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WonTon, that’s a great map. I’m interested in the outlier counties that show (proportionally) large job gains, like Williams County, ND, population 19,761 with 2,403 new jobs in the last year (!). Main industries are oil and farming.
Econ stinks – something I say often here and will continue to say until I see jobs recover and consumers feel confident enough to “consume” / spend again. I feel very thankful and super lucky that I have my job & health but suspect most are not doing that well.
being typical Chinaman, stingy on spending and loathsome of big debt is my operating norm so recession hasn’t impacted those areas much
OK, I really don’t like to participate in rancorous discussions of religion or politics, because in the end, no one is convinced of anything other than what they came in with, and one is left hyperventilating in the corner, marveling at the other person’s utter density and blindness.
That said – Legion, please! First of all, no one is debating or disputing that the “Party of Lincoln” that is, the OLD Rebublican Party, was not at the forefront of progressive ideas, and many of it’s most famous and influential members were leaders in the cause of bettering the lives, and promoting the equality of black folks, and all kinds of other do-good things. Most students of American history also know that the Democratic Party of that time was the party of segregation, etc, etc. That was totally reversed, beginning after WW2, and finished by the end of the Civil Rights Movement. Harkening back to the days of yore, and invoking Lincoln, and acting as if Lincoln would even recognize his party now is absurd. Today’s Republican Party is NOT the Party of Lincoln. Just as today’s fundamentalist Christianity is NOT the movement begun by Jesus, who would be appalled by the venal, self-serving, bigoted, often murderous behavior that goes on in His name.
I, personally, do not subscribe to calling everything I consider bad politically, “Republican”, because I know most rank and file R’s are not that polarized, but with the Repub Party having been taken over by the rabid right, and with its blessing of many of the nut-job spokespeople, and fear of antagonizing said nut-jobs, it has totally lost its integrity and base. Let me know when sanity again rules there, and they come up with real answers, not slogans, and their spokespeople are not those either choose to believe the most absurd things about the President and the American people, or those who call for his death or downfall. As much as Democrats and those opposing Bush, derided or abhorred him, NO ONE with any credibility ever got on the airwaves and said he was Hitler, not an American, or slyly tipped around suggesting that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if someone took him out.
ugh. utterly embarrassing. but i bought 5 potpies for 4 bux at associated and going to start having those for lunch. but i have to heat it in the microwave in the kitchen here at work and i dont want anyone seeing me eating a pot pie. i mean everyone knows im pretty ghetto so it wouldnt be a shocker at all, but something about it being a pot pie is just depressing. i had one last night to test out how it tastes and the chicken tastes like rubber. and there’s like 30 grams of fat in it and the potpie itself is TINY and not very filling. :-/
*rob*
Two observations re the recession:
1) The labor market tends to be a lagging economic indicator. Thus most of us will feel that the recession is still ongoing even when it has ended because the labor market will likely be the last thing to recover, and still get worse when other factors are improving.
2) I am not fully convinced we are out of the woods, though. In the industrial economy there has been a massive replenishing of inventories back to normal levels, but I am not convinced that final demand is all that much better. So maybe we have moved from recession into ‘bumping along’ mode.
Yesterday I spotted this article in Slate. It is an interactive map of job losses in the U.S. in the last two years. Job gains are in blue, job losses in red. As you click forward in time from 07 to 09, the map bleeds into a mass of bright crimson.
http://www.slate.com/id/2216238/
haha rob – we’d make a killing!
DIBS, in answer to your more cheerful query, my proudest renovation moment was when I took over the reno of my apartment from a bad contractor, and became my own contractor. I jumped into the deep end and all sorts of unimaginable things happened (the worst was my carpenter falling out of a window to his death on his other job). I sourced marble (not for my kitchen!) from Italians in College Point, and cool fixtures from Hasids in Boro Park. Now when I look around my apartment every tile and faucet, every oddball molding edge, reminds me of a story…
Snappy:
I don’t beleive the recession is getting better any time soon and I beleive the media is trying to lull people into a state of mind where it’s ok to go out and buy cars and houses again to put money into the system. Once I start to see that job losses diminish and that companies start hiring again is when I will beleive we are coming out of it.
I still bring my lunch a few times a week and we cook dinner more often than we do takeout. Also I haven’t gone clothes shopping for myself in months and we haven’t been on a vacation in 2 years.
Because I work in music and namely for a company that experienced a huge surge of profit due to a major artist death, I don’t expect any any layoffs for the remainder of the year