Soup kitchens dead ahead!!!

WASHINGTON – The nation's jobless ranks zoomed past 10 million last month, the most in a quarter-century, as piles of pink slips shut factory gates and office doors to 240,000 more Americans with the holidays nearing. Politicians and economists agreed on a painful bottom line: It's only going to get worse.
The unemployment rate soared to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, the government said Friday, up from 6.1 percent just a month earlier. And there was more grim news from U.S. automakers: Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., American giants struggling to survive, each reported big losses and figured to be announcing even more job cuts before long.

Thank you presidents Bush, (1 and 2) Clinton, and Reagan for opening our doors to free trade and removing all the tariffs that kept jobs here in the U.S. Thank you for giving tax breaks to those companies who employ their work force from overseas and south of the border. Thank you for allowing them to avoid taxes by using offshore P.O boxes as their accounts receivable addresses. Thank you for allowing them to hide their profits in Swiss bank accounts. Thank you for supporting the economy of China, Pakistan, India, and Russia while eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs here in the states. I could go on but, I'm really starting to get pissed off and my doctor told me that I need to avoid stress.

Beginning with Reagan and Bush I, temporarily slowed by Clinton but then regained speed when Bush II took the helm: CORPORATE profits have been steadily increasing breaking past performance records while CEO's have enjoyed the largest gap in compensation between themselves and their employees. (In 2007 - CEOs were paid 300 times that of the average American worker) Excessive CEO pay takes dollars out of the pockets of shareholders—including the retirement savings of America’s working families. Moreover, a poorly designed executive compensation package can reward decisions that are not in the long-term interests of a company, its shareholders and employees. When companies file bankruptcy they let go all the workers, get a pass on paying outstanding debt, but somehow find the cash to pay their CEOs millions of dollars in bonus and severances. Under an Obama administration will there be a resurgence of Unions and a return to some sort of economic sanity in the CEO/employee wage gap?

Home prices are down 20% nationwide since their peak in July 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. Economist Nouriel Roubini of New York University, who accurately predicted the housing slide and credit crisis, expects another 20% decline in home prices next year. Patrick Newport of economic forecasting firm Global Insight projects a 15% drop.

We're entering uncharted waters here. Never in my lifetime has home ownership been a bad investment. If this Roubini guy is right a house purchased in 2006 could lose 40% of it's value by 2010. Are you kidding me? Conservative estimates are that your home will lose 30% of it's value by 2010. Many of us have been upside down in our vehicles but, never have we been upside down in our homes. Let's hope our new captain knows how to use a sextant because not only are we entering uncharted waters but the sun has set, it's dark out, and the GPS is on the fritz.

As mentioned before president elect Obama is going to have his hands full trying to juggle much needed change in the way government is run and this current economic disaster that has been 28 years in the making. There will be no easy solutions, no magic stimulus package that will cure these ills. The bright side is that at least we have a chance under this new administration. Already the senator from Illinois has recruited not only former Goldman Sachs and other financial institution's CEOs as part of his economics team, he has brought in two very pro Union/worker's rights advocates who fly directly in the face of these career financial finaglers. David Bonier and Robert Reich will offer up ideas and suggestions in labor's best interest and not the CEO's. Lest anyone think that I am waving poms poms and shouting, "Give me an O!" you need to know that I think the economic stimulus package being proposed by Obama is a complete waste of time. Might as well squirt a little perfume in a septic tank. It ain't going to make a fart in an outhouse worth of difference in the economy. If anything it's going to add to the inevitable inflation because we're just going to print more money.

Okay, can't end this post without giving props to OB14me. Did you hear the "mutt like me." comment he said while talking about what kind of dog he was going to get for his girls? You gotta love this from an elected official. Self deprecating humor and the ease that he can talk about race is very cool. ( Okay maybe that was a little cheer leader-ish)

DaG Out