 1990’s.

My question to Senator Byrd is: why are you not arguing in the exact same manner against Obama’s desire to use this process for the EXACT SAME REASON???

How about Senator Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota on Reconciliation? This was Senator Conrad on the floor of the Senate recalling the debate over President Clinton’s consideration of Reconciliation for Healthcare:

And now? Oh, you know what’s coming. Now Conrad has signaled he is willing to use this budgetary procedure to pass Obama’s exceedingly flawed (and not even completely written) Healthcare bill.

I might add, he was that upset in 2001 over a $138 Billion dollar initiative? Ahahahahah, isn’t that just precious? Especially considering Obama and the Democrats racked up $223 Billion in DEBT just this past month alone!! In just ONE month they have spent more $90 billion MORE than Bill Clinton’s Healthcare Initiative. Wow, Senator Conrad, way to really stick to your budgetary guns there.

No wonder Democrats are referred to as the “Tax and Spend” Party. I used to take offense at that, but they are earning that label in a big way now.

And then, there is Obama as a US Senator on how we cannot use Reconciliation. Yo knew it was coming. Oh, make sure to check out the date when he is talking about getting a bill to his desk to his sign:

Did you catch that? September of 2007 he was already claiming the presidency. Talk about hubris. Now? You know that, too. Obama wants to use it. In the following video from the Blair Street Summit, Obama’s essentially saying we are a bunch of dumbasses who don’t care how Congress does its job:

Here’s a newsflash for you, Obama – we DO pay attention to how things get done in Washington, or not, and how much you all are listening to us or not. You most definitely are NOT.

Just to digress for a moment, I just wonder why in the world this man wanted this position so much that he was willing to lie, cheat and steal to get it when he CLEARLY has such little regard for the people whom he is SUPPOSED to be serving. Must be those perks he mentioned in the first video because it isn’t any respect he has for us.

And talk about HYPOCRISY. Byrd, Conrad, and Obama are poster boys for it in their flipflop about Reconciliation to shove this extremely expensive, pork laden, Big Pharma gifting, increased insurance premium making, Medicare curring healthcare bill down our throats.

Obama wants to “get ‘er done” before he leaves next week, another false deadline.

To that end, the House Democrats have locked themselves away in their “transparent” attempt to come to some agreement about this bill so they can try and meet Obama’s time frame.

So glad they are spending SO Much time on this when 462,000 people have filed for unemployment this WEEK. The numbers were expected to be lower.

In my own state, the front page news included that unemployment in South Carolina has hit another record high:

Employers cut 27,700 positions throughout the month, including seasonal jobs in tourism and retail, as the jobless rate reached 12.6 percent, the state Employment Security Commission said Wednesday.

South Carolina’s unemployed population — a total of 273,455 residents — is the biggest on record.

Compare that number with the data recorded several years ago and a grim picture emerges. That figure, for example, never topped 100,000 people in 2000. Throughout 2005, the number averaged 140,000.

“It gives us a sense of how many jobs the economy needs to create in order

to put a majority of people back to work,” said economist Don Schunk of Coastal Carolina University. “More so than the unemployment rate, (that number) tells us how far we have to go before we return to some sense of normalcy.”

The preliminary January rate eclipsed the previous record set in December. That number originally came in at 12.6 percent, but it was revised downward to 12.4 percent last week, based on more current information.

So, yes, Congress, by all means, cancel all of your other meetings like you did today (Thursday), continue to focus all of your time and energy on a healthcare bill we have been telling you for months we do not want, while we continue to lose our jobs, our homes, and our faith in you.

November cannot come soon enough.

Isn’t that great?? Well, it would be if it was actually true. But it is not. For instance, did you know that Puerto Rico has 99 districts? Nope, me, either. Because they don’t. They have 1 (one). How about Arizona? Heck, they’ve got at least 38 (thirty-eight), right? Oh, wait, no they don’t – they have 8 (eight). The alleged “recovered jobs” bragged about by Biden and how our stimulus money is being spent don’t quite match up. I know, big surprise (almost as much as the following report being on ABCNews):

Wow that’s some “state of the art system” you got going on there, Joe. And I am SOOOOO sure that all of the problems are the result of people not knowing in which district they live. Oh, sure. Because it is so difficult to access that information. I mean, really, you might need to make a PHONE CALL or something. Or look it up on “the internets,” if it isn’t in the area in which you live. Because then, you could just take a little look-see at your voter registration card! Gosh, I am just stunned that they would not be getting these numbers right!

Speaking of jobs, check out these headlines:

This is exactly why so many of us are concerned about the Government running our health care system. Can you say fraud? If they cannot even get this right, how are they going to adequately address issues of life and death?? I don’t think even an abacus could help out there …

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports: President Obama, like any other President, has his fair share of critics. Even fourth-graders have noticed.

“Why do people hate you?”, a fourth-grade boy asked Obama at a town hall event in New Orleans today. “They’re supposed to love you. And God is love.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” replied the President.

Here’s the video of the exchange, though the transcript is below if you’d prefer:

Um, what the hell was he talking about BEFORE the little boy asked his question? Wasn’t he saying, “It’s a man’s turn. Isn’t it? It’s a guy’s turn.” That’s what it sounded like to me, anyway…So, just what came BEFORE that?? Curious.

Obama continued his response to the child:

“First of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me,” Obama noted, before adding, “What is true is if you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody’s just getting mad all the time. And I — you know, I think that you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what’s called politics where, you know, once one party wins, then the other party kind of gets — feels like it needs to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes.”

“And so you shouldn’t take it too seriously,” Obama told the boy. “And then, sometimes, as I said before, people just — I think they’re worried about their own lives. A lot of people are losing their jobs right now. A lot of people are losing their health care or they’ve lost their homes to foreclosure, and they’re feeling frustrated. And when you’re president of the United States, you know, you’ve got to deal with all of that.”

So, um, not to quibble or anything, but just when do you think you are going to get around to dealing with job loss, home loss, and losing health care? Hey, just asking:

“You get some of the credit when things go good. And when things are going tough, then, you know, you’re going to get some of the blame, and that’s part of the job,” he continued. “But, you know, I’m a pretty tough guy.”

“You’ve just got to keep on going, even when folks are criticizing you, because — as long as you know that you’re doing it for other people, all right?” Obama concluded.

