Job Losses

The worst declines in the job market since the 1970s, but Republicons would rather kick some money back to their wealthy benefactors than spend to actually provide The People with work. Remember that in the Great Depression, money was spent not just on 'shovel-ready' projects, but on art, beautification, education — things that improve society, improve public spirit. Now even Democrats oppose such things. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lang, Diego Rivera — all artists some of whose work we would certainly lack today if not for the path-breaking programs of the FDR era.

Hope

Bread-line, Kentucky, 1937. Margaret Bourke-White.

Remember Clinton's "I still believe in a place called Hope"?

And Barack Obama's "Audacity of Hope"?

Just what are they talking about? Whose hope? What hope? I have just listened to a remarkable piece on a public radio's Hearing Voices: Prison. Interviews with some very thoughtful convicts in the deplorable American prison system. As Milan Kundera (whose work I think is greatly overrated) said — that only one who had lived in a world deprived of freedom to understand freedom — so too can only those who have been deprived of hope truly understand what hope is. (I don't quite believe this, but there is something right about this notion.)

Christmas dinner, sometime in the 30s.

Hope is what so many have invested in Obama. Millions of Americans have given up on the US political system. Corrupt, dedicated to the wealthy, indifferent to the common people. A combination of bad times and the very worst politicians our nation has seen, genuinely awful people — Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales — has robbed and raped us but opened the door to hope.

Breadline during the Depression.

Remember the song that signaled the arrival of FDR? Depression-era music is so dominated by the blues. But then there is "Happy Days Are Here Again". So the Depression is also an era of big band and jazz. Call it a musical debate.

The Republicans have, for at least three decades, worked overtime to criminalize mere bad luck — poverty, being black or now Muslim, unemployed, hungry, drug-addicted. All criminalized in the public consciousness, and often in law, by a massive political movement utterly indifferent to the conditions of the majority. Democrats have spent most of this time meekly going along. Or in the case of Nancy Pelosi, Joseph Lieberman and their ilk, actually endorsing the revolting tactics of the Republicans.

Can Obama change this? Are Rahm Emanuel or Robert Rubin counterpoints, loyal opponents, to an Obama liberalism? Or are they shape of things to come?

"Happy Days Are Here Again". Are they?

Today's Rosy Headlines (or "Midway in the journey of my life, I found myself in a dark wood.")

Oooh, the good news just keeps a-rollin' in. Do not forget that enlightened right-wingers like Amity Shlaes or the editors of the Wall Street Journal or our newest political has-been John McCain believe that the 'fundamentals are sound' and this is just a dip in the gilded road of American Progress. Onward and upward, Dow 36,000 and all that. Never say 'recession' and may Lightning Strike You Down if you say the "D" word.

• Jobless Rate at 14-Year High After Big October Losses. Almost a quarter million people lost their jobs in October alone. Total job losses for the year = 1.2 million. Official unemployment up to 6.5%, meaning the real unemployment is probably around 13%. My prediction: we will see official unemployment hit 10% before we're out of this dark wood. BUT

• Stocks Are Higher After Jobs Report. Refer back to an earlier rant of mine about how Wall Street just luuuuvs bad news if it's bad for us regular little peoples.

• Retailers Report a Sales Collapse. You can only go on spending the nuthin' you do have or the sumpthin' you don't have for so long. Still waiting for Henry Paulson's announcement that he is going to inject liquidity into US. (Of course, when the Feds inject liquidity into regular folks, it's usually in the form of a lethal injection.)

• Goldman Forecasts Deepest Recession Since Reagan Era. But not for Goldman and not for its executives. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. . . .

• Pending Sales of Existing Homes in U.S. Fell 4.6%. And the rental market is tightening (people forced out of homes due to foreclosures). Do you know where you're sleeping tonight?

(By the way, Kevin Hassett, co-author of Dow 36,000 was an economic advisor to the McCain campaign. James Glassman, the other co-author, replaced Karen Hughes as Bush's Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy — propanda minister. All of which just goes to show, if you got The Official American Seal of Approval, you can't help but fall up, up, up, ever up.)