Goldman Sachs Thinks US Lost 400,000 Jobs In November

The other more frightening bit of information is that Goldman Sachs believes that the nation lost 400,000 jobs last month. Most economists have that number close to 300,000. Goldman is saying unemployment is moving toward 7%. There is no data from the business or financial sectors to indicate that any jobs are being created. A look at the headlines reads a bleeding out of more jobs, sometimes tens of thousands a day. That leaves out all of the small companies cutting back. Those never make the evening news, but, in total, the destruction of entrepreneurial ventures may be going on at record rates.

Manufacturing, retail sales, and consumer spending are falling so fast that the effect is geometric now. This means that intervention is going from being a solution with fair prospects to one which is approaching futility. The government could be criticized for putting money into the economy too slowly, but it may be that the timing would not have mattered. The circle of jobs destroying housing destroying consumer spending destroying jobs may be too powerful.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[PoorManPoorMan2009]

So who has all the Cash???? see below

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html

[Sundialsvc4]

If all that you have to base your economy on is "housing" and "retail sales," then yes, you've got a problem.

If the only way that you think the problem can be addressed is by conjuring up literally trillions of dollar bills with a flick of your magick wand, then once again you've got a problem.

And what, exactly, is the problem?

The problem is that you decided that a nation of 300 million people could free-load off the rest of the people on this planet just by printing its silly little Dollar Bills to the tune of $1 million a minute. (Oh, that number seems so small now.) That you don't have to run a factory; don't have to produce. That if someone ten thousand miles away from you croons "we sell for less!", that you can just beat a path to their door with no harm to yourself.

Barely thirty years later, the bill is now due. The oh-so congenial diplomats from the "we sell for less" country would like to know how you're going to pay all the money you owe them ... and conjuring the stuff up don't work anymore. Your precious NAFTA is on-the-skids in Mexico City because they don't want to be your lap-dog either, and the thought of joining a South American Union sounds pretty darned attractive for obvious reasons.

Question: just how long do you intend to sit, and whine? If you want jobs, go make THINGS.

[tchristin]

This reminds me of Ross Perot's arguing against NAFTA.
"You'll hear a giant sucking sound" of the money leaving the country.

[METHINXDAT]

Let the the Big Three become The Big One: each 'division' revamped to facilitate mfg. of Hybrid vehicles. Volks Vehicles..made for utility and durability and minimal carbon footprint: 3 models of sedan. 3 of minivans, 3 of SUV's and same for school busses. The purchase of which will include a rebate of the sales tax at year end. You want a sexy car? You order on line and have it customized with prefab options, custom paint, at your expense.
The federal gov't should get the ball rolling by announcing that part of the bailout includes pre-payment for replacement of all fed. gov't vehicles with these hybrids. State gov't should follow and be rewarded by Fed with some sort of $$ structure. Immediate Tax incentives for commercial vehicles to go diesel.
Kids love to race: an unfortunate result of arcade driving games. Thats where they will go to drive fast from now on. Arcades, Xbox, Wii, add 3D goggles and effects galore and save lives and limbs of our best and brightest.

[Sundialsvc4]

If you can make them and sell them, go ahead. Don't ask the "Guv'mint" to buy them for you and hand them out like gumdrops.

Right now, our soldiers wear UNDERPANTS that are made in foreign countries. And we do not have a single surviving domestic factory for SHOES... because we closed all the satellite factories that made shoe PARTS.

Underwear, and shoes. A very good, practical place to start. We don't need to be thinking "pie in the sky" when we cannot walk across the street without using a foreign-source-only product.

[gerald4]

What is the USA economic future?

