You damn whiners.

Can’t afford to put gas in your automobile? No worries, it’s all in your head. Bank foreclosing on you? No worries, it’s all in your head. Sick, and can’t afford to see a doctor? No worries, it’s all in your head. Fed up with how your current government is fucking you over? No worries, it’s all in your head.

Gramm calls slowdown ‘mental’

Former Sen. Phil Gramm, a top economic adviser to presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, referred to the economic slowdown as “a mental recession” and called the United States “a nation of whiners.”

The comments, in an interview with The Washington Times, could hurt the campaign’s efforts to convince working-class Americans that McCain feels their pain.

Democrats immediately condemned the remarks as “callous” and quickly began working to gain widespread attention to them.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton shot back “[T]he American people know that our economic problems aren’t just in their heads. They don’t need psychological relief — they need real relief — and that’s what Barack Obama will provide as president.”

“Democrats immediately condemned the remarks as callous and quickly began working to gain widespread attention to them.”

Yep, we democrats sure are the busy-body mudslingers. Republicans would never participate in idle gossip.

WaPo columnist, Dana Milbank, on assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy, Phillip Swagel’s monthly economic briefing yesterday:

Yesterday’s report that 62,000 jobs were lost brought the total for the first half of the year to 438,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the Institute for Supply Management reported that its measure of the service sector had declined in June. Stock markets, flirting with a bear market, finished another losing week. Oil pushed to a record high. Inflation and foreclosures are up, consumer confidence is down, and administration forecasts for a “strong pace of growth” in the second half of 2008 are look increasingly absurd.

Will this particularly shitty 4th help convince you that Republicans should be swept from control this November… or do you have a death wish for our once-great nation? It’s your choice.

Citizen Carrie at Brilliant at Breakfast has an extensive post on H-1B visas called “The Never-Ending Post, or, Government and Business Leaders Work 24/7 To Keep Americans Away From High Tech Jobs.” Here’s a sample:

As reported earlier, Microsoft’s Bill Gates testified in front of Congress on March 12, 2008 by reading off his list of demands for the high tech industry. The crux of his speech is that he claims that we are not graduating enough students with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills, and businesses are forced to hire workers from overseas to fill all of the job openings. (And, oh, by the way, the tech industry can pay these foreign workers less money.)

(more…)

My head hurts. I can’t seem to justify this:

U.S. economic growth fastest in four years

GDP for third quarter steamed ahead at revised 4.9 percent rate

[...] The Commerce Department’s new reading of the gross domestic product from July through September, released Thursday, was even better than the government’s initial estimate of a brisk 3.9 percent growth rate for period. Stronger U.S. exports to overseas buyers and more inventory investment by businesses were the main reasons for the improvement.

…with the following stories.

Mortgage foreclosures up again in October

California, Florida and Nevada remain hardest hit

The number of mortgage foreclosure filings continued to rise in October as hundreds of thousands of Americans struggled with monthly payments they can-t keep up with.

Oil prices soar after deadly fire at pipeline

Fire is along the Enbridge Energy pipeline in northern Minnesota

Oil prices rose more than $3 Thursday after a fire erupted at a pipeline carrying crude oil from Canada to the heart of the United States.

Sears reports a 99 percent drop in profit

Retailer cites weak sales at Sears, Kmart department stores

CHICAGO - Sears Holdings Corp. reported a 99 percent drop in third-quarter profit Thursday on weak sales at its Sears and Kmart department stores and continuing investment losses under hedge-fund manager Chairman Eddie Lampert. Its stock price plummeted on the news.

Weekly U.S. jobless claims rise sharply

Data suggest labor market is softening as economy slows

WASHINGTON - The number of new people signing up for jobless benefits last week jumped sharply, suggesting that the labor market is softening as national economic activity slows.

But, then again, I’ve always been lousy at economics. I understand there’s a difference between short-term and long-term reporting. But we’ve been hearing bad news for quite some time now! Makes no sense.

By MARK LANDLER and MICHELINE MAYNARD
from The New York Times

DaimlerChrysler announced today that it will sell a controlling interest in its struggling Chrysler Group to Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm that specializes in restructuring

The deal unwinds a 1998 merger that was meant to create a trans-Atlantic automotive powerhouse.

“We obviously overestimated the potential of synergies,” Dieter Zetsche, the chief executive of DaimlerChrysler, said at a news conference here. “I don-t know if any amount of due diligence could have given us a better estimation in that regard.”

