'Alarmingly Bleak' and 'Littered with Huge and Half-Empty Glasses'

(Image: Source)

After 10 years of telling the unvarnished truth to rising stars and delusional wannabes alike, American Idol judge Simon Cowell last month announced that he was calling it a day. But perhaps the popularity and success he achieved with his call-a-spade-a-spade approach has enticed others to try and do the same. Otherwise, how else to explain the fact that two mainstream media organizations have just printed articles that are so far removed from the Washington-Wall Street "it's all good" snowjob that it's almost as if I'm a guest on a Hollywood unreality show?

"America’s Jobless Picture Is Alarmingly Bleak" (Financial Times)

We are drifting. We take comfort in bits of good news, but we are in dangerous waters; the Great Recession is being starkly revealed as a global crisis with the US, the traditional engine of recovery, sputtering on every cylinder. The US government responded with dramatic financial support by transferring money to the household sector. But outside of these transfers the personal income of Americans is still declining; the residential market remains stagnant at best; consumer growth is nominal. The only real energy in the economy has come from the cessation of inventory liquidation, which is now the main factor in rising industrial output and any modest improvement in the economy.

The mood of US households is despondent. In May only 11.3 per cent believed they would see their income rise in the following six months, while 16.6 per cent thought they would see it decline. This is the first time in over four decades that more people believe they will be worse off than better. Any massive fiscal and monetary stimulus that might reverse the trend is likely to be politically unsustainable given the growing concern over the exploding national deficit.

Wherever you look the scene is bleak. Leading economic indicators fell in April – unusual at such an early stage in the up-cycle. Jobless claims were up by 25,000 to 471,000. And up again above expectations in the first three weeks of May – raising the four-week moving average to a level consistent with 100,000, or more, net job losses. For the past several months, claims have been nowhere near the levels of 400,000 and less that in the past were consistent with sustained job creation. We are not enjoying the normal cycle of economic improvement. If we were, employment would already have reached a new high and made up all of the jobs lost, as it did during the previous postwar recessions. This time we remain short of the old peak of employment, by an astounding 8.4m jobs. One in six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. This is not a normal cycle when compared with a typical recession, which sees no more than 2m to 3m jobs lost.

"For Many, Recovery Means Lower Expectations" (Associated Press)

PROSPER, Texas — Advised by a Walgreens superior that a promotion was "very highly likely" if he transferred to the drugstore chain's Dallas division, Chris Cummings uprooted his family and bought a spacious house in this hopefully named suburb.

"The sky's the limit," he was told.

But instead of a promotion, the company for which Cummings had been an assistant manager three and a half years cut his hours so drastically that he had to take a second job. In March, he was laid off, and his part-time second job became full-time.

And so that is how a 40-year-old father of four with a master's in business administration from the University of Notre Dame finds himself bagging groceries at Sprouts, a local health-food store.

"I never thought I'd be here with the education that I have and that I'd worked hard on," Cummings said before a recent shift in the checkout lane at the Sprouts in nearby Frisco. "Probably where the frustration comes most is when I get the alumni magazine and I see what my classmates are doing. And that's not a good feeling."

The federal government says the "Great Recession" is over — has been for months now — and that we're well into the recovery. But don't tell that to Cummings, who has seen his income cut by three-quarters and can't afford health insurance for his family.

Or Af Shirinzadeh, who went from a $100-an-hour chiropractic job to part-time work as a docent in an Atlanta museum that features plasticized human cadavers.

Or welder Mark Sepeda, who had to move his family of six from a spacious home in Nevada's lush Carson Valley to a two-bedroom apartment when the Las Vegas building boom came to a screeching halt.

Or Paul Lechner, who, with a mixture of gratitude and dejection, accepted a job stocking shelves at a Super Target after two years and hundreds of applications failed to land him a position in advertising, the field for which he trained.

Yes, the stock markets have largely rebounded. Housing and car sales are back up. And though job creation isn't robust — last week, the Labor Department reported private employers added just 41,000 jobs, down from 218,000 in April and the fewest since January — the economy is growing again.

But, if "recovery" means getting back to where you were before things fell apart, many aren't even close. To people like Lechner, 43, who came to North Carolina's Research Triangle full of hope for a bountiful future, it's meant resigning himself to lower expectations:

That any mental stimulation he gets will come from crossword puzzles, conversations with his wife or the weekly pub trivia nights with the guys — not from his work. That if he ever manages to get another job in advertising, it'll probably be too late for any awards or recognition. And that his 4-year-old son, Jerry, will likely be his only child.