The USA government is going to continue to just crank up the presses and print more dollars, T-Bills, Government Bonds (and let the buying power of everyone else's wages fall as the value of the dollar falls) to pay for the US balance of trade, government payrolls, bailouts, entitlements, pork barrels, operations, social schemes, wars, and etc. Foreign Governments and their rulers will continue buy the real estate, industries, breweries, hotels, factories and financial institutions located in the USA with the decreasing value bonds and dollars that we gave to them to manufacture the things that we imported rather than us working to manufacture these things. The USA Government is supporting this by calling it "Investing in America". This stupidity will eventually change this country into a third world country when foreign countries discover that we will not repay (redeem the bonds) the money that they are lending us to buy their products. The USA population will become employees (or slaves) to the foreign countries that will own everything in the USA. Our children and grandchildren might also have to change to the religion of the business owner if they want a job. We need to re-industrialize and manufacture the things that we consume, rather than pay people in foreign countries to manufacture the things that we consume. Future nationalization (ala Mexico) of foreign owned assets is another discussion topic for another day.

[Calinative]

Just curious; what do you think of Michael Moore's idea that we should buy the US Auto manufacturers and have them produce mass transit, electric vehicles, etc.?

[Samalabear]

I dream that I wish would come to pass, but I would be amazed if this happens. But this is what we need. What I wouldn't give to see American-made buses and subway trains and rail cars in New York again.

[Sundialsvc4]

The old man with the most-peculiar hat, for the longest time, appeared to be asleep. The children ran all over him, giggled at his flabby-looking muscles. The townspeople had their fill of laughter ... "stupid old washed-up fool ..."

Something clicked. A steel-blue eye opened. The "old" man rose to his feet with surprising vigor. The dust that had settled upon him seemed at once to leap away. The townspeople buried their faces in their newspapers and hurried along the other side of the street, hoping Uncle Sam had not heard.

But he had.

[gerald4]

I really believe that we must preserve the economic miracle that has given our citizens one of the highest living standards in the world. This economic miracle has not been due to the efforts of Wall Street MBA's, Stock Market Gamblers, Real Estate Speculators, Economists, Insurance Salesmen, Junk Bond Salesmen, etc. It has been due to the Agricultural and Industrial Base that produced the food, goods, services and other items that we consumed, plus an excess of these goods & services that were produced and then sold to other foreign countries in order to accumulate our gold reserves through a positive balance of trade surplus payments. Our gold reserves are the basis of the value or buying power of our currency. This was (is) true of all of the currencies in the world.

The U S Medical Expertise has customers from all over the world coming to the USA and paying U S Medical Personnel for medical treatment, and this is helping the US Balance of payments. Visit the Texas Medical Center and witness the percentage of women wearing Burkas to get a clue as to the percentage of foreign medical service income is received at the Texas Medical Center.

Our computer programming technology and expertise (Microsoft and Others) has helped our balance of payments considerably in the past, but the lack of technical education in this country today will soon destroy this export capability when foreign countries become better than the USA at creating new computer software programs.

[netzwerg]

"I really believe that we must preserve the economic miracle that has given our citizens one of the highest living standards in the world."

You should come to Europe, especially to norway and see, what 21st century highest standard of living means.

[MsRy]

We have not had "one of the highest living standards in the world" in decades. Europe and Japan left us in their high-speed electric train dust 20 years ago. We've not had an industrial base in 30 years. The lack of technical expertise has been evident for 10. Go to any Fortune 500 company IT dept and you'll see half the seats filled with Indian immigrants.

We started falling toward third world status under Reagan, and it only sped up under the two shrubs and Clinton. Now we're knocking on the door.

[Kungfublood]

Let's give the Cheney Bush team the send off they deserve.
Let's all file for unemployment this month!
Remember you don't have to qualify to file!

[olephart]

Yes ladies and gentlemen this is the real thing. Eight years of Bushonomics has brought forth its evil fruit. I don't even think that those who put this incompetent clown in office realized how much destruction he would bring. The bailouts are the last throes of salvaging their financial ASSets. The fact that millions of ordinary Americans are going down is usually of little concern for the big boys. I know people here tend to be cynical about the big boys planning all this but I think it's gotten away from them and they're worried along with the rest of us. Note there is little opposition to bailing out us peons and spending money we don't have to revive the economy. If you haven't been keeping up, the hedge funds operated for the big boys have lost a bunch of money too.

