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NEWSFLASH: Unemployment hits above 6%!!!

Today the latest figures of unemployment were released, and folks things are continuing to not look good.

Payrolls across the economy has dropped this month...again! Officially, the unemployment rate now stands at 6.1%. Consensus was the rate would be within 5.6-5.8%, north of the previous month's 5.5%. What we got was far above that.

The nitty gritty part is that we lost another 84,000 jobs for August. I say another, because the previous month the US economy jettisoned 51,000 jobs in July and 100,000 jobs in June. From manufacturing to the services sector, saw major losses. I don't have the exact figure before my, but CNN is right now saying that for the year we have lost 600,000 jobs! That, my friend is the Bush-McCain/Palin economy for you!

unemployment rate, manufacturing

Give me your White, scared and wealthy

Tonight the Republicans nominated their candidate for President.  We heard them all speak.  They pulled no punches, that is for sure.  Yet it isn't what they said that intrigued me, it's what they didn't say!

 

The Republican Convention in one second.

One could summarize the whole three days with these lines:

 

  1. John McCain served in Vietnam, got shot down, and became a POW
  2. Terrorists could still strike us, watch out!
  3. The Democrats will raise all your taxes, and you will lose your livelihoods.
  4. Energy independence will come at the tip of a an oil rig drill.
  5. Cutting spending on social programs equals freedom.
  6. Liberals love to kill babies.
  7. Oh...and John McCain was a POW.

So many concerns yet no real answers

RNC - Trade Through the Spin Cycle

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con artistOne of the Republican leadership's best tricks is to claim a bad policy is somehow good.    They say a lie with a complete straight face.    Not a blink, not even a nervous tick.    Nope.    No acknowledgment on how the United States is plain losing on bad trade deals.

Make no mistake, Republicans want more corporate written, NAFTA based, glorified outsourcing agreements.   Nary a statistic will be mentioned.  One is presented with the lie.  Bad is now good and upside down is right side up.

 

From the GOP platform:

Goolsbee - Obama's Economic Adviser - It's All in Your Head

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Guess what folks, there is a new economy!    I'll bet you didn't know that just as much as stock evaluations and profit didn't matter in the dot con era.

 

It's All in Your Head

At the helm of the Obama plan is the Chicago School of Economics, heavily promoting behavioral economics..

Aha, if we all just made the right choices, none of this bad shit would be happening right?  A new article, Obama's Geek Economist, in the MIT Technology Review, gives some foreboding hints at what we could expect in economic policy for an Obama administration.  We're being told (sold), we need a new economist for the new economy.

As I recall our economy is a very old story and it's called labor arbitrage.

Obama subscribes to a distinctive set of economic theories developed at the university [of Chicago], and to a corresponding set of policy prescription

Manufacturing Monday: Gustave's effect on energy & manufacturers

By now, Hurricane Gustav is ravaging the great city of New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast. Our hopes and prayers goes out to the good folks of the area. Well you probably have guessed, that Johnny Venom would've found the economic angle on all this. Rest assured, fellow Kossacks, I won't let you down! But once again, I do hope for the best for the folks aflicted by Gustave.

Gustave could raise the price at the pump, among other things

Middle Class is Fearful

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It is the economy, again, stupid. Working class families are fearful, but the opportunity for mis-information is high.

Senator Obama is using the Detroit Labor Day kickoff to emphasize three messages: addressing the needs of working people, the key role unions play in the election, and the role of manufacturing and the auto industry," Shaiken said. Both the Democratic presidential nominee and Republican rival Sen. John McCain are fighting for union members -- a key voting bloc in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other swing states. Link

Obama/Biden and the populist message are on-track.

Gustav Eying Gulf Oil and the LOOP

Hurricane Gustav is currently eying oil producing rigs and the Lousiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) as it heads north across Cuba's Pinar del Rio province into the Gulf Mexico.

Over the past decade, oil from the Gulf Coast has become an increasing part of domestic production. (link to DOE production figures) Current figures show that oil rigs in the Gulf produced 1.35 mbd (million barrels daily) in April 2008.

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