The boy’s question was the last one the President fielded at his event at the University of New Orleans, his first trip to the city since being elected to the Oval Office.

Well, there is a good reason the child asked that question. While Obama did get elected, the latest Fox Poll shows that he wouldn’t if the election was held today, as this article highlights, Fox News Poll: 43 Percent Would Vote To Re-Elect President Obama:If the election were held today, 43 percent of American voters would back Barack Obama for president, according to a new Fox News poll.

Oh dear. I guess that’s some of the “blame” Obama is getting for not fulfilling his campaign promises, for starters, not to mention his continued constant campaigning instead of working thing he’s got going on. Here are the results of this poll:

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama’s job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. (Emphasis mine.) That’s down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president — and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Moreover, the number of Americans saying they would vote to re-elect President Obama has dropped. If the election were held today the poll finds more voters say they would back someone else in the 2012 election than would back the president.

Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday, the latest Fox News poll finds the president’s ratings on foreign issues are lower than his overall job ratings. All in all, 49 percent of Americans say they approve of the job President Obama is doing and 45 percent disapprove. His average approval for the term so far is 58 percent.

Yep, Obama’s approval numbers are below 50% for the first time at 49%. How about on some of the issues:

On Afghanistan, 41 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Obama is doing and 43 percent disapprove. For his handling of Iran, 44 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove.

On the president’s handling of the economy, voters are almost equally split: 48 percent approve and 49 percent disapprove. On health care, some 42 percent approve of the president’s performance and half disapprove, 50 percent.

Among Democrats, 78 percent say they would vote to re-elect President Obama, down from 87 percent in April. For 2008 Obama voters, 81 percent say they would vote to re-elect him — that’s a slight up tick from the 79 percent who said so previously.

Six in 10 Americans — 60 percent — think Obama is a strong and decisive leader.
And while 38 percent think President Obama is getting good advice from his advisors, a larger number — 45 percent — think he is “listening to the wrong people.” (Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from October 13 to October 14. The poll has a 3-point error margin.)

Like Rahm Emmanuel, or David Axelrod, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid? Yeah, I’d say he’s listening to the wrong people.

And about that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing:

Did He Deserve It?

Upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama said, “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformational figures.” Most Americans agree with the president — 65 percent say he did not deserve to win, while 29 percent say he did.

Furthermore, a slim 54 percent majority of Democrats think Obama did deserve to win, while 38 percent disagree. For independents, 19 percent think he deserved it, while nearly three-quarters, 74 percent, say he did not. Among Republicans, almost all — 91 percent — say he did not deserve it.

When asked why the Nobel Committee gave the president the prize, about a third of Americans, 32 percent, say because he deserved it, while the largest number — 44 percent — think the committee hoped the prize would make Obama “think twice before using military force in the future.”

About that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing. Remember how we were all told the Committee Was unanimous in their decision to give it to Obama? Turns out that 3 out of 5 of them did NOT want to give it to him. Golly gee, I guess truth really DOES will out! Evidently, their reaction was the same as many of ours – he hasn’t DONE anything yet but speechify, for cryin’ out loud!

The poll also address how Congress was doing:

Most Americans are unhappy with Congress these days — 66 percent disapprove, including 45 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of independents and 84 percent of Republicans. Overall, less than one of four Americans, 24 percent, approve of the job Congress is doing.

Looking ahead to the 2010 Congressional election, for the first time this year the Republicans have the advantage: 42 percent of voters say they are more likely to back the Republicans to provide a check on President Obama’s power, while 38 percent say they would vote for the Democrat to help the president pass his policies.

Finally, in a rare example of bipartisan agreement, majorities of Democrats, 53 percent, Republicans, 78 percent, and Independents, 61 percent, agree the country is more divided these days. All in all, 64 percent of Americans think the country is more politically divided today — that’s more than twice the number who say it is not more divided, 31 percent.

Click here for the raw data.

What a bang-up job Obama has done in uniting us, just like he said he would. Blech. Can’t believe people fell for THAT line again, can you? Great – so glad there is one area that is truly bipartisan. Ahem.

And while President Obama is still feeling the love, the numbers of those who love him seem to be decreasing the more they open their eyes to see and their ears to hear. Such a shame they couldn’t muster that BEFORE the election, isn’t it? Now, his daily tracking poll continues to go down; Secretary Clinton’s approval numbers are higher than his (no big surprise to ME there); and his overall rating is at 49%. COngress doesn’t fare much better. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy, or more deserving Congress, could it?

I. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
July: 9.5%
August: 9.4%
September: 9.7%
– October Consensus Expectation: 9.8%
– October Actual: 9.8%

>> LD’s comments: as expected and only getting worse. The underemployment rate is 17%!! (High five MC). Long term unemployed (those out of work 24 weeks or more) is 5.4 million!!

II. NON-FARM PAYROLL (click here for definition of this term)
July: initial loss of 467k initially revised to a loss of 443k and now revised to a loss of 463k
August: initial loss of 247k revised to a loss of 276k, further revised to -304k
September: initial loss of 216k, revised to a loss of 201k
– October Consensus Expectation: loss of 175k
– October Actual: a loss of 263k, with revisions to the prior two months of a further loss of 13k jobs.

>> LD’s comments: decidedly worse than expected, this figure shoots a huge hole in the case of those who thought the economy would have a V-shaped recovery. Construction lost 64k jobs. The one sector of the economy that people would expect to support this number is government jobs. This did not happen as government payrolls declined by 53k jobs. This is an indication that cities, states, and towns are cutting payroll and services as tax revenues plummet.

III. AVERAGE HOURLY EARNINGS
July: 0.0%
August: +.2% revised to +.3
September: came in at .3 with the prior month revised to .3 as well.
– October Consensus Expectation: .2%
– October Actual: .1%, also worse than expected.

>> LD’s comment: This number inspires no confidence that the economy can expect a rebound in consumer spending and retail sales anytime soon. Be mindful that the prior month was revised to +.4%. That figure is largely a result of a rise in the minimum wage.

IV. AVERAGE HOURLY WORKWEEK
July: 33.0 hours
August: 33.1 hours
September: 33.1 hours
– October Consensus Expectation: 33.1 hours
– October Actual: 33.0 hours, another big disappointment

>> LD’s comments: this number is a confirmation that businesses see no pickup in new orders. This number may be the most disappointing of all components as it hits directly at what business owners view as the future business climate.

