Latest List of Layoffs Over Last 4 Months:

1. Twitch: 35% of workforce
2. Hasbro: 20% of workforce
3. Spotify: 17% of workforce
4. Levi's: 15% of workforce
5. Zerox: 15% of workforce
6. Qualtrics: 14% of workforce
7. Wayfair: 13% of workforce
8. Tesla: 10% of workforce
9. Duolingo: 10% of workforce
10. Washington Post: 10% of workforce
11. Snapchat: 10% of workforce
12. eBay: 9% of workforce
13. PayPal: 9% of workforce
14. Business Insider: 8% of workforce
15. Charles Schwab: 6% of workforce
16. Macy's: 4% of workforce
17. Blackrock: 3% of workforce
18. Citigroup: 20,000 employees
19. UPS: 12,000 employees
20. Cisco: "Thousands" of employees

In 2024, we have already seen 74,000 tech layoffs alone with well over 200,000 across all industries.

Last month, the US added a whopping 691,000 part-time jobs while LOSING 6,000 full-time jobs.

Is the labor market finally starting to soften?

No one really believes that the GOP will let the country default on the debt. This is all political theater. The debt limit will likely be raised. (But who knows for sure?) It could happen in theory that a group in the GOP lets it happen. Either way the US cannot pay on its debts. It can either default (not pay), or it can borrow more, but that is not paying its debts but increasing them. Those are the two options. It cannot/will not pay off the debt. No one even claims it can at this point.


"And while Wall Street is sanguine, big banks like Morgan Stanley and Citigroup are still working out contingency plans [in case of default] that involve redoubling efforts to keep clients calm and are selling government bonds — a sign that confidence in Washington has waned."

And if/when bond buyers stop buying bonds, that means "game" over.

Erin Burnett is a Cunt. And she's engaged to a Citigroup Executive.

@chilaxe @NetRunner

I've been stupid busy all week, but would've loved to talk about this stuff with you two.

About importing poverty...have either of you heard of this thesis? I gather that it has been tested, but I haven't seen that evidence myself.

Dopamine, a pleasure-inducing brain chemical, is linked with curiosity, adventure, entrepreneurship, and helps drive results in uncertain environments. Populations generally have about 2% of their members with high enough dopamine levels with the curiosity to emigrate. Ergo, immigrant nations like the U.S. and Canada, and increasingly the UK, have high dopamine-intensity populations.


It's been cited numerous times in things I've read, including in the infamous citigroup plutonomy memos:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1

High dopamine is also associated with risk-taking. The citigroup guys were obviously citing it as though being an immigrant nation was going to save us in uncertain times. However, regardless of which theories or hypotheses you subscribe to or hear about, there's something quite different about people who emigrate. Taking that idea further, you have to separate people who emigrated en masse because of rather forced conditions (tons of Irish people during the potato famine, Polish/Lithuanian people in the early 1900s, etc) and individuals who emigrate simply because they're after more money/opportunity.

I've also read some stuff that indicates dopamine levels affect your perception of time. Schizophrenics have really high dopamine levels, which causes their internal clock to speed up, and it alters their perception of time. This is interesting in relation to the dopamine/emigration theory because of Philip Zimbardo's work on perception of time and how it relates to personality.

Plus, Zimbardo's work is just interesting, period:
http://videosift.com/video/The-Secret-Powers-of-Time
http://fora.tv/2008/11/12/Philip_Zimbardo_The_Time_Paradox

Another article about time perception with a few mentions of dopamine, drugs, etc.
http://delontin1.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/stretch-time/

Anyway, not to derail things, but it's mostly on topic with all the earlier discussion of brain stuff. I really think perception of time affects our personality in profound ways, and it's clear that brain chemistry affects our perception of time. I also think there's evidence that there can be overall brain chemistry trends in populations which have interesting implications.

Per Mr. Greyson's words. That Citigroup gains 100% of profit if toxic assets sell well, but us US citizens get 90% debt, if those assets fail. Where can I get a deal like THAT for my student loans? Or my House? Or my car? Or me?!?!?!?!?

>> ^Stormsinger:
Of course they don't sell to the public. We haven't contributed enough bribes campaign donations to get their attention.


Honestly, I think we're way beyond that. If Citi failed, the chaos that would ensue is already risk on the public balance sheet. It's called systematic risk.

Now I do appreciate that Grayson is trying to follow the money. I think it ought to be public information what lies on public balance sheets.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
So this is the fed audit?


More like a share holders conference I guess...

Imstellar,

As always you misinterpret data to fit your perceptions.

Real GDP growth has doubled from 1970 to 1990 check BEA, national debt has only increased larger then a fraction of total GDP from 1980 to 1990, with massive debt growth from 1990 to 2000. These levels however are still below levels of World War 2.

