New, monthly filings for unemployment benefits

Black Friday

Small-Business Saturday

Start of the Recession, September 2008 When the reckless mortgage companies blew up, it led to a credit crisis. Banks stopped lending. That soon morphed into an equity crisis, as worried investors liquidated stock portfolios. The equity crisis made people feel poor and metastasized into a consumption crisis, which is why purchasers of cars, appliances, electronics, homes and clothing have fallen off a cliff. This, in turn, has sparked more company defaults, exacerbated the credit crisis and blew up into an unemployment crisis, as companies rush to shed workers.

The Progressive Era’s changes ended the Gilded Age. The Great Depression ended the last comparable time of prosperity (the 1920s), and brought about major reforms in American government and business: the New Deal. December 2010: corporate profits hit a record high, but unemployment persists. Those profits aren’t trickling down into new jobs or into higher salaries for those who are not CEOs. Therefore, average citizens started the Occupy Movement. “Occupy Wall Street” has evolved into 100s of Occupy Movement Protests worldwide “99 percent” vs. “1 percent”

Jobless Jersey DatePct “Tis the season for record soup kitchen lines, because jobs are still scarce. There are five unemployed people for every job opening. And federal benefits average $300 a week, which doesn’t go far.” 400,000 people in NJ collect unemployment.” Star Ledger 12/10

Universal health care in California

In 2009, Appaloosa Management, a hedge-fund firm, earned about $7 billion by buying distressed financial stocks and profiting from recovery of those stocks, with $4 billion of these profits going to the founder’s personal wealth.

November 2011: Company went bankrupt a) $700 million of client money is “missing” b) Jon Corzine, CEO, made a $6.3 billion “risky bet on European debt” (5 times the value of the entire MF firm)