V. FURTHER COLOR
Although many Wall Street based economists, media mavens, and government pundits are reporting these numbers as disappointing, the mere fact is prior reports were reported in a far too ebullient fashion. Our economy is trying to adapt to a lack of credit. Meredith Whitney highlights this fact in today’s WSJ in writing, The Credit Crunch Continues. Expect an increased call for greater fiscal stimulus. The fact is the government programs have largely created safety nets and pulled consumer demand forward while the major structural unemployment issues in the economy loom very large.

VI. MARKET REACTION
At 8:10am:

2yr Tsy: .87%
10yr Tsy: 3.15%
S&P 500 Futures: -3.2
DJIA Futures: -27
U. S. Dollar Index: 77.22

At 8:50am, Post-Report:

2yr Tsy: .85%
10yr Tsy: 3.14%, we did get as low as 3.10% immediately after the report.
S&P 500 Futures: -12.00, which indicates that the stock market will open up down approximately 1.2%
DJIA Futures: -104
U.S. Dollar Index: 77.30…basically unchanged. Recall that a lot of hedge funds and speculators are short dollars and long a host of risk-based assets. The dollar may improve as those risk-based markets sell off.

Questions, comments, constructive criticisms always encouraged and appreciated.

Thanks.

LD

What a difference a month makes! When my last controversial column posted on Salon in the second week of August, most Democrats seemed frozen in suspended animation, not daring to criticize the Obama administration’s bungling of healthcare reform lest it give aid and comfort to the GOP. Well, that ice dam sure broke with a roar. Dissident Democrats found their voices, and by late August even the liberal lemmings of the mainstream media, from CBS to CNN, had drastically altered their tone of reportage, from priggish disdain of the town hall insurgency to frank admission of serious problems in the healthcare bills as well as of Obama’s declining national support.

…As an Obama supporter and contributor, I am outraged at the slowness with which the standing army of Democratic consultants and commentators publicly expressed discontent with the administration’s strategic missteps this year. … from week one after the inauguration, when Obama went flat as a rug in letting Congress pass that obscenely bloated stimulus package. Had more Democrats protested, the administration would have felt less arrogantly emboldened to jam through a cap-and-trade bill whose costs have made it virtually impossible for an alarmed public to accept the gargantuan expenses of national healthcare reform. (Who is naive enough to believe that Obama’s plan would be deficit-neutral? Or that major cuts could be achieved without drastic rationing?)

Due respect to Ms. Paglia, she might ask herself why she bought into any of this before the election. We did not. Their disastrous spending plans: using the cover of the economic crisis to push through pet projects under the phony label of stimulus, offering bailouts of Wall St., not Main Street. People are without jobs, losing their homes and they are playing games with our money? Most readers at NQ sensed where Obama’s allegiance would be 18 months ago. I find precious little satisfaction in yet another prominent Obama supporter expressing disgust. The stakes are too high and we are now stuck.

I am grateful, however, that a respected voice is calling the arrogant Dem leadership out on its despicable characterizations of American citizens, who are rightfully outraged at this mess:

By foolishly trying to reduce all objections to healthcare reform to the malevolence of obstructionist Republicans, Democrats have managed to destroy the national coalition that elected Obama and that is unlikely to be repaired. If Obama fails to win reelection, let the blame be first laid at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who at a pivotal point threw gasoline on the flames by comparing angry American citizens to Nazis.

Pelosi needs to lose her seat for that one. Disgraceful.

Paglia seems to think Obama might turn it around with a great speech, but wonders if too much damage has already been done. She has written the Dems off is 2012, unless Republicans nominate someone dead from the neck up – entirely possible. Paglia says she “has been calling for heads to roll at the White House from the get-go”:

…Thankfully, they do seem to be falling faster — as witness the middle-of-the-night bum’s rush given to “green jobs” czar Van Jones last week — but there’s a long way to go. An example of the provincial amateurism of current White House operations was the way the president’s innocuous back-to-school pep talk got sandbagged by imbecilic support materials soliciting students to write fantasy letters to “help” the president (a coercive directive quickly withdrawn under pressure). Even worse, the entire project was stupidly scheduled to conflict with the busy opening days of class this week, when harried teachers already have their hands full. Comically, some major school districts, including New York City, were not even open yet. And this is the gang who wants to revamp national healthcare?

Why did it take so long for Democrats to realize that this year’s tea party and town hall uprisings were a genuine barometer of widespread public discontent and not simply a staged scenario by kooks and conspirators?

Ms. Paglia still betrays a trusting naiveté here, thinking that Democrats were too insulated to know the protests were genuine. Not so. The Obama Administration simply continued the same techniques of the Obama campaign – demonize any opponents in order to silence them. She acknowledges that network and cable TV are not the central forums for debate any longer. They just play out more junk politics, backing their respective brands. Ms. Paglia notes…

…the truly transformative political energy is coming from talk radio and the Web — both of which Democrat-sponsored proposals have threatened to stifle, in defiance of freedom of speech guarantees in the Bill of Rights. …[O]n talk radio, which I have resumed monitoring around the clock because of the healthcare fiasco … I heard the passionate voices of callers coming directly from the town hall meetings. Hence I was alerted to the depth and intensity of national sentiment long before others who were simply watching staged, manipulated TV shows.

While she concludes her column giving the Republicans some well deserved slaps as well (and I encourage you to read the rest of her piece for yourself), most of it is devoted to pointing out Democratic Party arrogance. This is what the Clinton wing of the party, cruelly cast aside along with Hillary after the primaries, have noted as well. Ms. Paglia asks questions many here would find familiar:

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.

But affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them. …Independent thought and logical analysis of argument are no longer taught. Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it’s invisible.