"An optimist sees the glass as half full. A pessimist sees the glass as half empty. I see the glass as twice as big as it needs to be," Lechner says.

The American landscape is littered with huge and half-empty glasses, and men and women like Paul Lechner.

Comments

[Blurtman]

What the US needs is a huge income tax cut. Trickle down will save everyone! (snark)

[xqqme]

That's right, Blurtman! And Barack Obama says you should be thanking him!
When did the US become too prideful to start from scratch?
Pride goeth before the fall.
There needs to be a reality check!

[dearieme]

And we ain't seen nothin' yet.

[roger]

15% think the market is fatally flawed,
40% thought the system requires drastic regulation.
25% think all is OK.
20% no opinion. source BBC

[Michael]

It is like one big 'reality tv' show isn't it? We're all kept locked up in a closed system, fed bullshit, and poked in ways to make us perform for the cameras.

Well at least the welder and the business manager have real skills that can serve a purpose in society. Chiropractic is just quackery, and advertising helped get everyone in this mess ...

[Luke]

what a bloody mess.
when you have nothing to lose try anything. adjust your lifestyle.
wait for the trickle up to the rich and sit back and enjoy.
this will be their last summer to sit by the pool, drive the mercedes and wear the bling.
bon voyage.

[The Real Deal]

Trickle down?

America has lots of money folks. Yes the rich has a great chunk of it - 5% of them owns some 40% of wealth, albeit much of it in illiquid assets. But the greatest chunk lies in the big multinationals. In the corporate 'saving' account, also called retained earnings to be exact. This is money left over from corporate profit after paying taxes. It belongs to the corporation as a legal entity. It can exist in any form, any currency, and sit in any country. By themselves, the corporate retained earnings generate vast profits, just sitting there as financial investment.

Thanks to globalization, multinationals can minimize cost by shifting operations to the lowest cost country. The resulting maximum-profit becomes the retained earnings. Nobody can touch this money - not even the government, because it is already after-tax. The same globalization of finance now delivers a second benefit to this money, where it sloshes around the world with a click to make maximum retrurns.

How much is the US portion of the corporate retained earning wealth? A bit more than $10 trillion dollar. Which is a bit less than the national debt. But not a penny will be used to trickle down to the workers, to trickle down to reduce the national debt.

Because that's not their problem. Multinationals have no national allegiance. Indeed, they have no allegiance to human beings. That's perfectly legal. It is the law of the land that gave the corporation a separate legal status as a 'person'.

If you don't know this, you may start to cry, or laugh, now.

[THE RIGHT SITE]

How far up one's colon does one's head have to be lodged in order to believe this crap?

"Yes, the stock markets have largely rebounded. Housing and car sales are back up. And though job creation isn't robust — last week, the Labor Department reported private employers added just 41,000 jobs, down from 218,000 in April and the fewest since January — the economy is growing again."

I especially like that last part. Give me a break! Will someone please explain to me how the economy is growing while they are using government lies, Oh yeah, statistics to get there. After you subtract the government work program. . . I mean census workers, jobs plummet and you end up with like 20,000 jobs created and of those, how many are bagging groceries?

This crap is Obysmal's way of holding the angry mob at bay, appeasing those who will be appeased. Hey, it's still George Bush's fault. No one really wants to believe "The One" has buried us all. No one wants to believe their great grandchildren have no future. Yet it is true.

The scene in the movie Frankenstein or Dracula or the Wolfman comes to mind where the town's people, an angry mob with pitchforks, shovels and torches swarms the castle to evict it's owner for perceived wrongs perpetrated on them. I have a clue for ya all, the real crime is that we all were to stupid, busy, apathetic, lazy . . . pick one, to even put up a fight. Soon the fight will come to us. Hope you're ready.

THE RIGHT SITE http://rightspokenhere.blogspot.com/

[Tim]

Pat Buchanan:
Cut federal corporate taxes to zero.
Initiate a 5% tariff on all imported goods and gradually increase it to 30% over the next few years.
Would it work? You tell me.

[AustinCompany]

I am amused by comments like Blurtmans - mocking the idea of cutting taxes. Yes sir, instead of cutting them, lets raise them to 90% - then we will see a BOOM in this country! SIGH, what idiot does not understand that all higher taxes does is give the government MORE money to spend on worthless projects. Now children, cutting your taxes gives working people MORE money to spend, thus helping them get out of debt and buy things - duhhh.

