They Protest, We Email.

 

I've been kicking the horrific numbers of proposed jobs lost during the past week. On Monday morning, we started the week with announcements from a number of companies that 43,000 jobs were going to be cut; later in the day that number was revised upwards to 70,000. That is one hell of way to start the week.

We hear on Friday that the new number of jobs lost would be in the neighborhood of 100,000, that's one hell of a neighborhood and it seems that the light at the end of the tunnel just may be an oncoming train.

I am not an economist, but I am beginning to think that of all jobs in the world, the only ones that fail upwards are the pundit class, Wall Street CEO's and economists. Nice gig if you can get it.

The sectors involved are varied; from Caterpillar, Inc. to Pfizer, from Boeing to Chico's, a Fort Myers, Fl. women's clothing outlet. That last one may not seem important, but if you're one of the 500 who will lose their jobs, it's important enough.

It's clear that before things get better, they are going to get a bit worse. According to CNNMoney .com on January 29:

• The U.S. economy lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008, according to government reports. This includes 21,137 mass layoffs, a seven-year high. In a mass layoff, 50 or more workers are laid off at a time.
  

And from the same piece:

• The job market isn't expected to get any better any time soon. The Council Board forecast two million job losses for 2009.
  

I know I may have taken a rather circuitous route to get to the title of this post, but it seems to me that wedapeople could or perhaps should do more to register our discontent.

From the AP: January 31, 2009

MOSCOW — Thousands of protesters rallied against the government in cities across Russia on Saturday, reflecting mounting anger over the nation's economic woes.

The protests, among the largest yet, posed a challenge to the Kremlin, which faced little threat from the fragmented opposition during the years of oil-driven boom.

The largest march took place in the far eastern port of Vladivostok, where about 3,000 people denounced the Cabinet's decision to increase tariffs on imported cars. Some shouted slogans urging Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to resign.

And from FT.com:

By Ben Hall in Paris

Published: January 29 2009 09:11 | Last updated: January 29 2009 23:17

At least a million striking workers held demonstrations across France on Thursday in protest at the government's reform programme and its response to the economic crisis, demanding extra help for ordinary families in place of state aid for the banks.

 

Now, I'm not sure if the Russian and the French protests will bring about the needed changes, but I have to believe that, at least in the case of the French, mobilizing one to two million people to take to the streets will at a minimum bring to the table some strength in negotiations.

In the case of the Russian protests, Putin has to take into consideration that Russian workers are not to be taken lightly.

Now that we have a new administration in place, we must keep their feet to the fire. President Obama has his Economic team in place and I think he deserves some time to try and wrap his head around the problem at hand.

I will give him the benefit of the doubt, but I must say that I am somewhat underwhelmed by his choice at Treasury and about some of his advisors. Larry Summers has already made his presence felt in the under emphasis on infrastructure spending and Geithner has been handed the wheel to the shipwreck he failed to see coming. These are people who for the most part live in an echo chamber reinforcing their own ideas and sadly, not allowing different ideas to find root in their imaginations.

They take to the streets, we email…one of the demands of the French workers is that the government provide… 'extra help for ordinary families in place of more state aid for banks'…what a concept.

I do not pretend to know who the French classify as "ordinary families', but I would suspect that their measuring stick is very much like ours, people who do what is expected of them, and in return they expect the government do what is expected of it.

The Russian protests are demanding that the government step down because of the worsening economic conditions. They were met by riot police

They take to the streets…we email.

 

I honestly believe that except for a handful of people in the upper reaches of government, especially our representatives, have no first hand clue what it means to be without a job, to not know if the next decision is to pay the mortgage or buy medicine. Let's not forget that some of the most vociferous rants against universal health care are from the very same Senators and Representatives that receive the health care they would deny the rest of the population.

The very people who are in charge of the economy are, for the most part, members of the same country clubs as the bankers they are trying keep afloat. It's a funny thing when I read or hear that such and such bank, insurance company, brokerage house is too big to fail, and yet they get bigger and bigger and yet, still they fail.

 

They protest…we email.