If any of Obama’s supporters had been capable of critical thought last year, they would have seen through his ridiculous promises and contradictory policy statements and had the sense to turn away. As this article is a prelude to President Obama’s big speech on healthcare this evening, Ms. Paglia’s next comments reveal the shortcomings of a compliant media and congress…

Throughout this fractious summer, I was dismayed not just at the self-defeating silence of Democrats at the gaping holes or evasions in the healthcare bills but also at the fogginess or insipidity of articles and Op-Eds about the controversy emanating from liberal mainstream media and Web sources. By a proportion of something like 10-to-1, negative articles by conservatives were vastly more detailed, specific and practical about the proposals than were supportive articles by Democrats, which often made gestures rather than arguments and brimmed with emotion and sneers. There was a glaring inability in most Democratic commentary to think ahead and forecast what would or could be the actual snarled consequences — in terms of delays, denial of services, errors, miscommunications and gross invasions of privacy — of a massive single-payer overhaul of the healthcare system in a nation as large and populous as ours. It was as if Democrats live in a utopian dream world, divorced from the daily demands and realities of organization and management.

Yes, the party in power does seem oddly divorced from reality as if wishing at the foot of President Obama’s HOPE poster would make their rosy predictions about the effects of their reckless leglislation come true. This past week, other columnists have pointed out that dissent and disagreement are a value to any President. Blank stares and idol worship will not make this Administration better. For the sake of our country, it would be refreshing change indeed if someone in the White House showed actual concern for the needs of Americans and went back to doing the people’s business. I think that may only happen if left, right and center keep speaking out and keep the pressure on. Only fear of the voters might have any effect whatsoever. And I’m not even sure of that.

Ms. Paglia, for one, worries it’s too late for Obama to turn it around…

Unemployment Rate
June: 9.4%
July: 9.5%
August: 9.4%
September: 9.7%!!

>>LD’s comments: higher than the expectation of 9.5%. Recall that the rate moved down last month from 9.5% to 9.4% as the labor pool shrunk. This move higher puts the rate back on the track it previously held and would project to a likely double digit unemployment rate in the 4th quarter.

Where’s the stimulus? Where are the jobs? Bulls would say the employment situation is stabilizing. Pragmatists look at the numbers and see an economy settling in to a likely low growth path at best. The unemployment rate of 9.7% is the highest since 1983. The underemployment rate of 16.8% is very sobering!!

Non-Farm Payroll (click here for definition of this term)
June: loss of 322k
July: loss of 467k initially revised to a loss of 443k and now revised to a loss of 463k
August: loss of 247k revised to a loss of 276k
September: loss of 216k

>>LD’s comments: Close to consensus, but the prior two months had revisions showing further declines of 49k. (The prior month was revised from a loss of 247k jobs to 276k. July was revised from a loss of 443k jobs to 463k jobs). Manufacturing lost 63k jobs, government showed a loss of 18k jobs with more of these at the state level.I repeat my comments from above. We are not witnessing any inclination by private companies to start the rehiring process. As such, the likelihood of long term structural unemployment is growing. This fact will serve as a real drag on consumers in general and the economy as a whole.

Average Hourly Earnings
June: +.1%
July: 0.0%
August: +.2% revised to +.3
September: came in at .3 with the prior month revised to .3 as well.

>>LD’s comments: Largely due to the increase in the minimum wage. Do not look at this increase as an indication of potential growth in retail sales.

Average Hourly Workweek
June: 33.1 hours
July: 33.0 hours
August: 33.1 hours
September: 33.1 hours

>>LD’s comments: as expected the average hourly workweek remained unchanged. This number, which remains mired at a level last seen in 1964, is an indication that an expected rebuild in inventories is not on the near term horizon.

Further Color: the economy remains significantly challenged. Despite all of the government stimulus and government programs, in my opinion the economy is very vulnerable. Behind these numbers, the consumer is seeing few signs of improvement in the jobs space. That reality is impacting the sluggish retail sales along with the continued increase in delinquencies and defaults on the credit front.

Market Reaction: futures have been bouncing up and down post-report. Prior to the report, equity futures indicated a slightly positive opening to the equity market. Now the futures are closer to unchanged.

Interest rates have also bounced around, but the front end of the yield curve seems better bid as the unsettledness behind these numbers makes investors nervous.

The dollar index is somewhat improved but not in a meaningful fashion.

Add it all up and I see the following:

>> the cheerleaders can put away the pom-poms

>> the pure doom and gloom guys who have been short forever remain frustrated

>> the economy remains challenged and will bump along the bottom. No “V” recovery, but more like the “caterpillar” designation assigned by our Sense on Cents Economic All-Star Bob Rodriguez.

Get used to it because it is not going to change appreciably anytime soon.

I repeat my market call from the other day in which I believe equities will retreat from current levels.

LD

I would only wish that the dirty little secrets embedded in urban education were more widely disseminated so that ‘real’ progress can be made. I see evidence of these secrets again this morning in reading the New York Times. The lead article in the right hand column of the front page highlights, Black-White Gap in Jobless Rate Widens in City:

Unemployment among blacks in New York City has increased much faster than for whites, and the gap appears to be widening at an accelerating pace, new studies of jobless data have found.

While unemployment rose steadily for white New Yorkers from the first quarter of 2008 through the first three months of this year, the number of unemployed blacks in the city rose four times as fast, according to a report to be released on Monday by the city comptroller’s office. By the end of March, there were about 80,000 more unemployed blacks than whites, according to the report, even though there are roughly 1.5 million more whites than blacks here.

Across the nation, the surge in unemployment has cut across all demographic lines, and the gap between blacks and whites has risen, but at a much slower rate than in New York.

Economists said they were not certain why so many more blacks were losing their jobs in New York...(LD’s highlight)

What? Not certain? Once again, economists and public policy analysts are not being honest on the disastrous state of urban education.

I highlighted this point the other day in my call for total transparency and honesty on this topic. In writing Warren Buffett: “Wall Street Owes the American People”, I called for:

1. honesty on where we currently stand across all aspects of our economy and society. Publicize our successes and, more importantly, our failures so we can properly address them.

Do not allow urban education dropout rates of 50% to be swept under the rug. Promote the correlation between those figures, single parent birth rates, income levels, and criminal behaviors. BE HONEST ON THESE TOPICS!!!

While economists and the New York Times itself may not want to publicize education statistics, the fact is New York City’s public schools, like most major urban schools, are disproportionately filled with minority students.

For New York City, that breakdown is:

The racial makeup of public school students is 36.7 percent Hispanic, 34.7 percent black, 14.3 percent Asian, and 14.2 percent white.

The specialized high schools tend to be disproportionately white and Asian.