Your example really however applies when it comes to the recent so called growth from 1997 to 2007, as real wage increases were nonexistent, so was real stock market growth on the S&P 500. So instead of the economy expanding the US economy has been fueling growth with borrowing. At the same time credit card debt started overtake real wages, with massive increases from 2003Q1.
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/02/the_failure_of_1.html

Your idea that private enterprise can solve these issues is again wrong, given that the Progressive movement brought government intervention to sustain fair markets and competition which lead to break ups of monopolies. Bringing forth agencies like the FDA, FTC and the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Federal Reserve was created to control tariffs and antitrust cases. All these agencies came about in the 1900s and were responses to citizen requests after laissez-faire economics in the 1800s, they also paved the way for the roaring 20s. Before you start complaining about the the government extending the great depression a recent study showed that only 20% of professional economists hold that view, and even then they claim that they Fed should have been the one to instigate change by reducing interest rates and allow credit back in the economy but this is in hindsight with development of Monetary policy in the 50s and 60s.

Furthermore, I never advocated for socialism in the US because it is not going to happen, what I said was socialistic policies, the capitalistic component is not being removed from the US unlike what you seem to believe. Its called a Mixed economy for a reason. There is no pure capitalistic or socialistic economy in the world bar Cuba and some failed states, the closest capitalistic state in the world is actually Singapore.

You keep saying '2%' unemployment.

The unemployment problem is far more severe, but you are underestimating its very nature, the stimulus package was created to save or create 3.5 million jobs, the unemployment figures currently place it at 4.4 million (half of this in the last 4 months) since the start of the recession.

With levels spiking to 8.1 as I mentioned earlier in single month, the highest level since 1983. This strikes at consumer confidence, and further reduces consumption and aggregate demand, not to mention that it means that more foreclosures are coming. Consumption is already taking a hit as confidence plummets and expenditure is being relegated to essentials (however I think the electronics sector will still thrive, especially the video games market, it has been shown to be fairly recession proof unless EA goes crazy and starts to buy up other companies).

Not only are layoffs large but there is increasing firms that are simply coming out of entire market sectors. The Labor department has stated that Unemployment benefits will not recover lost jobs but more must be spent on actual job retraining to realign the US economy with trend factors over the last 10 years, 4.5 billion is in the stimulus package for job retraining. That is still too low as in current dollars $20 billion a year went to job training in 1979, compared with only $6 billion last year.

This recession will fundamentally rebuild the economy, even with unemployment benefits and a sudden resurgence in consumer confidence there is not enough credit available to allow a short term return to employment. Which again necessitates the large fiscal policies we are seeing enacted.

Education will also play a vital role in this, am an advocate of centralized educational standards. I disagree with educational avenues in the US, which usually require graduates to graduate with massive debt which they repay for several years afterward. Not to mention that systems like the SAT and No Child Left behind have only created a system where children learn more about test taking then actual acquisition of knowledge. But this is another debate entirely which I don't really feel like expanding on right now.

Finally. Again to reiterate what I said about the 'let them fail' ideas with regards to the banking system. The Treasury still has not made up its mind how it will cover the toxic debt, the Fed let Lehman Brothers fail and see what happened, the entire finical sector melted down and dragged several other big firms with it. There is talk of letting Citigroup fail, that is a huge bank, and the actual cross exposure is not clearly relevant if its allowed to fail. It could drag the rest of the financial sector with it. However there is clear rallying right now as Citigroup posted a profit, with markets perking up.

>> ^supersaiyan93:
It's sad that so many people got effected by the greed at Citi, and I do genuinely feel bad for the 35,000 people losing their jobs. However, there is NO sympathy from me if Citi were to go under tomorrow.

^Agreed absolutely.

>> ^rougy:
You know who needs a taste of the ol' hammer?
Those credit card fuckers.
One of mine just raised their default APR to 29.4%.
It's legalized loan-sharking and it has to be stopped.


^The interest those credit card fuckers have been charging you and me and everyone else effectively devalues the money honest folk earn every day. It's a tax on money that isn't going to the government (which, arguably would do something useful with at least SOME of it), but into the pockets of the pocket picking CEOs at companies like Citi (who have a place carved out for them in Hell according to Dante).

Here's one: a trillion dollars is the market value of derivatives held by Deutsche Bank alone.

How about this one: a trillion dollars is the amount of garbage the Citigroup was storing in SPEs (Special Purpose Entities) at the end of Q3 2008, according to their SEC 10-Q Filing, page 64.

heh
i sifted this a day ahead, but feel weird being the beneficiary of a dupeof that i spotted, and you're the one who had the official title, and the ANP embed and not my TRN rebroadcast, so i'm duping mine out instead.
funny seeing a whole other list, of equally-appropriate tags/description, that still hardly overlap. the statistic that i found most startling, was that citigroup alone will apparently get at least $345 billion.

and that they were one of the largest offshore-account violators prosecuted, in that list of major banks at the 1-min mark!

Business interests are putting more muscle behind a push to roll back U.S. financial regulations, with a major study just issued by a business lobbying group and some of Wall Street's top names gathering for a Treasury Department conference on the matter on Tuesday.

The conference being hosted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will include some of the nation's richest men, including multimillionaire Warren Buffett, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Executive Committee Chairman Robert Rubin and General Electric Co. (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) CEO Jeffrey Immelt.

Reuters UK

Also Fannie & Fred's Anti-Regulation Lobby