More bad numbers:
Job losses in the U.S. private sector accelerated in March, more than economists’ expectations, according to a report by ADP Employer Services on Wednesday.
Private employers cut jobs by a record 742,000 in March versus a 706,000 revised cut in February that was originally reported at 697,000 jobs, said ADP, which has been carrying out the survey since 2001.
The big drop foreshadows a huge decline in the non-farm payroll reading in the government’s employment report that will be released on Friday, some analysts said.
“It’s a terrible number. It is almost a loss of three quarters of a million jobs which is possibly the highest we have seen so far over the length of this crisis,” said Matt Esteve, foreign exchange trader with Tempus Consulting in Washington.
And we have a new round of ARM’s and the upcoming commercial real estate crash to look forward to. Fun stuff. On the other hand, the Republicans are set to release their budget today, which I am sure will be all sorts of entertaining.
r€nato
LOL! Really? On April 1st of all days? They couldn’t do it a day sooner or a day later?
It’s like the GOP is determined to take up the comedy fodder slack now that Bush has retired to
his ranchhis comfy suburban home.zzyzx
Meh, I bet this is just an April Fool’s Day joke and the real report shows us gaining jobs!
Napoleon
Upcoming! I am already living it every day.
JosieJ
In the past two days, two of my friends have been laid off.
Next week: maybe me–I’m hanging by a thread as it is.
So thrilling, this is. Not.
Vladimir Illich Gingrich
Three quarters of a million unemployed per month, for months, is a small price to pay for a 2010 return the House and Senate to their rightful owners, the natural party of government, the GOP.
It’s a small price to pay to forestall slightly higher marginal rates of income tax.
It’s a small price to pay to banish the specter of gay marriage.
It’s a small price to pay to wake up every morning in God’s own United States of America, instead of some second-rate France clone.
Newly unemployed, we salute your sacrifice!
All power to the Soviets of preachers and hedge-fund managers!
The Moar You Know
and the upcoming commercial real estate crash to look forward to.
@Napoleon: Glad I’m not alone. If something fucks with my cashflow, I’ll be posting from a sidewalk outside a coffee shop.
Zifnab
And on this news, Wall Street reacted by going UP about 2% from opening bell. Makes sense to me, ho hum.
Aaron
It seems like the Republicans never learned the lessons from that Kindergarten toy – the one with the blocks of various shapes that go into holes of corresponding shapes. In response to a ballooning deficit, populist anger at the disproportionately wealthy, and holes in the Friedmanite conception of the economy, they offer a preliminary budget with the only concrete numbers detailing the largest upper-tax tax cut in recent memory.
Republicans seem to currently be under the assumption that a dunce cap is akin to a merit badge
Zifnab
@Vladimir Illich Gingrich: Yeah, because if there’s one thing massive unemployment and huge financial inequity usher in, it’s a return to conservative Christian values. Just ask Huey Long, Fidel Castro, Marx, Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Mein…
Socialism, unionization, nationalization… these things never ever become popular during economic famine. You’re on the right side of history, GOP. Keep it up.
MattF
…and the Republican proposal is: a spending freeze and a huge tax cut for the top bracket. Insult, meet injury; salt, meet wound; etc. & so forth.
The Other Steve
I’m really starting to get worried here…
I was hoping that layoffs would begin to taper off.
Zifnab
… Grrr, I hate you social ism word filter.
TheHatOnMyCat
@The Other Steve:
LOL. Starting to get worried?
Relax, give it a few more months, wait until the Bushville tent city has covered the entire mall in DC, and people are burning US currency for fuel.
Aaron
So you are saying these measures become popular when the economy is booming? That can’t be right . . .
jcricket
Yep, there’s the CRE implosion, an ongoing wave of ARM/Optiom ARM resets, individual’s high levels of credit card debt still to be defaulted on. And don’t forget, all the corporate bond defaults (like Tommy Friedman’s wife’s General Growth Properties – a big strip mall company).
Then there’s the increase in personal bankruptcies sure to come when laid off consumers have healthcare issues (which cause 50% of bankruptcies even when people "have" healthcare).
I’m not a doom and gloomer, but it’s going to be a very bumpy year. And I don’t think we’ll have a quick recovery (certainly not in housing, but probably not in employment either).
WyldPirate
Dayum…..10,000 jobs lost per hour last month.
That’s a lot of ‘effing Mayberry, USAs taking a hit.
Brachiator
So let’s see, now. All the media’s eyes are on Obama and the G20 conference, and the top reporters and pundits are either in Europe or focused on what happens there.
Do the GOP really want to compete for media attention with Obama, the Queen, various foreign heads of state, and the Michelle Obama/Carla Bruni-Sarkozy League of Extraordinary First Ladies?