In terms of graduation rates, the New York City Department of Education released on June 22, 2009:

the City’s four-year graduation rate rose to 56.4 percent in 2008 from 52.8 percent in 2007 and 46.5 percent in 2005. The five-year graduation rate rose to 62.6 percent in 2008 from 58.8 percent in 2007 and 55.7 percent in 2006. The six-year graduation rate rose to 61.8 percent in 2008 from 58.5 percent in 2007.

Blacks and Hispanics are narrowing the gap in the overall graduation rates with their white and Asian counterparts, but the overall numbers remain daunting. We learn:

Overall, 51.4 percent of black students in the class of 2008 graduated in four years, compared to 47.8 percent in 2007 and 40.1 percent in 2005. This 11.3 point increase over two years compares to a 7.5 point increase among white students and a 7.8 point increase among Asian students during the same period. Similarly, 48.7 percent of Hispanic students in the class of 2008 graduated in four years, compared to 43.5 percent in 2007 and 37.4 percent in 2005, an increase of 11.3 points over two years.

While progress is being made in NYC’s overall high school graduation rates, are the numbers truly representative of students prepared to move forward in life or is the system still being gamed to a large extent? How uncanny that today’s New York Times also highlights, Makeup Work Allows Students to Slide By, Critics Say:

A year after reports showed that New York City high schools were offering failing students a chance to earn credit simply by completing worksheets or attending weeklong cram sessions, educators say the system of making up schoolwork is still abused.

Not that I have the answers to solving the urban education problems in our country (I am fully supportive of further promotion of charter schools and student vouchers), but I do know that without being totally honest and transparent on the issue, real progress will never be made.

In the process, the very minorities whom politicians and public policy experts claim they want to help will continue to suffer.

LD

The spring rain came, then the summer sun. And still no shoots. So I started looking over fences to see how others were doing – see if they were having better luck. And as you might expect I did find some green shoots, but I also found a few other things that I thought you might find interesting. So I went ahead and put together a little garden report on what I’ve been finding so far.

Will it surprise you to learn, Wall Street has managed to pull off a bumper crop in the midst of a recession and is eagerly awaiting a rich harvest of green.

Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street:

Business is back on Wall Street. If the good times continue to roll, lofty pay packages may be set for a comeback as well.

Based on analysts’ earnings forecasts for 2009, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is on track to pay out as much as $20 billion this year, or about $700,000 per employee. That would be nearly double the firm’s $363,000 average last year, and slightly higher than the $661,000 for the average Goldman employee in fiscal 2007, according to analyst estimates reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

And AIG too. After a little deferred gratification is feeling lush and flush enough in green to seek the governments blessing for about $250 million in promised bonuses that come due during the next nine months.

AIG in Talks With U.S. Over Another $250 Million in Bonuses

AIG has asked the government to rule on several categories of bonuses, said a person familiar with the discussions. These include millions of dollars in payments owed to top corporate executives in coming days, and the troubled insurer has been seeking consent from senior Treasury official Kenneth R. Feinberg in the hope this would provide the company with political cover.

But of greater concern to both sides is what to do about the vastly larger sum that comes due in March 2010, when AIG is scheduled to pay more than $200 million in bonuses aimed at retaining executives at AIG Financial Products, the unit whose complex derivative contracts nearly wrecked the insurance giant last fall.

AIG Seeks Clearance For More Bonuses:

AIG’s proxy statement filed last month explains why AIG initially instituted the retention payments. The company stated that after the federal bailout began in September, “we needed to confront the fact that many of our employees, perhaps the majority, knew that their long-term future with us was limited, and our competitors knew that our key producers could perhaps be lured away. . . . Allowing departures to erode the strength of our businesses would have damaged our ability to repay taxpayers for their assistance.”

On the other hand, many American’s (outside of Wall Street and other bailout industries) found themselves trying to spread their Independence day picnic blankets over unsightly brown spots that seems to have taken over their front lawns.

Layoffs undermine consumers’ ability to ignite economy

In an economy in which consumers account for roughly 70% of the demand for goods and services, their ability to earn a paycheck is key to a lasting recovery. …”For any economy, the most important thing is income in the form of wages, and having a job or not having a job is the biggest impact on spending,” says Charles Biderman, CEO of TrimTabs. “You can’t get more basic than that.”

But it’s not just those ugly brown spots on their lawns, that have home owner worried. There seems to be plant wilt and leaf droop that is also spreading through neighborhoods.

As economy drops jobs, paychecks drop some weight

The recession has taken out 6.5 million jobs in about a year and a half. All told, nearly 15 million people were considered unemployed in June.

Illustrating how hard it is to land a job, 29 percent of the unemployed have been out of work six months or longer. That’s the most on records dating to just after World War II. The unemployment rate for teenagers is 24 percent, the highest since 1983.

Including laid-off workers who have given up looking for jobs or have settled for part-time work, the so-called underemployment rate was 16.5 percent in June — the highest on records dating to 1994.

The falling wages come from furloughs, pay freezes and pay cuts imposed by employers across the country. Many also have cut hours: The average work week in June fell to 33 hours, the lowest on records dating to 1964.

Average weekly earnings fell about $2 in June to $611.49, the lowest in nearly a year and the first month-to-month drop since March.

And apparently brown spots on your lawn can’t necessarily be stimulated back to life with a little fertilizer and water. And if the condition starts to radically deteriorate, a grub worm infestation is your prime suspect. Grub worms, which are beetle larvae, eat away at the roots of plants, flowers and grasses. Basically, starving your lawn or garden plant of the water and nutrients it needs to function properly, leaving the affected plant to slowly wither and die.

Regulators aim to curb speculators’ influence on oil prices

“In the past couple of years the U.S. taxpayer has taken a kick in the teeth on prices they pay for a loaf of bread, a gallon of gas, even the palladium that goes in the catalytic converter in your car – and it’s the responsibility of the CFTC to ensure, not high or low prices, but fair prices,” said Bart Chilton, a CFTC commissioner, in a statement to McClatchy Newspapers.

“I think that the CFTC has not done enough to ensure that speculative limits or levels were enforced aggressively and that exemptions from these important regulations were granted appropriately. And, I believe that American consumer paid the price … for that lack of diligence.”

The exemptions he referred to involve big Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others, which have been exempted from limits on how much they can trade.

