The “I need a job” disaster.

[Cyrano]

Those four words have not been heard from so many Americans since the Great Depression.

“I need a job.” The Obama administration has doled out countless billions to banks and Wall Street pretending that this would create jobs.

“I need a job.” Why are President Obama and Dem politicians continuing to pretend that this is one of their priorities? They all know that the “trickle down theory” is pure bullshit. (To see how a president can really create jobs, google FDR jobs.)

“I need a job.” We no longer need Republicans to screw us. The Dems have picked up where the Bush administration left off. Why? Because far too many of them are bought and paid for by big business. (Do you really have to google Joe Lieberman to find out that Hartford Connecticut is the insurance capital of America?)

“I need a job.” There was a time not too long ago, when very few Americans really needed to utter those words.

On edit: The few posts I've seen seem to think that I personally need a job. I don't. I'm talking about a major disaster that has befallen our country. And I've changed the headline to make this more apparent.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Me, too.

:shrug:

I guess our only hope is that employment is a "lagging" indicator. Probably that only gives them more time to salt away the profits. I think they've been trying for years to find out how to engineer a jobless recovery. I fear they have found out how this time.

:shrug:

[Egnever]

2. Sorry to hear that

[Cyrano]

3. I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about the current

situation in America.

[ipaint]

4. The excess of jobs created by the housing bubble aren't coming back.

Best not to hope but be realistic and do the best you can. Our representatives aren't going to do much to change the way business is done in this country. They are too busy trying to re-inflate the long dead bubble at the top.

[hfojvt]

5. not exactly true that this is the worst since the Great Depression

unemployment rate in September was 9.8%. In July 1982 unemployment was 9.8% and it peaked at 10.8% in Nov. and Dec. 1982 and was above 9.8% until June 1983.

Not only that, but the labor force participation rate was 65.2% in September 2009, but it was only 64.1% in 1982. It was 61.3% in 1974 and it peaked at 67.3% in Jan. 2000 until it fell during the Bush years when jobs got harder to find. The lowest participation rate I find was 58.4% in July 1954.

Unemployment was only 3% for much of the 1950s but it went up to 7.5% in July 1958 when the participation rate was only 59.8%. If the participation rate had been 65% in 1958 then unemployment would have been around 12%.

[Cyrano]

6. Those numbers mean nothing to the millions of

jobless, people without health care, and those losing their homes.

Statistics don't help when you're in pain and misery.

Whatever percentages you are using, I've never seen a worse situation in my lifetime. And having talked with those much older than I, they claim that they have never seen things so bad in their lifetimes. All they could do was relate it to the Great Depression and the misery their parents told them about.

[tonysam]

7. Tell us how many people are looking for work and how many jobs are available

Wait a minute, I will help you: There are 14.5 million people competing for 2.5 million jobs.

And our Congress hasn't a clue how to rectify this mess. Nobody is proposing jobs programs, including our president.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sinti]

9. The problem is one of surplus population - in the minds of the masters.

The human beings in America have become, for the most part, obsolete - like a really old computer, the amber screen kind. The people who have all the money, and own all the land, and all the corporations, don't have to create work for the rest of us in order to get the things they want - and they won't (and shouldn't according to the rules of the game) hire people out of the kindness of their hearts.

Did you ever play monopoly when you were a kid? There's a lesson to be learned from that game - it's the same one you're playing right now and you are probably not winning.

If we, the plebes, could find something the big money folk really needed, they'd hire us again to get it. As soon as they had it, or could get it cheaper without us, they would fire us again. Look at the industrial revolution, did average people's lives really get as much improvement as the lives of those at the top? You are also competing with machines now, FWIW.

You can't fix it with band-aids, or stitches, or anything of the kind. Giving the money straight to the big bankers just cuts out the middleman (us) - they were going to get it anyway, usually within a few months. Edison kept the inventions of his employees and patented them for himself, still happens in International Megacorp everyday.

The system you've been sold since you were born as the perfect system for supporting human life is, and always has been, fatally flawed. I suspect the system itself will be changed to something a bit more egalitarian, or there will be a whole lot of ugly on both sides.