They might as well put a picture of the budget on a milk carton, along with the question, "Have you seen me?"
Are these really the folks whose Rovian tactics formerly aroused fear and loathing far and wide? Now, they are inventing new ways to appear flat-footed and irrelevant.
valdivia
that republican budget is too incredible for words. eliminate the stimulus, extend the bush tax cuts cut the tax rate to 25% across the board. more tax cuts, no spending, just wow. oh and vouchers for medicare!
blahblahblah
Watch the stock market respond to the Plunge Protection Team in action. Stocks go up while every real indicator of the economy shows significant decline. When will the Fed and Treasury run out of money to throw away? Oh yeah, never. They just print the shit up.
But one thing I noticed last night: the price of gourmet coffee at my local Peets has gone up 20% in only a two months. Meat, fish, and produce are also showing significant price rises. Just about every consumable commodity is showing significant inflation.
How long can this last before everyone realizes that inflation has hit double digits again?
whetstone
"Next week: maybe me—I’m hanging by a thread as it is."
@JosieJ My company’s in bankruptcy, because it bought two newspapers, including the one I work for, by taking on tons of debt just before the economy blew up. Oh, and the new debt also paid off pre-existing debt.
Yesterday the creditors (who loaned $31m, about $15m of which is secured IIRC) were told they couldn’t take over the company. Meanwhile, the judge said that the debtors valuation was "beyond belief" and that the reorganization plan is unlikely to work. (Part of the reorg plan involves possibly borrowing more money.)
The creditors are probably going to take a substantial haircut, assuming they settle, which they might not. We’re down to a skeleton staff. The amount of money that’s gone to interest and bankruptcy lawyers, meanwhile, could have funded a newspaper on its own, as far as I can tell.
Somewhere back America lost its fucking mind.
dmsilev
@Brachiator:
Given the near-terminal levels of Stupid contained therein, rolling the "GOP budget" on a day when nobody cares is probably their best bet.
-dms
Adrienne
He was being superbly sarcastic. It is well known that in times of economic crisis and populist anger populations are more open to those ideas. The fact that Republicans choose NOW to rail against gradients of social ism when, to most people, a little MORE government is exactly what they want and need, is just idiotic.
Hyperion
@jcricket:
a very scary graph of mortgage dollars vs. date.
it stacks all the various types of mortgage instruments. early large sub-prime contribution. huge option ARM and others starting to pick up now.
edit: i don’t think the numbers are for just San Diego.
Aaron
Damn, my sarcasm detector appears to be broken. Apologies :-)
Brian J
Is this measurement usually a little more towards the negative side, with the actual release coming in under what it usually suggests? Or at least, hasn’t that been the case for the last month or two?
Not that losing any number of jobs is good, but I was really hoping for a sharp decrease in the number of jobs lost. It didn’t seem reasonable to expect an increase, but instead of expecting about 600,000 lost jobs, I was hoping that it might be more like 400-500,000, both as a sign that economy might be improving and a way to shut the president’s critics up. I guess that isn’t going to happen.
The Republicans seem to have bigger problems than their non-existent budget. Via Steve Benen, via Brian Beutler, Judd Gregg is quite literally making shit up about a light switch tax that would cost the average family over $3,000 a year. Once again, they get this bullshit number by bastardizing academic research from M.I.T. Luckily for us, the people behind the research aren’t happy that their work is being used for such nonsense.
Shame on The Washington Post, by the way, for printing this crap.
The Democrats may have a bunch of problems, but they aren’t the sad sack of idiots the Republicans have turned into. If nothing else, that puts them miles ahead of any alternatives.
Ricky Bobby
Anyone have any idea of which sectors within private industry are taking the biggest hit? Off the top of my head I would guess construction and manufacturing but I don’t know for sure.
Like the mortgage crisis, I don’t think the job losses are spread evenly across all states and job types evenly. Just curious.
cleek
OT: the coming revolution will be lemony fresh!
Comrade Dread
Yeah. We’re pretty much doomed.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we suddenly end up in our own post-Cold War collapse. At some point, the Chinese have to figure that it would be better for them to take the economic hit and divest themselves of our bonds than to hold on to what will be worthless Federal paper.
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
As I mentioned earlier, how could the GOP budget possibly compete with interest in Michelle Obama’s wardrobe (e.g., from a recent LA Times fashion blog) —
More seriously, reporting on the demonstrations and protests in London and elsewhere in Europe seems to suggest that the working classes all over the world would not be impressed with GOP arguments about the universal merit of trickle down ("G20 call for action amid protests").
Brian J
Perhaps I’ve missed something, but exactly who within the mainstream has advocated a platform of spending freeze/spending cuts at this time? Even among stimulus skeptics on the right, like Tyler Cowen and Greg Mankiw, there doesn’t appear to be any sentiment that we should scale back spending. Yet that’s what the Republicans are calling for.