These financial players are treated as commercial players although they have never taken possession of the product. That allows them to hedge bets they have made in the unregulated swaps market, where private bets between two parties take place outside a regulated exchange.

NYSE Halts Transparency, Feels Goldman Program Trading Disclosure Is Unnecessary

In a move set to infuriate and send many Zero Hedge readers over the top, the NYSE has taken action to make sure that nobody will henceforth be able to keep track of the complete dominance that Goldman Sachs exerts over the New York Stock Exchange. This basically ends our weekly Program Trading updates disclosed every Thursday indicating that Goldman has singlehandedly captured all of NYSE’s program trading.

In addition to the expense and damage to your garden caused from the grub worm infestation itself, grub worms attract other pests to your yard. A variety of mammals (gophers, moles and the like) will burrow underground to feed on grub worms, leaving a nasty trail of furrows and holes in your lawn and garden.

Goldman Sachs Loses Grip on Its Doomsday Machine

Aleynikov, 39, is the former Goldman computer programmer who was arrested on theft charges July 3… two days after Goldman (Sachs) told the government he had stolen its secret, rapid-fire, stock- and commodities-trading software in early June during his last week as a Goldman employee. …

It wasn’t just Goldman that faced imminent harm if Aleynikov were to be released, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti told a federal magistrate judge at his July 4 bail hearing in New York. … “The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.”

… Facciponti said the bank told the government that “they do not believe that any steps they can take would mitigate the danger of this program being released.” He added: “Once it is out there, anybody will be able to use this, and their market share will be adversely affected.”

Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to completely prevent or eliminate grub worms. Cultivating Robins and other songbirds that love to eat grub worms is probably the most beneficial long-term control solution. Along with keeping a vigilant eye on your landscaping so you can tackle an infestation as soon as it start. And it is always a good idea to contact your local agricultural extension for information that may apply to your area, and particularly before apply any chemicals insecticides.

U.S. Job Report Suggests that Green Shoots are Mostly Yellow Weeds

The job market report is essentially the tip of the iceberg. It’s a significant signal of the weaknesses in the economy. It affects consumer confidence. It affects labor income. It affects consumption. It affects the willingness of firms to start increasing production. It has significant consequences of the housing market. And it has significant consequences, of course, on the banking system.

Home prices have already fallen from their peak by about 30 percent. Based on our analysis, they are going to fall by at least 40 percent from their peak, and more likely 45 percent, before they bottom out. They are still falling at an annualized rate of over 18 percent. That fall of at least 40-45% percent of home prices from their peak is going to imply that about half of all households that have a mortgage – about 25 million of the 51 million that have mortgages – are going to be underwater with negative equity in their homes, and therefore will have a significant incentive to just walk away from their homes.

For the time being, of course, there are massive deflationary pressures in the economy: the slack in the goods markets, with demand falling relative to supply-and-excess capacity. The rising slack in labor markets, which are controlling wages and labor costs and pushing them down, implies that deflationary pressures are going to be dominant this year and next year.

But eventually, large budget deficits and their monetization are going to lead – towards the end of next year and in 2011 – to an increase in expected inflation that may lead to a further increase in ten-year treasuries and other long-term government bond yields, and thus mortgage and private-market rates. Together with higher oil prices driven up in part by this wall of liquidity rather than fundamentals alone, this could be a double whammy that could push the economy into a double-dip or W-shaped recession by late 2010 or 2011. So the outlook for the US and global economy remains extremely weak ahead.

So what’s happening in your garden? Did those ‘green shoots’ arrive as predicted. Were those shoots properly stimulated to grow into strong and healthy plants? Are you looking out at a lush green jungle? Or did the Grub Worms get to your garden too?

As more and more people lose their jobs and become unable to pay their bills, will they start pilfering what they need or can sell? The answer isn’t a solid “absolutely,” but the evidence points to “probably.”

Whether people will engage in acts they know are wrong depends on several variables:
1. The strength of their established value systems,
2. The benefits of engaging in dishonest acts, and
3. The risks of getting caught.

Persons who hold “Thou shalt not steal” as a primary value would exhaust every other option before even considering taking something that doesn’t belong to them. Those who are convinced that they would never get away with it are also less likely to become thieves. But you don’t want your iPhone or GPS anywhere near anyone with a weak value system (or who can rationalize it away, such as “She can just go out and buy a new one”) and who feels safe from exposure.

However, when need reaches desperation, other interlinking factors will impact on any increase in the rate of property crime.

Property crime is more likely among younger people. Property crime is also more likely the longer one goes without legitimate resources. As Don Weatherburn writing for the Brisbaine Times writes

To begin with, crime is a young person’s game, so you would not expect a rise in unemployment among people over 40 years of age to have much effect on crime. But nor would you expect young people to drift into crime the moment they are unemployed. It takes time to lose hope of securing a job and for job skills to fade. This suggests that crime rates might be more closely linked to the number of young people who have been out of work for a long time, rather than to the overall unemployment rate.

Family obligations is another factor. Roughing it alone is one thing, but when one has hungry children, motivations and perceptions change. In Peter Goodman’s New York Times report, a sheriff in South Carolina is quoted as saying, “When people get desperate, they’re going to feed their family…You catch people and ask them why they did it, they’ll say: ‘I’m desperate. I can’t pay my bills.’”

Unemployed blue collar workers and professionals may engage in criminal activity at some point, but perhaps not involving taking someone else’s tangible property. They may possess the skills and be drawn more to credit card fraud, some form of Internet scam, or other shady endeavor.

Finally, the level of resources of local law enforcement makes a difference. Unfortunately at a time when property crime is already beginning to rise, law enforcement programs and police positions are being cut.

The property crime rate had been on an overall downward trend. But given the chance that it will make a sharp upturn as the unemployment rate skyrockets, that old advice about keeping your doors locked and your treasured valuables out of easy sight or reach is again timely.

In the meantime, will some relief will come from somewhere for distressed folks who would otherwise be upstanding citizens? I don’t see our leaders doing anything substantial yet. But we can all look for opportunities to help out there as well—donating to food banks and goods or money to other charitable organizations and helping family and friends who need a lift as best we can.

… Four-point-four million jobs have disappeared since this recession began 15 months ago. That’s about 10,000 job losses every day — an apocalyptic rate. The result was the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, now over 8 percent.

Some economists say the unemployment is a permanent shift. Quote: “These jobs aren’t coming back. [More below.]

