598,000 Jobs Lost; Stock Market Soars

Real Unemployment Is Up To 14%

Once again, the stock markets have greeted bad employment news with sheer joy. As I write this, the news is that nearly 600,000 jobs were lost in January -- the largest monthly loss since 1974. (New Yorkers: remember how the city was looking in the mid-70s?) Numbers for earlier months have been revised up. And the Dow Jones, at 10:37am, is up 140 points. At 1:40pm, 225 points. The ostensible reason? Even if workers and taxpayers -- We the People footing the bailout -- are getting shafted, financial institutions are looking good. Why? Because we have Summers, Geithner & Co. on the job, guaranteeing unlimited billions for Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, while requiring nothing by way of a binding commitment from the companies, especially not anything that might look like a commitment to an owner.

The Financial Times reported, "The non-farm payroll losses in January were higher than the upwardly revised 577,000 positions shed in the previous month and were substantially greater than the 525,000 that economists had forecast in a Reuters poll." Economists were 52,000 shy -- 10% shy of the mark.

Each month since December 2007 has seen job losses -- 3.6 million in all.