Well, here we are post-one-day the economy saving "deal" whereby the country gets screwed so the lunatic Tea Party fringe of the Republican party can be mollified, and so they won't drive the economy into a ditch, from whence there's no idea of how long before it gets out. Make no mistake, my friends, this so-called deal on the debt ceiling is not a good deal for anybody. It will without question drag the economy further down. Further down from the dismal state it is in at the moment. In short, things are not getting better. They are going to get worse. And get a load of the baseline from which this will happen. Let these numbers sink in, my friends. Things are really dismal right now. Just wait until our stupid politicians' latest piece of asininity takes hold.
- Annual rate at which the GDP grew this year: 1.3 percent between April and June, 0.4 percent between January and March
- Average annual GDP growth from 1998-2007: 3.02 percent
- Total jobs lost since January 2008: 8.7 million
- Total jobs recovered since January 2008: 1.8 million
- Recession technically ended: over two years ago, in June 2009
- Current unemployment rate: 9.2 percent
- The "natural unemployment rate": 5 percent
- Months that the unemployment rate has been around 9 percent or more: 28
- Number of unemployed people in June 2011: 14.1 million
- Growth in number of unemployed people since March 2011: 545,000
- Number of long-term unemployed people in June 2011: 6.3 million, or 44.4 percent of the unemployed
- Pace at which jobs were added throughout the late 1990s: 350,00 per month
- Jobs that were added in June: 18,000
- Jobs the U.S. needs to create to 5 percent unemployment rate: 6.8 million, as of January 2011
- Years it will take to get back to an unemployment rate of 5 percent: four years if we're adding jobs at 350,000 per month; 11 years if we're adding jobs at the 2005 rate of 210,000 per month
- Unemployed workers per job opening: 4.98
- Number of people who weren't in the labor force, but wanted work, as of June 2011: 2.7 million
- The last time the labor force participation rate was lower than it is now: 1984
- The amount of state budget spending that comes from the federal government: about 1/3, or $478 billion in 2010
- Increase in before-tax corporate profits in the first quarter of 2011: $140.3 billion
- Percentage of Americans' total personal income that comes from federal funds: almost 20 percent
- Spending cuts in the proposed budget: at least $2.3 trillion over a decade from 2012-2021
- How long you can currently receive unemployment benefits: up to 99 weeks
- The number of those weeks funded to some extent by federal aid: up to 73
- People currently relying on federal unemployment benefits: 3.8 million
- How long you'll be able to receive unemployment benefits if you lose your job after July 1, 2011: 20 to 26 weeks, depending on your state
- Recovery-funded jobs reported by recipients, according to recovery.gov: 550,621
- Amount of stimulus money left to be spent: $122.8 billion of the original $787 billion
Source is Pro Publica,
here.
Meanwhile, we learn that the
stock market dropped over 200 points today over fears for the economy. I don't give a rat's butt about the stock market, but the "market" knows bad news when it sees it. And it knows the charade of a settlement deal that just happened doesn't do a thing to address the real problems.
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