America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels

[Joanne98]

December was the worst month for US unemployment since the Great Recession began.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

The labour force contracted by 661,000. This did not show up in the headline jobless rate because so many Americans dropped out of the system. The broad U6 category of unemployment rose to 17.3pc. That is the one that matters.

Wall Street rallied. Bulls hope that weak jobs data will postpone monetary tightening: a silver lining in every catastrophe, or perhaps a further exhibit of market infantilism.

The home foreclosure guillotine usually drops a year or so after people lose their job, and exhaust their savings. The local sheriff will escort them out of the door, often with some sympathy –– just like the police in 1932, mostly Irish Catholics who tithed 1pc of their pay for soup kitchens.

Realtytrac says defaults and repossessions have been running at over 300,000 a month since February. One million American families lost their homes in the fourth quarter. Moody's Economy.com expects another 2.4m homes to go this year. Taken together, this looks awfully like Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.

Judges are finding ways to block evictions. One magistrate in Minnesota halted a case calling the creditor "harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive". We are not far from a de facto moratorium in some areas.

This is how it ended between 1932 and 1934, when half the US states declared moratoria or "Farm Holidays". Such flexibility innoculated America's democracy against the appeal of Red Unions and Coughlin Fascists. The home siezures are occurring despite frantic efforts by the Obama administration to delay the process.

Continued>>>.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6962632/America-slides-deeper-into-depression-as-Wall-Street-revels.html

[Craftsman]

1. Truth hurts, but it is still the truth.

[earthside]

2. And ... Doom & Gloom

After watching Bill Moyer's Journal last Friday and reading this month's issue of Mother Jones, there is every indication that we are still on a glide path for much more economic pain.

As a people, it is becoming quite clear that we are simply incapable of dealing with what the mega-transnational corporations have done to our economy. Sadly, it also looks like the Obama administration has decided to throw in its lot with the bankers -- sooner or later, we're going to get another crash, sad to say.

[Vidar]

3. K&R.