The US workforce shrank by 652,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. The rate of hourly earnings fell 0.1pc. Wages are flirting with deflation.
"Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year.
California is tightening faster than Greece. State workers have seen a 14pc fall in earnings this year due to forced furloughs. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is cutting pay for 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to cover his $19bn (£15bn) deficit.
Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $12bn and is $5bn in arrears to schools, nursing homes, child care centres, and prisons. "It is getting worse every single day," said state comptroller Daniel Hynes. "We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services.
Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months.
The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.
The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks...this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s.
...the crop of people who are unemployed but not receiving a check amounts to 9.2m."
The housing market is already crumbling as government props are pulled away. The expiry of homebuyers' tax credit led to a 30pc fall in the number of buyers signing contracts in May
China's manufacturing index has been falling since January, with a downward lurch in June to 50.4, just above the break-even line of 50.
Momentum seems to be flagging everywhere, whether in Australian building permits, Turkish exports, or Japanese industrial output.
Are you getting it YET, partisans?
This isn't a democratic recession, this isn't a republican downturn in the economy, this is what comes of nearly 50 years of corrupt mismanagement and internacine bickering and squabbling by the American people while the SUPERWEALTHY gave themselves so many damned advantages that they wrecked the WORLD'S ECONOMY.
So you just keep bithcing like ignoramouses about Obama and RACE and how much you hate ARABS or Jews while you nation and the rest of the world crumble thanks to the STUPID FUCKING POLICIES both your god damned parties put into place.
Guess what?
Your votes, the ones that you pissed away on issues like guns and race, and homos or Blacks or Isreal, or some otherfeel good cause I hate, bullshit, flagwaving freking nonsense that so many of you care so much about were all just wasted votes.
It's about the economy, STUPID!
Always was, and it always will be!
No matter what the talking heads dangle in front of you to keep you distracted from the REAL issues.
Make of note of it.
Thank you for allowing me to publically freak out.
I now return you to the petty nonsense that most of you care so much about.
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