US sheds 598,000 jobs in January

Money

It's really hard to tell how bad this is compared to other recessions. The worst one I've worked through was 2001 dot-bomb. (I graduated college in 1997). Our game of politics is so polarized, each party inflates issues then blames the other party for creating it. Just think of all the "disastrous" issues over the past 10 years.

You just can't believe anything from the U.S. government to be accurate anymore, so I understand why people are leery of believing anything they say. They've turned into (or always have been maybe?) I giant propaganda network, herding the masses into believing what they want them to believe. Cynical? Yes. True? Look around you. Hell look at the amount of BS they shovel for the drug war.

It's worse than that, Jim

The problem with (un)employment statistics is that if Microsoft shed 5,000 software engineers in the same month that McD's take on 5,000 burger flippers, there's no net change in employment levels. Economists are human too and are easily tempted to use statistics that are readily available rather than try and delve behind the raw numbers to see what's really going on (cf. the use of GDP - an almost meaningless number, but one that's regularly produced by nearly all governments as part of their tax collection activities).

@Nancy Pelosi

She is a nut job. When it came to rebuilding the instructional , they wanted to make people use US steel. Her response is well people think American product are crap.

Um people don't tend to have a opinion when it comes to metal . When is the last time you have seen some ask oh wait what country dose this steel comes from. Wait I cant buy that gold ring it comes from America . Hell most of the world does not seem to care about blood diamonds .

At the misguided pedant

someone made up the waffle you are going on about. A recession is a reduction, that is all.

If you want to be hoodwinked by charlatans that's your business, but don't call it pedantry, call it what it is, ignorant sucking up to the system :)

Oh, and I do have Economics as an advanced level qualification, you will find those with degrees even more scathing of the word games, unless they are being paid to be the performing monkeys :)

And as for Physicians, ever wonder why they make the worst patients? It is because they know the others are idiots. And don't bring Prudence into it, she left a long long time ago, supposedly eloped with Mr C Sense.

Even Micky D's is cutting jobs

Unfortunately even Mickey D's is cutting jobs so the Mircosoft employees who got axed won't be finding jobs at Mickey D's.

Definitions

When my neighbour is unemployed, that's a recession. When I'm unemployed, that's a depression.

Old, but still valid.

You can't pay the bills with optimism

@Doug Glass

The way unemployment numbers are determine in the U.S. today is different than in the 30's. Today they only count those applying for unemployment benefits, not those who no longer qualify for benefits. When unemployment benefits runs out you no longer exist in the system. The official unemployment rate this month is 7.6%. the actual unemployment rate is above 12% and growing rapidly each month.

Even those who have not lost their jobs are being forced to take pay cuts or cuts in hours. The failed fiscal policies of the old and new admin will make things worse for the working class worldwide. Naturally the politicians in Washington will continue to receive their $175,000 a year salary, lavish expense account, the best health care in the world, free travel and a platinum retirement - while the working class suffers.

More Deifnitions

When we can afford 2 loaves of bread instead of 3 - recession

When were trying to remember what bread tastes like - depression

@Money

I've witnessed 4 recessions, including this one. The only one that wasn't linked to housing or finance or both was the one you were talking about, and that was certainly not as bad as what is going on now.

This one has it's own distinct flavour, but ultimately it's just a variant on the normal housing and financial meltdown recession. IT recessions are a fairly new invention, and they take a pretty stupid class of person to instigate.

How stupid? What about investing all of your pension funds assets into a company with a really neat website and a promise to make something cool one day. Obviously that makes them the same as Microsoft. Well apparently it does to people with absolutely no clue about IT. Like people who work in the financial sector for example. You'd think with all the technology they use they'd understand it a bit more. But apparently not, because to them a really neat website is the same thing as a business that produces 90% of the software installed on computers world wide and a fair amount of hardware too. You can argue over the quality of that software, but it doesn't change the fact it actually exists and it's actually being bought. Unlike most of the so-called dot com businesses they thought would turn into Microsoft.

The truly stunning thing is when these people did finally figure out what they'd done (invest all their money into a kid with a pirated copy of dreamweaver, who then did the predictable thing and used it to buy a Ferrari) they then decided to use their expert knowledge of IT and go one step further. Yes, they decided to lump in real businesses with the kids and companies like Cisco, Oracle, Intel and so on had their stock price slashed to unrealistically low levels.

Therefore although the words 'dot com' do conjure a fair description of the most stupid people in the history of the stock market (because what could be more apt than actually spelling a full stop/period with the words d-o-t), it really wasn't as bad as the one we're having now.

Giving $500,000 to homeless people has surely taken stupidity to a whole new level. I can't wait to see what they do next time.