The agreement will leave DaimlerChrysler, based in Stuttgart, with a 19.9 percent stake in Chrysler but will free it of a great amount of pension and health care liabilities. Cerberus will take an 80.1 percent stake in the new company, to be known as Chrysler Holding.

With the deal, Chrysler becomes the first of the big Detroit automakers to be privately owned. The prospect of private ownership had alarmed Chrysler’s labor unions, which had come out strongly against the sale of the company, fearful that an investor might try to break up the company or seek deep cuts in wages and benefits.

But Ron Gettelfinger, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, said today that the deal “was in the best interests of our U.A.W. members, the Chrysler Group and Daimler.”

Of the $7.4 billion, Cerberus agreed to invest $5 billion in the new Chrysler and $1.05 billion in Chrysler’s financial arm. The remaining $1.35 billion will go to DaimlerChrysler.

read more at THE NEW YORK TIMES

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The stock selloff worsened near midday Tuesday as reports of slumping stocks in China and Europe and a steep decline in durable goods orders raised worries that the recent rally may be tapped out.

News that Vice President Dick Cheney was the apparent target in a Taliban suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan added to the morning concerns.

The Dow Jones industrial average (down 151.09 to 12,481.17, Charts) sank about 1 percent roughly two hours into the session, as did the broader S&P 500 (down 17.44 to 1,431.93, Charts) index. Both blue-chip averages have fallen for the last four sessions.

The Nasdaq (down 42.39 to 2,462.13, Charts) composite slumped 1.5 percent after having slid for the last two sessions.

Market selloff: Year of the bear?
Treasury bonds rallied as investors sought a safe place to park their money while the dollar fell.

Chinese stocks slumped 9 percent Tuesday - the worst one-day selloff in a decade - on concerns that the government would interfere to cool the speculation that drove the Shanghai market up 130 percent last year. (Full story).

Other Asian markets slumped in tandem. European shares also tumbled in late trade.

The slump in world markets exacerbated concerns that Wall Street is due for a selloff after a nearly eight-month rally that has sent the Dow industrials to record highs and the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to more than 6-year highs.

“The selloff certainly demonstrates somewhat starkly the inter-connectedness of stock markets around the world,” said Hugh Johnson, chief strategist at ThomasLloyd Global Asset Management.

“Markets can decline in one seemingly isolated part of the world and that decline can be transmitted to other parts of the world through the psychology,” he said.

More at CNN.com

Also in financial news:

Panic has begun to sweep the sub-prime mortgage sector in the United States after the bankruptcy of 22 lenders over the past two months, setting off mass liquidation of housing loans packaged as securities.

Analysts say the housing bust is pulling America into recession, citing a 14.4pc drop in housing starts

The rapid deterioration could not come at a worse time for British bank HSBC, which has set aside $10.5bn (£5.4bn) to cover bad loans in the US.

The cost of insuring against default on these loans has rocketed in recent weeks, from 50 basis points over Libor to 1,200, raising fears that a credit crunch could spread to the rest of the property market.

Low-grade BBB-rated securities - measured by the ABX index - have crashed from near par of 100 in early November to 72.5 this week.

Peter Schiff, head of Euro Pacific Capital, said the sector was in an unstoppable meltdown. “It’s a self-perpetuating spiral: as sub-prime companies tighten lending they create even more defaults,” he said.

More about this here

H/T Patriot for this second article. If you’re wanting financial news and feel like getting really depressed, just read our comments section. Our ever knowledgeable friend Bur$atil posts plenty on the financial woes of the world!!!

James Doran, New York

Court hears of a gross inability
Inexcusable, says top accountant
[tag]
Bob Greifeld[/tag], the chief executive of the Nasdaq stock market, admitted under oath that he did not understand how to calculate gross profit margin, one of the most rudimentary formulas in business accounting.

The admission is humiliating for Mr Greifefld, an MBA graduate who is in the thick of a hostile bid to take over the London Stock Exchange, one of the most significant moves of his career.

Mr Greifeld’s lack of basic accounting knowledge was exposed this year during a case in the New Jersey Superior Court. The Nasdaq chief filed a lawsuit against a company called Tours of Enchantment, which had organised a $600,000-plus reunion for his family at a luxurious castle in Ireland.

Read more here