I hope you all caught Uppity Woman’s “Only 610,000 people filed for unemployment last week. Things must be better.” She has such a gift for irony, eh?

I listened to today’s American Morning discussion on unemployment: “615,000 to 640,000 a week … month after month … the equivalent of the entire populations of Baltimore or El Paso or Milwaukee.” Despite the slight uptick noted by Uppity (tongue-in-cheek), longterm projections matter. Fox Business channel’s Brian Sullivan discovered astonishing trends at the Web site of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. (The current recession began in December 2007.)

Sullivan emphasizes that, compared to other recessions, one must look at the PACE of the decline.

Our recession, in comparison to others, large and small, is beginning to outpace them all. This recession will be the worst, in terms of job loss, of any recession except for World War II.

If you want to play with this chart, and view other great materials at the Minneapolis Fed, go to their Web site, where there are all kinds of charts you can bring up. Here are more “fun” charts — and NOTE that the last chart is interactive.

Using the interactive chart, compare your state’s unemployment numbers to other states.

So much for that “glimmer,” PBO. Eh? We people know the difference between “bling” and the good stuff. “All that shines is not gold.”

For more of today’s news on unemployment, check out “New Jobless Claims Rise More Than Unexpected, as 6 Million Seek Benefits.”

Here’s more from The McLaughlin Group transcript — I watch faithfully every Friday night on my local PBS station. This is grim:

McLAUGHLIN: … A lot of other production either isn’t going to happen at all or it’s going to happen somewhere other than the United States. There are going to be fewer stores, fewer factories, fewer financial services operations,” unquote.

So the reality is bleak, and so is the outlook. Probably nothing has hurt the American dream more than this job outlook. The MetLife study says 75 percent of Americans have either lost their job or have a friend, neighbor or relative who has been laid off. Sixty percent say they fear sudden unemployment would mean filing for bankruptcy. Fifty percent say they couldn’t support themselves for more than a month without a paycheck.

This job loss terror is not only felt by low wage-earners. Get this: Of Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, 53 percent say that their financial stability would be at risk if they lost their job. …
[...]

… This job loss terror is not only felt by low wage-earners. Get this: Of Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, 53 percent say that their financial stability would be at risk if they lost their job.

Beth, do you want to expand on this?

MS. HIRSCHHORN: Sure. Americans told us that one month into being without a job means that they are headed for financial ruin, and 28 percent say two weeks is all the time that they have.

MR. BUCHANAN: Two weeks? That’s not a lot of savings.

MS. HIRSCHHORN: Yeah, two weeks without a paycheck. There’s no safety net. People do not have any cash reserves. That’s why, even though you want everybody to spend more –

MR. BUCHANAN: I don’t want them to spend more. Obama does. (Laughs.)

MS. CLIFT: It’s not an ordinary downturn. A lot of these jobs are not coming back. But there’s $80 billion in the stimulus package for the new green economy, and that’s going to create jobs in the economy of tomorrow.

MR. BUCHANAN: Near a bus line, hopefully. (Laughs.)

MS. CLIFT: Hopefully.

MS. CROWLEY: One of the positive trends –

MS. CLIFT: Rapid rail.

MS. CROWLEY: — coming out of this crisis is that people are actually saving. The savings rate in America is going straight up.

DR. MCLAUGHLIN: Let’s be very tight with this. Exit question: Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of American power? Is this the twilight of the American experiment? Yes or no. Pat Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN: The American empire is clearly receding. It’s not over, but it’s receding.

Let’s all go out and buy a car.

Of course, let’s face it, the number would almost have to go down at this point, simply because there are fewer people left out there who are actually employed so that they can be layed off.

Then there’s that pesky news about home forclosures that are on a serious rise, since that temporary Presidential AKA “Bandaid” moratorium on foreclosures expired on March 31. Nothing like putting off the inevitable, eh? The bandaid fell off, look for the scabs brought to you by the same Wall Street industry that took hundreds of billions from your children and grandchildren, and then doubled your credit card rates in mid-stream– and got away with it. Boy those political contibutions to Congress sure must be rolling in, because Congress is making sure they drag their feet on stopping those credit card interest rate increases.

But don’t worry, just as soon as everybody’s credit scores are trashed and just as soon as all the interest rates are at the Loan Shark level, Congress will be outraged. Why….they will have had NO idea this was happening! If they had only known!

Like I said, Don’t Worry!

Really, be patient. It’s all just simple math. Using Government statistical methods, just as soon as unemployment reaches 100% and everyone has collected his or her last unemployment check, everything will level off , and the official unemployment rate will be zero.

Everything is under control folks. Fed Bagmen Tim and Ben are on the job. They are going to arrange to give another hundred billion to launder to your bank as a reward for raising your interest rates– and everything well be just fine. And the Global Warming people are On The Job. They will save the earth. Too bad nobody living in it will live to see it, but hey, small price to pay, right?

Don’t worry! Be happy!

Filed under: Bailout Party, Depression, Economy, Housing Crises, Jobs, Tim “Turbo Tax” Geithner, Where have our Trillions gone???

The crusty CNN newsman/commentator Lou Dobbs takes a depressing look at unemployment figures and how taxpayers are being HAMMERED:

California’s Burden: Workers Pay the Price
Workers in California are worrying about losing even more money. The unemployment rate is in the double-digits and climbing. Those who have jobs in the state are bearing an increasingly heavy burden and their tax rates are rising as well. Casey Wian has the report.

Even Maddow had a segment on unemployment, which some have noted does NOT include all of the people forced to work at part-time jobs or those who’ve given up entirely:

The President is doing “everything in his power”? Uh, like what? Well, the unemployment benefits are good — the infusion of cash into the economy also helps. Maddow, to her credit, asks some important questions of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who supplies some solid answers but not any real solutions.

All this talk about the BIG SQUEEZE on the average working person — both from employment crises and increasing taxes — reminded me of a segment I watched earlier Tuesday evening on Hannity:

As I was preparing this story, I stopped by the YouTube channel of Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan — I’ve subscribed to his channel because I KNOW that the economy and jobs are foremost in his mind — mainly the 750,000 jobs that the state of Michigan expects to lose by the end of 2009. That’s a staggering number of lost jobs. Here’s Fox News’s Geraldo interviewing Rep. McCotter over the weekend:

750,000 jobs. That’s one and a half times the entire population of Lansing, Michigan.

