Original article, by Andre Damon and subtitled Wall Street rallies as unemployment rate soars, via World Socialist Web Site:
The official US unemployment rate jumped by 0.4 percentage points to reach 8.9 percent last month, according to figures released Friday by the Labor Department. The economy lost another 539,000 jobs in April, as total job losses reached 5.7 million since the start of the recession in December 2007.
The governmental cheerleaders would have you believe that this is a good thing. It could've been in the 600,000s like it has been. I guess we should give thanks for small mercies. I guess this is where the 'hope' comes in, as in we 'hope' we're at the bottom of this economic crisis.
Additionally, the Labor Department announced that 66,000 more jobs had been lost in February and March than it had previously estimated.
Oops. But, then again, it was an estimate. It's amazing how things are shown to be worse than they actually are. It's an art form that's carried on from administration to administration.
Share prices moved sharply higher on Wall Street on Friday despite the jump in the official jobless rate and the announced loss of another half-million jobs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 164.8 points to close higher by 1.96 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index picked up 22.8 points, a 1.33 percent increase. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose even more sharply, gaining 21.8 points, or 2.41 percent.
This is being celebrated, even by some in the left blogosphere. The financial mavens must be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Mind you, it was the financial mavens that got us into this mess, and any lessening of the wrath that they deserve is something the are striving for.
The fact that the financial markets continued their two-month rally, with the Dow nearing 8,600, in the face of another dismal jobs report, says a great deal about the class divide in America and the policies of the Obama administration.
Let's not lump this all on the Obama administration, though they should be ashamed. America has been deindustrialized over the past 40 years or so, a period which has coincided with the greatest run-up of the stock market in many a year (certainly in the sheer number of points added, if not percentage wise). This has happened under both Republican and Democratic administrations and continues under the Obama administration. The age of the technocratic economy is here, and things look glum if you're not a technocrat.
The financial markets are soaring while millions are finding it impossible to pay the rent, meet mortgage payments or keep up with credit card debt. There were nearly 150,000 home foreclosure actions in April alone, according to foreclosure tracker Realtytrac.com, and credit card defaults have reached record highs.
I'll let you read the rest of the article. Take time to consider where we are going with the bailouts and the forced bankruptcies. Consider what it is which is actually going to pull those who do not fit into the financial or technocratic camps out of this depression. Then ask yourself if this is good enough for you to be supportive of. Damon leaves us with one other point to consider as we hear the cheerleaders clamor on about how the recovery is at hand:
The rise in the unemployment rate is outpacing all predictions made by the government. The current unemployment rate of 8.9 percent already equals the "worst case scenario" envisioned for all of 2009 in the government’s bank stress tests. If unemployment continues to grow at the current rate, it will hit 10.4 percent—higher than the government’s worst case projection for the end of 2010—within three months.