This liberal bull that is taking hold that cutting taxes got us into this mess so we have to raise them is very upsetting. What got us into this is UNCONTROLLED spending by BOTH Democrats and Republicans in Washington. Most of them have been corrupted and are only concerned about the power it brings and being re-elected (since all of them are wealthy anyway).

I honestly do not see a way out of this other than massive inflation in a couple of years (10 - 25% per year). This will reduce the amount of debt the government owes as a percent of GDP and give the impression of growth. I would suggest everyone open a foreign bank account (while you still can), buy hard gold and silver and invest in some real estate. If anyone else has some ideas about how to protect ones assets and family (other than guns and food stocks), lets hear them.

[Apple]

If you don't know this, you may start to cry, or laugh, now.
airport fence

[Sam]

I especially like that last part. Give me a break! Will someone please explain to me how the economy is growing while they are using government lies,

[DWhite]

"what idiot does not understand that all higher taxes does is give the government MORE money to spend on worthless projects"...like for example two unjustified foreign wars?

[Blurtman]

Higher tax rates on upper income groups are totally consistent with a healthy US economy, as history has shown. The historical record of the George W. Bush tax cuts speaks for itself. Trickle down is nonsense.

[AustinCompany]

Yes DWhite, like two wars and countless military bases around the world protecting the Japanese, Germans and the people of Guam from... ??? Themselves? Aliens?

The sad fact is that not only is Congress out of control with spending, but the military budget is out of control. Ironically, the Secretary of Defense has said he wants LESS money spent on projects and people, but guess what? OUR congressmen continue to give more. Hows that for sick laughs?

To be quite honest, I have completely lost faith in our government and the politicians in charge - no matter the political party. There is no hope. As I have suggested to friends and family, all that is left now is to prepare for the worse to come (worse joblessness, continued decrease in living standards, high inflation, corrupt and dishonest government, less personal privacy, etc.) That is why I ask others on this blog to comment on what they are doing to prepare for the inevitable.

[Makua]

Obama MUST win Fla and Ca. to get re-elected.
He lost Fla. by his lack of response to the oil leak.
He HAS to bail out Calif., or he will loose that state too, and the election.
Get ready for the great bailout, again.

[yt]

Imagine if Donald Trump and Bill Gates made a random bet for $13 billion, Trump lost, and then told the taxpayers to pay Gates. Crazy, right?
But that's exactly what happened when AIG used $13 billion in taxpayer bailout money to pay off a side bet made by Goldman Sachs. Recently, Goldman boasted that they didn't even need the money. So, let's demand it back!
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has the ability to get our money back. And this Wednesday, our friends at The Young Turks progressive talk show will lead a protest and deliver thousands of petition signatures to Geithner demanding just that.
Can you sign the petition demanding Geithner get our money

http://tinyurl.com/2cy4dw4

The Young Turks have already done a great job getting thousands of signatures, and they're informing the media about Wednesday's petition delivery.
Every additional signature will increase the impact of Wednesday's event -- so please pass this email to others and share the petition on Facebook and Twitter after signing.
Lets send a message that as schools and government programs are facing budget cuts, it's absurd for the Treasury Department to let Goldman Sachs casually take $13 billion of our money.

http://www.theyoungturks.com/

[JPEEZY]

u guys are like a dog barkin at the moon...in other words, wasting your time & energy..politicians WORLDWIDE DO NOT RUN THEIR RESPECTIVE COUNTRIES..their actions do not LINE UP with people who have even an inkling of care for the citizens they govern...there are interest behind the scenes pulling the strings..go ahead write your congressman or blather about the constitution if you will..just barkin at the moon, buddy
ps. (if you dismiss this as another 'conspiracy theory"..you are an idiot who deserves what we are all getting)

[JPEEZY]

Government Statistics (Best served with Vaseline)

[NOTaREALmerican]

Nothing will change until there are hungry peasants. As long as the peasants can keep buying stuff on credit there will be no hungry peasants.

A guy I sit near at work bought an iPhone over the weekend. He's up to his eyeballs in debt collectors, and said he'd stop paying his mortgage if only he could get his spouse to agree - but still has enough "cash" for a new iPhone and tires for the Harley. Gotta have your priorities straight.

America is as corrupt as the Americans are. Unfortunately, a corrupt society seldom changes for the better.

