Jobless claims at 26-year high - Or is it?

Don't you just love this. News organizations REALLY LOVE bad news. Of course what they don't say is that 26 years ago, we had about 100 Million LESS people in the U.S. What that means is that the unemployment figures back then was about 1/3rd higher than it is today! Problem is that's not BAD enough news, so they need to make it worse by simply stating the actual numbers instead of the percentage points.

Unfortunately, this plays right into the hands of those on the left who want to push even MORE stimulus, MORE spending, MORE Government, while most of us are fed a steady diet of bad news to keep us from revolting.

Here's the story from Reuters

Jobless claims at 26-year high
Thu Apr 2, 2009 1:42pm BST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly rose to its highest level in over 26 years last week and so-called continued claims jumped to a record high in March, according to data that underscored the labor market deterioration.
KEY POINTS: * The Labor Department said on Thursday initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 669,000 in the week ended March 28, the highest since the week ending October 2, 1982, from an upwardly revised 657,000 the week before. * Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast 650,000 new claims versus a previously reported count of 652,000 the prior week. * The number of people staying on the benefits roll after collecting an initial week of aid surged 161,000 to 5.73 million in the week ended March 21, the latest week for which the data is available, from 5.57 million the previous week. * This was the highest on record and lifted the insured unemployment rate to 4.3 percent, the highest since a matching 4.3 percent in the week ending May 21, 1983. * The insured unemployment rate was at 4.2 percent in the week ended March 14. * The four-week moving average for new claims, considered to be a better gauge of underlying trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, climbed 6,500 to 656,750 in the week ending March 28, from 650,250. * That was the highest reading since October 1982.
COMMENTS:
SCOTT BROWN, CHIEF ECONOMIST, RAYMOND JAMES & ASSOCIATES, ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA:
"Jobless claims are another really bad number. We have been seeing not just an elevated trend but an increasing trend. That is not good. We know the labor market is going to be a lagging indicator but we need to see the pace of job losses moderate soon if we are going to get a recovery.
"Following the ADP data we got yesterday, I think markets will be braced for a decline of 700,000 or more in non farm payrolls.
"Treasuries are looking at the stock market, which is poised to open higher. These numbers are not affecting the government bond market much."
SUBODH KUMAR, CHIEF INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, SUBODH KUMAR & ASSOCIATES, TORONTO:
"The employment data is still poor-- we saw that in Europe as well-- but I think the markets aren't responding to hard data right now. I think markets today will be focused more on confidence measures, and how confidence may be lifted.
"At the G20 meeting, I think investors have expectations for news about regulations, and I also think they'd like to see more aggressive stimulus policy. They want more concrete action on stimulus."
T.J. MARTA, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, MARTA ON THE MARKETS, SCOTCH PLAINS, NEW JERSEY:
"This is bad. It needs to be countered against the rise in the U.S. population; as a percentage, it's not that bad.
"Continued claims is the more concerning matter. What it says to me is the persistence of unemployment. The unwillingness of the auto industry to adjust and the bubbles in housing and on Wall Street have led to a misallocation of house resources. It's more of a structural reallocation of resources, which could be worse than anything we've seen since the Great Depression."
MARKET REACTION: STOCKS: U.S. equity index futures pare gains slightly after jobless claims data. BONDS: U.S. Treasury debt prices steady at lower levels. DOLLAR: U.S. dollar little changed.

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved.

Child's Pay 2 - The Ten Trillion Dollar Sequel

Move On featured an ad a while back where they asked the question. Who will pay for Bush's One Trillion Dollar Deficit. The answer, according to their video was the Children.



Now it seems that RedState has Hijacked the Ad to ask who's going to pay for Obama's Ten Trillion Dollar Deficit!

And here's the Original Ad by Move On....

Our "Road To (Financial) Hell" Is Paved With Gold For The Likes Of George Soros

Commentary
Published: Apr 1, 2009	Share This Article | Most Popular Stories | Site Search

Our "Road To (Financial) Hell" Is Paved With Gold For The Likes Of George Soros
by Vincent Gioia