“A cherished way of life is being lost,” says Rep. McCotter.

And future generations will have nothing to show for current slapdash solutions except a massive debt they’ll have to try to struggle to repay through exorbitant taxes that prohibit their achieving a decent standard of living.

It’s not such a rosy picture after all, is it.

OF NOTE: Too many blogs, particularly the Hillary-friendly blogs, would never publish a Dick Morris video, solely because of what he’s said about Hillary and Bill. I think that that is a mistake. Let’s leave such strict censorship to the Daily Kos crowd. I’m willing to listen to anyone whose commentary strikes a chord within me, or at the very least raises highly important matters that — sigh — our media do not cover.

I didn’t know that Morris does videos. Here is the link to his YouTube channel.

Mr. Morris’s blog contains more interesting thoughts, including these recent posts:

• “OBAMA, GM: YOU BREAK IT, YOU OWN IT (right on, Dick!)
• “OBAMA’S WORST JOBS-KILLER,” published April 1 in the New York Post:
  

  More than anything else, business needs a predictable environment if it is to create jobs. Changes in the regulatory environment and the tax code make it almost impossible for businesses to make investments.

  Yet President Obama seems to ignore this reality. Each day’s news brings another bold and far-reaching proposal to change the fundamentals of the US economy. And each time he indulges his personal ideology with such a pronouncement, businesses all over the world cut back on their planned investment until the dust settles.

  Most incredible was the fact that he chose the middle of a deep recession to announce a major tax-code overhaul. …

• “OBAMA SOAKS THE RICH: CHURCHES, DAY CARE, HOMELESS SHELTERS,” printed March 28th:
  

  President Obama’s glib assertion that his reduction in tax deductions will not reduce donations is absurd. His pathetic defense at his press conference – that he would still give a $100 dollar check to charity even if he only got $11 less of tax deduction from it was both disingenuous and beside the point.

  And his comment that his reduced deduction would only impact one or two percent of the nation misses the point that it is these folks who are doing almost half of the donating.

  In 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, four million taxpayers had adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more. They comprised 3% of the tax returns, made 31% of the income, but donated 44% of all charitable contributions. Together, they provided charity with $81 billion in that year. …

You can’t say we’re not eclectic in what we post here, eh?

I hope and believe people who have been reading my work for a while appreciate that I am not an alarmist. Whether working on Wall Street as a trader and salesman or now writing for Sense on Cents, a measured, analytical approach has always generated the best results. In that vein, I discount speculators and salesmen who attempt to make a buck from heightened levels of anxiety. That said, the elevated levels of risk in our economy, markets, and global finance require an equally elevated sense of risk analysis and historical analysis.

Given some of the economic saber rattling emanating from China and the lessened fiscal support emanating from Europe, the threats of global protectionism are clearly growing. That scenario also occurred during the Depression.

I plan to continue reviewing The Great Depression in the days and weeks ahead. As with any analysis, I am always leery of the source of information. To that end, I read material today from Dr. Edwin Vieira. Here is his bio:

Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School).

For more than thirty years he has practiced law, with emphasis on constitutional issues. In the Supreme Court of the United States he successfully argued or briefed the cases leading to the landmark decisions Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America v. Beck, which established constitutional and statutory limitations on the uses to which labor unions, in both the private and the public sectors, may apply fees extracted from nonunion workers as a condition of their employment.

I will not blindly accept his bio, but he strikes me as a very credible source. In reading separate research today, I became aware that our government under FDR seized gold and silver holdings of the American populace during The Great Depression. I will admit that I was totally unaware of that phenomena. It has caused me to ponder if a similar situation could possibly occur in our current scenario.

I’ll admit that I am startled by the depth and prescient nature of Vieira’s message and the timing of it. Vieira’s piece, A New Gold Seizure: Possibility or Paranoia was written on March 2, 2006. Here is an excerpt:

[d]uring the time of war, the President may * * * investigate, regulate, or prohibit, any transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit or payments between, by, through, or to any banking institution, and the importing, exporting, hoarding, melting, or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion, currency or securities * * *.

Al Jazeera wants to know how the financial crisis and soaring unemployment rates are affecting you. Have you recently lost your job or do you fear losing it? How is the economic crisis impacting you and your community? We want to hear your story, so send us your videos, pictures and comments.

The A.J. producer also cites incredible unemployment numbers expected in the year 2009, around the globe:

How much unrest could these staggering numbers of unemployed people cause? I have more questions about you:

Will you be submitting a video about your own crises?

What is YOUR employment story? Have you lost your job? Are you intensely afraid you may lose your job? Has your retirement been wiped out? Have you taken a wage or benefits cut? How are your co-workers faring? And how are their families coping?

Tell us your story here too! And if you need advice, we urge you to ask questions because there are so many capable readers here who’ll have great insights and ideas for you.

I have more questions: Are you in danger of losing your home? Are you worried about making it through the month? Have you cut back on activities you used to enjoy? Are you stashing cash? Have you pulled your money out of certain banks or investment funds?

Got more questions? Ask away. We can help each other.

I heard, on a recent news show, that one of the most popular search terms, these days, is “Casseroles.” People are tightening their belts, cooking simpler food, and not eating out.

What are you doing to save money? Here’s one thing I’ve done: I never eat out, and I never buy a cup of coffee. I only drink coffee that’s on sale, and I always prepare it at home.

I’m also baking fruit cobblers and casseroles — in bulk, as it were — and freezing the food for future meals.

I’ve also discovered that I can make nutritious and yummy sandwiches for very little money. Even though the faux salami and bologna (vegetarian “meat” made by Yves, a great Canadian brand) costs almost $4 for a package, I can make 6-7 sandwiches from it, along with thinly sliced Tillamook cheese, lots of organic lettuce, thinly sliced tomato, and bread that I buy at the low-cost bread store. I figured out one day that each of those sandwiches costs me about 50 cents. That’s pretty damn cheap eating, and it’s delicious!!!

The one important thing I don’t do is scrimp on the quality, purity, and nutrition of the ingredients. (E.g., I refuse to buy that cardboard un-organic lettuce; I pay more for organic lettuce, but I eat every leaf of it.) What I do is just stretch them out to last longer.