by Deb Cupples | Our nation lost 598,000 jobs, in January, bringing the unemployment rate from 7.2% to 7.6%. We've lost 3.6 million jobs since December 2007, about half of them just in the last three months.
Many economists think our recession started in December 2007, though the Bush Administration and many Republicans refused to admit that until a year later.
Last week, the number of people filing first-time jobless claims reached 626,000, the highest in 26 years.
Meanwhile, most congressional Republicans are opposing economic stimulus that could put more money in consumers' pockets. Instead, said Republicans want (via tax cuts) to funnel more money into the pockets of wealthy individuals and corporations.
Republicans are admirably straight-faced as they argue for the same trickle-down (or "supply-side") economic policies that have failed since the 1980s. Even former supply-side cheerleader David Stockman (Reagan's budget director) admitted, some 28 years ago, that trickle-down theory doesn't work.
I'm no economist, but it certainly makes sense that the survival of many businesses depends on money trickling up from masses of ordinary folks' spending on things like computers, cars, restaurant food, clothing, books, movies....
When consumers lose jobs and money, they spend less money at businesses -- which can cause businesses to lay off employees, which means fewer consumers have money to spend at businesses, and so on. Job loss can be a vicious, downward-trending cycle.
This seems especially true of the U.S. economy, about two-thirds of which is fueled by consumer spending.
Very wealthy folks will buy only so many computers, cars, restaurant meals, outfits, books, movies (etc.), apparently not enough to sustain millions of businesses nationwide -- evident in the fact that our nation has lost so many jobs despite ex-President Bush's policy of funneling even more money to the already-wealthy.
Memeorandum has commentary.
Other Buck Naked Politics Posts:
* Richest Got Richer Under Bush and Paid Lower Tax Rates
* Obama's Executive Pay Cuts Don't Address Root Problems
* Real Bonuses Based on Fake Profits
* Save Jobs by Cutting Executive Pay
* Krugman on the "Voodoo" Bank Bailouts
* GAO: Bailed-out Companies have Offshore Tax Havens
* Are Bailout Funds Being Misused?
* Cleaning up Political & Corporate Culture Could Help Economy
* Merrill CEO Shamelessly Spent Millions of Shareholder Dollars
.
Comments