The broader unemployment measure, U-6, is at 12% and will likely rise to 14 - 16% next year. One thing that must be recognized is that they couldn't have done this without being in office and a majority of Americans gave Republicans the majority in Congress and Bush's second term. Also, many Americans are guilty of playing the flip your house game, the spend your house game and the credit card game. All of these mistakes to live well beyond our means. Well, it's over and the one thing left is to hope that the Government itself doesn't go belly up bailing our ASSets out.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

I hate plugging the NYPost, but his time they're right spot on:

IT'S TIME TO END MONTHLY EMPLOYMENT REPORT FRAUD

"THE nation's monthly em ployment report will be horrible when it is released tomorrow morning. But this much is certain, the Labor Department will contend - defying common sense - that there is a healthy number of new companies being formed that are creating large amounts of jobs.

It is time to end this fraud.

Officially this game is called the Current Employment Statistics Net Birth/Death Model and I've been writing about it for a long time.

This calculation is supposed to pick up jobs being created by new companies so small that they can't possibly be surveyed.

In reality, the Birth/Death model is nothing more than a way for the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington to try to make us feel a little bit better about the economy - and them.

So tell me, is this charade making you feel any better? "

more...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12042008/business/its_time_to_end_monthly_employment_repor_142499.htm

[olephart]

Once again Reason wins out over fraud. Here's another good site for real information. Many of the fabrications employed at spitting out nonsense are described here. I encourage anyone who is serious about economics to visit this site.

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data

[Samalabear]

A long, long time ago I attended a free luncheon seminar with David Brancaccio, then the host of Marketplace, from PRI (Public Radio International), and one of the topics was the unemployment stats and why there is much more to them that meets the eye, like if they say it is at 5% officially, then it's more likely at least a couple of percentage points higher. Ever since then I mentally add a two or more likely percentage points to what the real stats are. And, of course, there are those pockets where unemployment is close to depression-type stats. And next to unemployment is the next-most-serious stat -- underemployment.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Re "The circle of jobs destroying housing destroying consumer spending destroying jobs may be too powerful."

Ack!

[mjtaylor22]

WATCH OUT FOR THAT AMERO, COMING EARLY 2009, SINCE OUR ENTIRE NATION I SNOW BANKRUPT, AND OUR DOLLAR IS NOT OUR OWN, THEY ARE GOING TO FORCE THE US OFF THE DOLLAR
WE GOTTA KEEP AN EYE ON THESE GUYS OR LOOSE IT ALL.

[ErnestineBass]

Careful...or some folks around here will start yappin how your tin foil hat is too tight.

(As for myself...I think you're right on the money - pun intended!) 8-]

[quiviran]

Let's go to the Worldo. The we'll know how much we're really worth. Instead of the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England, we'l have the UN Reserve Bank.

[Midnightrain]

True indeed, we are in a downward spiraling process. To stop the bleeding we must invest in human capital. This means taking care of our own first: purchase home mortgages and secure the interest rate on first time home purchases made between 2004 and 2007, give tax credits to families to offset/expunge some consumer debt, restructure the credit scoring system so that incurring debt is not rewarded, invest in affordable, green housing initiatives so that those who cannot afford to purchase a home do not carry a disproportionate amount of the burden or social blame for energy consumption; this investment would also spur job growth; then invest, invest, invest in education and health care. A nation is only as prosperous as its families - especially it youth, women and children.

[Tom95134]

"It as the best of times, and the worst of times...."

A perfect description. We have a new President-elect that brings hope to the people for a future better that the dismal 8 years of the Bush administration but, we still have a lame duck president in office that has checked his brain at the door and will do nothing to help save the nation.

And what are the people doing? They are going to Wal-Mart by the droves spending money that immediately disappears into the pockets of the Chinese government. The economy is starting to look like an elevator that has had its cables cut. We're on our way down and out of control. The only thing we can do is watch the floor numbers speeding towards the basement.

[jp5472]

Oh how right on the money you are...

"A nation is only as prosperous as its families"...we were at our strongest when this formula was adhered to...and now we are at our weakest as it has been forgotten, even scoffed at.

[PoorManRichMan2009]

Real unemployment in the USA is much higher than Europe.