Suddenly everybody feels like they shouldn't be commenting from work.

What's more, job losses from October and November were revised downward, with 584,000 cuts in November and another 423,000 in October.

You mean upward or for the worse. October was changed from 320K to 432K. Nov was changed fom 533 to 584K.

The more I read news like this the more I see the Bush Administration's similarity to Bernard Madoff. It's the natural collapse of order accompanying the phasing out of a criminal enterprise. With the new sheriff at the front door, Bush and Cheney will scurry out the back with their loot and head for their respective undisclosed locations.

December's job losses brought the total for 2008 to 2.4 million.

Or, to quote the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has grown by 3.6 million. I wonder where the NYT get's their number.

Very convenient that information is revised now that the president elect is responsible for fixing it.

What would happen to the US economy without the Obama stimulus package? What would happen to the US economy with the stimulus package?

It seems to me we are in for some really rough times, but the stimulus package won't solve much if we don't fundamentally restructure our economy away from financial services (get rich quick schemes) to the production and delivery of goods and services needed by the world economy.

Without a refocus the stimulus package will function like a bubble. We will fill good for a while, but eventually, when the government stops funding projects, everything will collapse and the collapse will be hard. We really need to take a good long look at Obama's package. We need to make sure it enables real and sustainable economic expansion after it ends, and isn't just a mindless give away like TARP.

"The more I read news like this the more I see the Bush Administration's similarity to Bernard Madoff."

Capt Kirk

The big difference here is that Madoff and his ilk will go to prison for stealing the futures of the poor sots who trusted him. Bushit and Darth will be paid millions for their revisionism memoirs. The irony is that many whom will have lost their futures (read: 401K's) due to their asinine governance will fork over the $30 to buy the books. Bushit and darth will be laughing all the way to the bank. If there's one left standing. Lemmings, one and all. Totally nauseating.

Gov't. spending w/accountability (smart government) will bring us closer to a socioeconomic recovery than any cut in revenue at this time. The middle class does deserve a tax break, but Bush's tax cuts must be rolled back to the pre-Bush levels - not a tax increase, but rather a return to sober policy!

The accountability part of spending equals regulation. We've seen what rubber-stamped deregulation has done to us:

implosion of the economy because of unregulated predatory practices,

the explosion of earmark funding as Congressional "representatives" seemingly can't regulate their commitment to the public good the transparent way,

and the decimation of our legal system by executive branch rogues who have pushed upon us signing statements, DoJ skulduggery, and 4th branch VP rhetoric - all unaccountable extra-legal corruptions to our Constitutional heritage!

That being said, I do expect 2009 to be worse than '08, especially if the culture of the Beltway refuses to change, and change in a hurry! -Kevo

Almost as sad as the loss of so many jobs is the fact that roughly 40% of the newly unemployed will not make the connection between their lack of a job and the Republican party. They'll imbibe the spin, blame it on bad luck and/or the Democrats and mindlessly vote for whomever the Republicans run in 2012.

Our economy is hemorrhaging.

The bleeding won't stop until the bloodletters are

ostracized and vanquished to remote regions of the planet.

I'd say that the Iraq war is a hemmorrhagic factor.

Fossilized mindsets are another.

I think we are on the brink of a new paradigm shift, where frugality becomes the norm and the concept of wealth becomes ever more elusive.

Ron Byers: That's the thesis of Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers." At the same time, while whistling past the graveyard sometimes it just that, at other times, talk can produce psychology. We're not (yet) in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The 1980-82 years were a double-dip recession; take out the small hump in between, and it was not only worse than this is now, but worse than this may be in six months.

THAT said, per Kevin Phillips, presidents of BOTH parties have so fudged economic stats since then that who knows if we can even accurately compare the two recessions?

If you think this is bad, wait for the big retail collapse that will probably come in the next couple of months in the wake of the dismal xmas season. About 10% of U.S. workers are employed in that industry. We can only hope that the unemployment rate stays below 12%.

And Krugman, as usual, was correct today -- Obama "stimulus" package is way too modest.

Recession and/or depression of '80 to 82, depending upon whether you lost your well paying job, was a great time for union busting. Witnessed many construction firms in So Cal change from union labor to the hiring of a fifteen dollar an hour lead man and 5 to 7 dollar laborers. It wasn't long, before the lead was asked to take a pay cut, as well. Lots of "We're all in this, together" blarney.

... the nation's employers shed 524,000 jobs in December, the government reported Friday, ....

I'm of a mind to not believe anything that comes from the mouth of the current government. BBC, Reuters, and CNBC were all reporting the number yesterday as 673,000---and that's just private-sector job losses alone, with no mention as to public-sector losses. In case no one noticed, I think all 50 of the individual states laid off workers last month---as did most county/parish and municipal governments---and there will in all likelihood be a heavier round of job-losses for each of the next two or three months, at a bare minimum.

Only another week and a half to go, and then we'll get to start seeing the true damage wrought by these Bushylvanian sleazeballs....

Now if one of Bush's economist or maybe one recruited by Boner would crawl out from under their rock and explain why outsourcing is such a good thing.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has grown by 3.6 million

Damn, that's a lot of incipient entrepreneurs.

Steve, are you keeping track of all the Republicans who will be coming out claiming:
"Nobody could have seen that coming"

Kind'a like 'nobody could have imagined Al Quaida attacking the world trade centers.

Anytime something bad happened, no Republican could have seen it coming.

All the more reason NOT to have Republicans at the helm of anything important to the nation.

So with the new December results, how does the shrub measure up against Hoover as far as creating jobs during his tenure? At one point about a year ago, Bush's whole eight year effort was below Clinton's monthly average. Have we set a new record?

Uhhh. . . Steve?

"What's more, job losses from October and November were revised downward,. . . " -
is worded wrong.

Job losses in Oct & Nov were revised UPWARD, changing the unemployment rate from 6.7% to 6.8%. And I am sure that before the January figures are released, the December figures will be revised upward also.