- The latest US unemployment figures - released on Friday - showed the number of people laid off last month at its highest for five years.
- US employers cut 63,000 positions from their payrolls in February, Labor Department figures revealed. [Also, later in article]...22,000 job cuts in January.
Assuming the number of illegal workers hasn't swollen suddenly in Jan and Feb then that's a worrying sign that those poor retail sales over Christmas might be beginning to have a knock on effect with suppliers. But,
- Mr Bush said he hoped consumer spending would "spur job creation".
Well he has to, doesn't he? And he's speaking truthfully too, but it's a trick. US manufacturing industry is slowly being transferred to China, and that's where the jobs will follow. Whether it's hand-outs, credit-fuelled consumer spending or injections of billions of cut-price dollars directly into the veins of the greed-ridden banking system the new money will only reap inflation, not jobs. Marketable skills in the service sector might come in handy.
- Mr Bush is clearly worried enough about the state of his country's economy to be making statements to the media about it, the BBC's Matthew Price reports from New York.
- But many in America may be concluding that any economic help may come too late to have any real impact on what looks, every day, like an increasingly desperate situation, our correspondent adds.
Good on 'ya, Mr Price. ;-)
- "We expect they will use it to boost consumer spending and that will spur job creation as well," he said.
Print money, spur job creation, print money, spur job creation. Strike dashing pose and repeat as required until the, er, election of Mr Obama.
Cue the short video clip: Dubya being entertaining and informative at the same time.
(Find vid here if above doesn't work)
You can read the full article here, but if you just want someone to explain where we really are and WHY in non-technical terms I'd recommend that you take a listen to the audio files in this thread. I'm no expert, but I've not seen the info presented more clearly anywhere else.