I think you are being too kind. It’s not merely a salt-in-the-would deal, since that sounds like something that happens with a paper cut. Instead, what the Republicans are proposing sounds a lot like what happened to one of the kids in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, when Leatherface chopped off part of his leg(s) with the saw, hung him on a meat hook, and then placed the salt on the open part. Every month, hundreds of thousands of people get to scream like that kid. Good times, huh?
kay
@Brian J:
Judd Gregg is quite literally making shit up about a light switch tax that would cost the average family over $3,000 a year. Once again, they get this bullshit number by bastardizing academic research from M.I.T. Luckily for us, the people behind the research aren’t happy that their work is being used for such nonsense.
I blame Obama for Gregg. Stupid, stupid move. Obama gave Gregg both a national platform and "bi-partisan" credibility. Handed it to a completely dishonest GOP hack, turns out. What was he thinking? I sometimes feel as if Obama has that unfortunate liberal tendency to yearn for conservative approval. As if that’s somehow more "serious" than any liberal endorsement. It’s ego. He thought Judd Gregg was going to back his energy policy? Why did he think that?
Corner Stone
@Aaron #24
I thought it was Strategema style sarcasm you were playing.
Brian J
That’s the bigger question for me. There’s definitely value in having a sharp mind that has fundamental disagreements with you but will operate in an honest manner nearby. I didn’t know much about Gregg before his acceptance and then rejection of the Commerce job, so I assumed there was some reason, besides anything to do with politics, that Obama wanted him there. I’m still trying to figure it out.
I don’t think he really needed any sort of bipartisan street cred to print a piece like that. The media seems more than willing to give a platform to any person who is willing to present an alternative point of view, no matter how detached from reality their claims may be. In fact, sometimes it seems like the bigger the hack, the more time they get. (See Gingrich, Newt.)
kay
@Brian J:
I understand soliciting alternative views. The fact is, there is no conservative view on environmentalism, or even conservation, and there hasn’t been since Richard Nixon. They are so far from Teddy Roosevelt, it’s laughable.
Whatever mistakes liberals have made in environmental policy, they were out there alone. There was simply no rational alternative.
It was use-it-up-burn-it-up-leave-the-mess on the right, and then environmentalists on the left, plugging away, for decades.
Why ask Judd Gregg? Why further this myth that there is a coherent conservation/environmental goal on the right? Newt Gingrich looked at some poll numbers and announced the existence of "green conservatism" ? That means they have an worthwhile idea?
Obama was conned. He fell for it.
argh
"The fact that Republicans choose NOW to rail against gradients of socialism …"
In all fairness, Adrienne, the Con Republicans never have stopped railing against socialism.
It’s been Cons Stuck on Stupid(tm) for many years now.
terry chay
@kay:
Seems reasonable enough. Clearly the man has no problem backing shit he doesn’t believe in and being a tool.
kay
@terry chay:
I have to listen to Judd Gregg’s tendentious lectures on Yankee frugality for the next year? I have to watch as yet another conservative gets hysterical and predicts the demise of capitalism at any hint of a reasonably sustainable
environmental/energy policy? We all have to pretend this Drill Baby Drill hack is honorable?
It’s like a sentence. Thanks, Obama.
JosieJ
@whetstone: You have my sympathy, whetstone. As for me, I’ve reached a point of numb, despairing acceptance. I also work in non-profit, where at least I have a shot at finding another job…eventually. Maybe it won’t even take all that much longer than the 9 months it took me when the economy was good? Ah, hell, who’m I kidding?!
TenguPhule
Because the alternative will kneecap Gregg’s future political prospects outside of his district?
Personally, I think Obama’s quietly sabotaging the opposition’s future frontrunners. He’s not just pissing in their seed corn, he’s spiking it with arsenic and then forcefeeding it to them and they still think it tastes like delicious pie.
See also, Palin Sarah.
Miriam
What a great time for the cram-down bill to bite the dust – right when people are really going to need it.
Its like we are living in two totally different realities – one for rich people, Republicans and ‘moderate’ Democrats – the other for everyone else.
I am so sick of a government at the beck-and-call of corporations. I think we could use a big dose of social ism.
Brian J
Was Gregg really a front runner for any sort of national position?
I agree that Obama is throwing these clowns for a whirl, but they are making it easy. To take just one major example, instead of waiting another week and claiming they are fine tuning it or announcing it as a summary of ideas, the Republican House leader decides to pretend as if his "budget" is really anything but a better written screen cribbed from any random stump speech of the last three decades. Meanwhile, every single news medium in the country is repeating the phrase "budget with no numbers," among others, making them look like idiots.