[kevinearick]

The Virtual Rotor

Who is going to have to save them from their own “smart” technology, one way or the other, sooner or later … the engineers they terminated for having the audacity to tell them that their technology was going to blow up in their face. And everyday they try to avoid the obvious, the economy sheds billions of dollars in value, in a liquidation crisis, heading into a solvency crisis, while the same market-makers bemoan the dearth of engineers in the economy. What they are really bemoaning is the lack of economic slaves with skills. Same old, same old.

So, you have outlines for the new analog kernel, data structures, and traversal mechanisms. You also have ladder and wiring diagrams for the entire existing global economy.

Now that they have admitted that the BRICs cannot sustain the economy, and a large infusion of new small businesses will be required, let’s finish up with the virtual rotor, that connects the isolated planetary and human circuits:

Some kids are born into massive psychological and social dissonance. By the time some of them are 3 or 4, their circuitry is exponentially more sophisticated than most of the adults around them, who have been bred into simple dc clicks, by a mature system rapidly losing its potential energy. By the time these kids are 7 or 8, they have already woven all these sub-circuits into a supra-circuit, with the ability to mirror any click at will. By the time they enter high school, they see the social dissonance creating the psychological dissonance, and are practicing their multiplier effect on sub-systems.

By the time they enter the workforce, they are already virtual rotors, each building a specific social multiplier effect. As they mature, they begin to see each other operating in the neutral circuit, and enter the school, which is completely democratic. They crowd each other out in a highly distributed system, which resembles pulse width modification, but the drive is the planetary circuit, and the analog wave is the human symbiotic relativity circuit.

The point of the next system is always to increase democracy across the general population, which requires participants to migrate through the roles of dissonance, without short-circuiting them, to balance the circuit, and pull more amps. Democracy moves like an inchworm, in quantum steps. Real economic output is a function of effective democracy. Naturally, the economy being replaced resists and shorts itself into a black hole, the bonds break, and individuals begin migration into the next system, building it as they go.

The law follows behavior, informally at first, and then formally. Market-makers can only be replaced at the event horizon of re-coherence, at the precipice, and then only by market-makers that produce a quantum increase in effective participation. The money is just chips, one of many feedback signals, which the mature economy makes the goal as failures increasingly short out the system. The old rating system is obsolete, because it shorted out all other factors of power, which is to be expected when one economy retires and another is born.

The economy requires potential energy to be reset, and I would suggest that the only remaining potential runs through unprotected labor, it must get 53% return on the economy to make the circuit, adjusted for wage arbitrage, and there is a great deal of profit to be made in enabling that reaction. Despite the mythology, economics is not a win/lose game. I could always be wrong, but I also think there are many other factors contributing to quality of community that will ignite several global markets.

look around. who is going to do the work? passive investors in a ponzi economy of promises on top of promises?

the proprietors think it's a negotiation and they are seeking the lowest price, while the old technology is blowing up in their face, and the whole world watches.

[boatman]

blurtman works for the GOVERNMENT....his real name is barry sortero

[weinerdog43]

You know, it's really tiresome to see the same old left/right dichotomy with the usual finger pointing. For example, Austin blabs on about 'Liberal bull...' and I almost tuned out to the typical Repukelican talking points when he found a nut. Namely, it is a very wise idea to stock up on precious metals. One can be a Liberal or a conservative and still try to remember the big picture.

We're all Americans and I think we pretty much all agree that neither the Bush nor Obama administrations are doing jack to help ordinary Americans. Bush blew a trillion on Iraq and 700 B on bank bailouts and Obama is following in his footsteps. What about us? Still in Iraq? Check. Still in Afghan? Check. Still in Gitmo? Check. Any prosecutions besides Madoff? Nope, and check. Everyone has been bought off and we have been left holding the bag. Mad yet? I sure am.

[AustinCompany]

I agree with you weinerdog43. I am neither a Rep. or Dem. - more of a Libertarian I think. The reason I pointed a finger at the Liberal is he/she blabbed on about it being Bush's fault, the Conservatives, etc. I get just as bothered when Fox and friends blabs that its all the Dems fault.

Fact is, both parties - and the current American system, have failed us. Most all politicians only care about themselves and getting re-elected, Corporations only care about bottom lines and everyone else is pigeon-holed into a "group", i.e. "soccer mom", "gay", "african-american", "right-winger", ect. There are no more just plain old "Americans".

That is why I have lost all faith in our government and the prospect of anything being "fixed". If one is wise, they will do the things necessary to prepare for the storms to come - reliance on the government is foolish.