More Good News (Updated) 0

As I have pointed out previously, the collapse of the housing market, which seems to be leading to the collapse of every other market, was not a result of some natural business cycle. (I did hear an economist–I forget who–say recently that the market has two phases: Fear and Greed. Fear is in control now.)

The bursting of the dot com bubble a few years ago might be seen as some type of natural economic phenomenon, in sense the people were buying any stock to do with the Internet, in the assumption that people would do stuff over the Internet, well, simply because they could, regardless of whether it made any sense to do whatever it was on line.

In contrast, the current phenomenon is a direct result of the failure of duly appointed regulators to, well, regulate, thereby allowing Greed to overcome good business sense on the part of just about everyone.

And why did they not regulate? Because NeoCons worship wealth and assume that those with $700 suits, who have someone else to carry their Blackberries for them, are inherently virtuous, and therefore will make moral decisions.

Sadly, it ain’t so.

The headline number in the monthly jobs report from the U.S. Labor Department tells a grim tale – 63,000 jobs lost nationwide in a month, the most in five years.

But the situation is much worse than that.

The number of jobs shed by the private sector – the main driver of the economy – was 101,000, reflecting three straight months of losses in nongovernment jobs.

“That’s how you know we’re in a recession, for God’s sake,” said Eileen Appelbaum of Philadelphia, a labor economist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.

Addendum, Later That Same Evening:

FBI.