My head is hurting! Unemployment up, business is terrible...

[rfranklin]

for my small business (and everyone else I talk to in town) and yet Wall Street is jubilant. Why? What do they see that I don't see?

[ixion]

1. What do they see?

Free money. Our money, handed over to them by the same folks we elected to protect it, and spend it wisely.

I run a small business as well, and I work with other small businesses. We're not seeing green shoots, to say the least.

[Botany]

2. same for me

business is way down

[nc4bo]

3. We're right there with you rfanklin. We're feeling the pain too. nt

[CoffeeCat]

4. I feel like they're mocking us and saying "tough shit to you!"

Seriously. They're having a frickin party to which we aren't invited.

They announce how groovy and marvelous everything is--while we hang on by our fingernails.

I really, really don't get this.

Our economy is totally dependent on consumer spending. 70 percent of the total US economy is consumer spending.
The vast majority of the population has pared back their spending. Rampant credit-card spending has gone the way
of the dinosaurs. So many are unemployed and they're sure not out tearing it up at the mall. Most other people I
know are being very conservative with their money.

So, where in the hell is all of this "recovery" coming from? How can the economy be growing when us indentured economic
servants---aren't buying as we used to?

I'm still trying to figure all of this out, but I have to say--the corporatists, Wall Street and their partners in the
media have a lot of nerve--declaring a frickin Mardi Gras, when the lower 90 percent is in panic mode. It's like they're
playing mind games with us, and trying to make us feel there's something wrong with US--because we just can't be happy
and enjoy this fabulous recovery. We're the problem, evidently...

It's total crazymaking.

[snappyturtle]

7. Oh, didn't you hear last week that consumers are being blamed

because they're saving their money rather than spend it? We spend about everything we make on a commodity called life and unfortunately, can't buy many extras. We're not lining a savings account.

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. It's only making me hate the rich greedy a$$hole$ all the more.

I've had enough of them and their greed! :grr: And THEY ARE MOCKING US! :mad:

[Fire1]

13. Yesterday while stopped at a traffic light I saw a bright red,

brand new, dropped top PHANTOM!! Someone told me that there are only 20 phantom convertibles in the world. I don't kmow how true that is, but THIS guy was leaning back, smoking his cigar and looked to be enjoying life with not a care in the world. They have no shame.

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. Gawd that is disgusting! Right, they have no shame.

:grr:

[gmoney]

18. class warfare! wealth envy! socialism!

:sarcasm:

[cdsilv]

12. they're churning the 401k, pension, muni, investment funds and raking in commissions.....

...trading back and forth....

[grasswire]

5. just in my own family...

one person had to leave his small daughters and relocated 3000 miles away where he had family to feed him and work to do, after a year of only getting 20 hours a week and eating only one meal a day.

another person lost his small business that had been profitable for ten years -- a coffeehouse cafe. He had seven employees to let go. He hadn't taken a day off in 18 months, there at 4 each morning. Business plummeted. He's now out of a job and deeply in debt.

we were last week forced out of our rented family home when the landlady lost it to foreclosure. She owned multiple properties bought on toxic mortgages. She sucked out the equity, stopped making mortgage payments, pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from faithful tenants, and is walking away and evicting tenants. A greedy scheme, displacing families.

another family member has moved with her teenage daughter to a city where she *might* find more work. All she has currently is some child support and a $500 consulting job. And 90 grand in student loans.

So this is America, 2009.

[lunatica]

6. The first lesson when watching the stock market

Is that if it's bad for the country or the world it's good for the stock market because it give them a clear indication of what will sell big. For example, if a bridge falls down then the steel industry will get a boost in sales. If terrorists kill a bunch of people then arms sales will go up. If people in Ethiopia go through another starvation crisis then certain foods and medicines will have a spike in usage.

Earthquakes and natural disasters create jobs and create the need for lots and lots of materials.

The Stock Market loves it when bad things happen to people. It's almost too easy for them to make a killing.

[snappyturtle]

9. They're seeing the rich capable of getting richer...again..but that's good for all

of us...right?...trickle down and all! :sarcasm:

[CoffeeCat]

17. I don't hear them talking about "trickle down"...

...any more--in an attempt to justify the rich having everything.

I think they don't even give a shit how it looks any more. They
have what they have--and apparently the rest of us are lazy or weren't productive
enough, smart enough or born into the right family.

[snappyturtle]

19. You're right. We don't hear the term 'trickle down' but I have been

hearing that taxing the rich on healthcare will prohibit job growth because the rich are the ones hiring....trickle down of sorts.

[Armchair QB]

10. It has to do with inflation

Earnings for companies were up and the unemployment number has something to do with inflation.

[rockymountaindem]

11. Because the stock market looks ahead and makes bets on what they think will happen

and not on what's happening today. All month people and institutions make trades based on certain assumptions, like unemployment numbers, and then react to the real numbers. The market is up today because although the unemployment numbers seem bad, they aren't as bad as have been factored into the market by trades over the past few weeks. Therefore, the market goes up. Also, see this:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/32216574

Jobless Claims Showing Unemployment Trending Down

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose slightly more than expected last week, but the number of workers staying on jobless roles fell to the lowest in three months, government data showed on Thursday.

Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 584,000 in the week ended July 25, the Labor Department said, a touch above market expectations for a reading of 570,000.

However, the four-week moving average for new claims, considered to be a better gauge of underlying trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell by 8,250 to 559,000...

"The headline number in the jobless claims report was slightly worse than expected, but the continuing claims component was getting better so that bodes well for the US economy going forward," said Matthew Strauss, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital in Toronto."

So it's not all bad news, apparently.

[Orsino]

14. The DJIA is not about your prosperity.

It's a measure of how fast the very rich are making money off you.

[KharmaTrain]

15. Correctamundo...

The rich are getting richer...TARP funds propped up banks that restarted the gambling casino...the wizards in the backroom are spinning money into gold for those with investments and this has been driving the markets up. Add to that the downsizing that the market always see not as people without jobs but "corporate belt tightening" to maximize profits...thus the price goes up. Many corporations detached their real earning from their stock prices long ago.

The little guys are getting squeezed by the credit crunch that has stagnated the real economy. Debt is still a big problem keeping credit tight that prevents small businesses from getting the operating capital to do business.

So if you've got a stock portfolio, things look a lot better today than they did a year ago. If you don't...sucks to be you.