Economy Still Losing Jobs

Before I continue with "The New Deal and Now," (this relates to that topic, however) the government released unemployment numbers on Thursday, July 2. The report showed the unemployment rate went to 9.5%, and that 467,000 Americans lost their jobs during June. The only good news, if you can call it that, is that this is better than the 700,000 jobs being lost earlier in the year. This is going to be a real tough time for many, many folks, and it isn't going to end for quite some time, I'm afraid. I heard one Stephen Moore, a conservative economist and frequent guest on CNBC (a business cable channel, owned by NBC) Thursday. Unfortunately, I just tuned in when he had already been talking, but I did hear him say that if the government (he's been critical of Bush and Obama) hadn't intervened in the economy, unemployment wouldn't have gone over 6%. This guy must think he's talking to an audience full of Rush Limbaughs. Do you really believe this nonsense folks? "Economy....heal Thyself!" He's entitled to his opinion, but so am I, and I say that without much of the intervention that taken place (distasteful as it has been), we would have unemployment closer to 26% than to 6%. No one can convince me that if all the big banks had gone down, and many smaller banks, and the three major American auto companies had gone down, and AIG, the insurance giant, had gone down, that we'd only have 6% unemployment. C'mon now, Mr. Moore!

There are some "green shoots," as they've been called; that is, some bits of good news, like some upticks in certain indicators and sectors of the economy, but things are fragile, at best. There are still problems looming over the economy, as many states are nearly bankrupt, to put it bluntly. The same can be said for many local governments, including school systems. This only seems to say that there will be more layoffs feeding the downturn. Further, home prices continue to plummet, and commercial real estate, like office buildings and shopping malls/shopping centers are still in deep trouble, which then goes back to lenders who financed these deals. Further still, so many people have been damaged, even destroyed financially, by what has gone on for the past several years. They have seen their savings diminished or wiped out, including for many, even their 401 K plans. A sad, sad situation, as many people, especially those in their 50s and 60s, will NEVER recover from what has happened to them. I just hope that those who are younger can recover. The situation is still VERY ugly. For regular readers, you may recall that I said last year, that whoever wins the election (for president), may well be destroyed by what is taking place. At this moment, I have no reason to retreat from that. (Ahh, keep in mind, I DID say, "may." I know how to use "weasel words.")

Word History:
Scatter/Shatter-The overall history of these words is not certain, but it seems that "scatter" is actually a variant of "shatter," which was spelled "schateren/shateren" in English many centuries ago. The hard "c" sound "seems" to have come from Norse influence during the 1100s, as it traces back to the northern part of England, where Norse influence was greatest. Of course, when you look at the concept of the two words, they are similar: if a window "shatters," the glass "scatters." One source says the words come from Old Germanic "skath," (with no meaning given), but myself, I lean more to them coming from Old Germanic "skaith," which itself was the Germanic offshoot of the Indo European root "skei," both having the meaning of "divide, split, part." German has "scheid(en)," which means "to divide, separate," and the Low German dialect of the north had (I don't know if it still has in modern times) "schateren." (Notice the close spelling to the old spelling in English above) The shorter form of the "scatter" is "scat," as in to chase off a cat or other animal; that is, to "separate" the animal from yourself.