Where Is The Bottom?

[tekisui]

600,000 jobs lost last month. Worst numbers since 1974. Record number of Americans filing for unemployment. States are going broke. The downward spiral, the snowballing, gaining momentum.

Where is the bottom? When is the bottom? How much worse will it get?

[onehandle]

1. We should have a pool.

Dibs on September of this year.

[tekisui]

3. I hope you are right.

Last year I was saying late summer/fall of '09 would be when things would turn around. I am hoping it will be that soon, now. But, not as optimistic.

[tom_paine]

14. I wish it could be over that soon. This massive a dislocation, this massive a concentrated long-

-term Ponzi-type theft, which is essentially what the last 30 years have been, seems unlikely to correct itself in such a short time, if ever.

Are our factories going to magically re-spring up overnight? Is the oil we burnt going to go back into the ground, along with the CO?

Sorry to be so harsh and bleak, onehandle, but on every level a September "hitting bottom" seems unlikely. Maybe a dead-cat bounce.

Obama is thus far doing a pretty damned great job, but the nation is a punched, smoldering safe with tendrils of smoke pouring from the front. So much wealth has been redistributed upward, so much productive power and effort stolen and diverted into unproductive or destructive pursuits.

Like that scene in "Blazing Saddles", our nation has been repeatedly gut-punched for the last 8 and more like 30 years. It's the biggest goddamned bag labeled $$$ being toted out from the smoldering punched safe, by the most successful State Criminals in Human History, who have economically dwarfed what Hitler in the realm of murder. Our Bushie Global Aristocratic Elites DID, in fact, plunder the entire Earth, which Hitler for all the blood on his hands, never got to do.

The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
--Tom Paine "The American Crisis I"

And I have not even discussed the environmental issues which, though they may hold off 50 or 100 years, may be more important NOW because of the "tipping point" theory.

Having said all that, and yes I wish reality gave me an excuse to be optimistic which is a much nicer future to postulate, it seems amazingly unrealistic to think that "bottom" (which could be a flexible definition for anyone) is coming so soon from a confluence of problems so great.

Not to mention the sheer scale of Bushie Thievery on our nation these past 30 years.

Meanwhile, here's a link to peruse. Those who don't remember history...

http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=359

(the text below, is the significant data here, not the graph)

[Ganja Ninja]

17. That's what I was going to say.

About 8 months away from the time they pass a stimulus package. But don't look for much of an change. They'll probably have to pass another one before this one has any effect.

Until then we're going to keep going downhill.

[Redbear]

2. I think it will get really ugly, really fast.

Then start to get better by July.

[NOW tense]

4. My no money is on June 25th. n/t

[tekisui]

7. How will we measure that we are turning around?

A decrease in jobs lost? A decrease in unemployment? A net positive of jobs?

I guess any of those could indicate a bottom.

[NOW tense]

13. Net positive of jobs. n/t

[MadHound]

5. Is there a bottom?

We've build our economy based on consumption. If people stop consuming, then jobs start to disappear. Jobs start to disappear, then there is less consumption, and around and around we go. There's not going to be a bottom unless a massive infusion of cash comes in to get consumption going. That's what is so important about this stimulus bill. The trouble is that 'Pugs and blue dog Dems are stripping the bill of a lot of its stimulus potential.

If this bill isn't passed things are going to get real ugly.

[tekisui]

8. That is the snowball effect I mentioned.

It is a self-perpetuating cycle. God, I hope this stimulus works.

[MadHound]

12. Frankly it's probably going to take some more stimulus packages to get things back

This one is simply to pull us back from the abyss. Others will be needed to actually get this economy moving in the right direction.

Hopefully the people and government learn their lesson from this, and start bringing back the manufacturing base to this country, and this time don't ship it all overseas.

[The2ndWheel]

11. And consumption is a huge part(but not only part) of our environmental problems

[OHdem10]

6. Think 40,000,000 (forty million) from Professionals to the lowest

or meager job in the country.

[tekisui]

9. Damn, so you think we are about half-way to a third through it?

[The2ndWheel]

10. Depends on how much air is between the ground and the tightrope we've built

[ipfilter]

15. We can see light at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, it's the end we entered and not the exit.

[elleng]

16. if i were to guess,

i'd wait 'til President Obama signs a stimulus bill.

[kentuck]

18. The unemployment numbers are going up - not down.

That is not a good sign. We have lost over 2 million jobs in just the last 4 months. This downturn is in the beginning, not the end. It's difficult to be optimistic at this time.

[izquierdista]

19. He who pick bottom

End up with shitty finger.

[tekisui]

22. !

:rofl:

I've never heard that!

[trof]

20. It's down there at the other end from the top.

W-a-a-a-a-y down there.
:-(

[kentuck]

21. 11 more states are about to run out of their unemployment funds.

No unemployment checks.

[tekisui]

23. Damn. How amny have already ran out?

It is getting scary.

[kentuck]

25. I believe they said 4 states this morning on WJ...?

I did not get the link they were reading from?

[leftofthedial]

24. MUCH worse.

Real unemployment is now somewhere in the 17%-to-22% range. The bottom is in the 50% range. The wealth of this country is gone. Gone. Spirited away by nearly thirty years of uninterrupted theft.

Within a few years, we'll awaken from our processed-food-and-predigested-entertainment stupors just enough to realize that we are alone in an empty land in which we own nothing. Most of us will die. The survivors will either rise up and take back our planet or we'll become slaves for an age.

[stray cat]

26. Quite a ways further down - we're just getting started on job losses

[Soylent Brice]

27. i'm hoping for a lake of fire and radioactive zombies.

in all seriousness, there's no telling where the end is on this one. think about all the information just now coming out about all these execs, wasteful greedy practices, the fleecing of america. we're just now getting a bird's eye view. can't answer your question, but i can tell you this, it's going to get much worse for a large majority of us.

[Coyote_Bandit]

28. I'm hoping

it gets MUCH, MUCH, MUCH worse - and it pains me to say that because I know some folks will be terribly and irreparably hurt.

I don't want to see the economy fixed. I want to see it transformed. I want to see productivity valued over wealth creation. I want to see infrastructure and manufacturing rebuilt and strong.
I want to see living wage laws. And maximum earnings laws. I no longer want to see consumption used as a measure of personal worth. I want to see the efforts of blue collar workers and tradesmen valued and respected. I want to see an educational system that actually prepares folks to earn a livlihood. I want to see everyone have equal access to health care. And much more....

Sadly, I do not think these changes will occur unless it gets a whole hell of a lot worse.