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the man who President Obama said the United States could not do without despite his record of tax cheating, has come up with the "Big Sham;" a plan to reward fat cat investors who are Democrat supporters (or who will be) at tax payer expense. Geithner's so-called Public-Private Partnership Program is a sham. It's a lie. It supposedly "pairs" government money with private investors' money to buy toxic mortgages from banks but there is no pairing and there's no partnership. Private investors favored by Democrats put up a fraction of the money and get almost all the profits while taxpayers get stuck with almost all the risk.
Here is an example of how this works.
Goldman Sachs (home of many Obama appointees) wants to buy a million dollars of mortgages from a bank for $420,000; Goldman puts up $30,000 and Treasury puts up $30,000 but then the FDIC guarantees a loan for $360,000. Goldman gets 93% of the profits while taxpayers (suckers like us) are on the hook for 93% of the risk.
Tens of thousands of defaulted mortgages on tens of thousands of homes are bought giving favored bankers like Goldman Sachs ownership of them by putting up just 7 cents on the dollar. The sub-prime mortgages total more than $2 trillion so this amounts to another huge give-away to politically well-connected bankers.
Looking at the scheme all together: $80 billion goes to make JPMorgan Chase whole on its bad trades; $319 billion goes to Citibank; $300 billion goes to bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; $185 billion to bonus-giving AIG; $29 billion to Bear Stearns; $25 billion to General Motors Finance; $700 billion in currency swaps to other governments and trillions for the TARP, TALF; and other programs that will make bankers who have shown their greed and incompetence wealthy while Obama and Geithner make the rest of poorer.
Although Geithner and Obama are able to fool Americans with the aid of the Democrat news media house organs, the rest of the world is not so gullible.
Recently China's central bank governor joined three other economic giants (Russia, Brazil and India) in calling for the world to abandon the dollar as the world's reserve currency; then the International Monetary Fund said the same thing. As the G-20 meet the US dollar as the international reserve currency is on the agenda there.
As the dollar trends lower against other countries' currencies, people like George Soros make billions. Soros has already said "This has been a good crisis for me," and why not? Soros was able to get 158% profits in just 24 days by buying options that stood to gain when the Euro rose against the dollar. The Euro rose less than a dime but Soros and others like him wound up with huge gains. Add another 74% profits in two weeks with options on the British pound and more profit on just a change of 9 cents – a 77% profit when the pound increased 10.3 cents against the dollar. Now with the size the bailouts and the huge multi-trillion dollar deficits, the US dollar will likely fall even more. The profit potential for the likes of George Soros who gains and adds to his fortune by currency speculation will now, from currency options on stronger currencies, be enormous.
Those with 401 Ks who lost large sums in the market meltdown can attest that no matter how well diversified you are, there are times when the whole stock market goes pretty much straight down, and the same for bonds

and real estate. But that doesn't happen with currency investments because it's mathematically impossible for the US dollar to go down without other currencies like the Euro, Chinese Yuan, or the Canadian dollar going up in equal measure.
Soros knows that in any kind of financial climate, including today's recession/depression currencies can always be found that go up in value. That's not true with almost any other kind of investment.
Geithner is perpetrating a huge lie that will wreck the dollar and is the biggest scam in our history - all for the benefit of wealthy bankers who will be beholden to Obama and the Democrat Party. Even the president of the European Union called these bailouts and other lunatic American policies "the road to Hell." But in this case the road to hell is paved with gold for the fortunate few.
Vincent Gioia is a retired patent attorney living in Palm Desert, California

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AIG Bought Out Chris Dodd

You’d Be Foolish Not To Contribute To Chris Dodd’s Campaign

Posted by CTVoter2010 (Profile)

Monday, March 30th at 11:00PM EDT

Promoted from diaries. - Moe Lane.

In today’s Washington Times there is a report about how a bunch of AIG Financial Services executives were “asked” by their CEO to donate to Chris Dodd’s campaign, and to encourage their subordinates to do the same. Read AIG chief executive Joseph Cassano’s email for yourself.

Was this more than just a suggestion? Well, the boss said he wanted copies of the checks they sent. And it seems pretty clear that the recipients of the email got the gist: in less than two months, Dodd received over $160,000 in donations from AIG employees and their spouses.

Did Chris Dodd have any part in this request? We may never know. And it’s not illegal. So what’s the big deal? Well, the email pretty explicitly calls for the donations with the understanding that they will have very real and practical effects in their favor:

With the Democrats having regained control of the Senate following the November elections, Senator Dodd is next in line to become chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. From securities litigation reform, class action reform, mutual funds, and international trade, Senator Dodd will now have the opportunity as chairman to set the committee’s agenda on issues critical to the financial services industry.

And it just happens to turn out that Cassano was right on. On the eve of the passage of the stimulus bill, who tweaks an amendment that a few weeks later allows numerous AIG executives to collect about $160 million in bonuses that would not have been allowed without the last minute change by Chairman Chris Dodd! Not a bad return on an investment: donate $160k, 28 months later get $160 million.

Dodd doesn’t deny any of it. Instead, he sends his spokesman to trots out his now-tired line of “it’s old news.” From FoxNews:

…[DeAngelis] said Dod’s fundraising “has always been above-board, transparent and in accordance with campaign finance rules.”

“This is a biased news story that seems to be a blatant attempt to repeat old news,” DeAngelis told FoxNews. “The truth is, Senator Dodd has made it clear that he will not accept contributions from PAC’s of companies receiveing (federal bailout) money and has also made it clear that if anyone who received these recent bonuses from AIG has donated to his campaigns, he will donate that money to charity.”

As if the fact that he got paid off two years ago and that he was “transparently” bought off makes it okay. Just like when he got caught with his sweetheart Countrywide mortgages, he figures that since the unethical behavior was a long time ago and he recently got around to remortgaging, there is no story there.

Frankly, the fact that he doesn’t seem to think any of his numerous scandals are newsworthy is nearly as worrisome as the scandals themselves.

Here are a few links on the story: NRO (and here and here), Everyday Republican, Hot Air, Courant’s Capitol Watch,

And via “A Disgruntled Republican,” you might get a chuckle out of this:

Hey, you hear about this? Very strange incident at JFK Airport in New York City today. An AIG executive going through security had to empty out all his pockets. You know what fell out? Senator Chris Dodd.” - Jay Leno

Cross-posted at The Artful Doddger.

I still believe that some Employees of AIG got a raw deal, but this is just more proof that Washington, with their fake outrage needs to get on the ball and get off the take.