On Monday, in Article 23, we asked if you knew that:

– Next month you’ll again see the oft-repeated headline, “Jobless claims unexpectedly rise again”?

We were wrong. You didn’t have to wait until next month. Today’s Associated Press economic report (Feb. 25th ) began this way: “Jobless claims rise due to weather-related factors”.

“WASHINGTON – New claims for unemployment benefits jumped unexpectedly last week, mostly because state agencies processed a backlog of claims caused by snow storms the previous week …
[How’s that for spinnage?]

“In its report on jobless claims, the Labor Department said first-time claims for unemployment insurance rose by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 496,000. Wall Street analysts polled by Reuters expected a drop to 455,000.”

22,000 layoffs in a week, and we’re supposed to believe that a “recovery” is underway? … that the “stimulus” is creating, or saving, those millions of jobs the administration promised it would?

The New York Times on Feb. 24th gave us something else to worry about. “At F..D.I.C., Bracing for a Wave of Failures” was the discouraging word. Here’s the gist of the story:

“The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is bracing for a new wave of bank failures that could cost the agency [that’s us taxpayers, by the way] many billions of dollars and further strain its finances. With bank failures running at their highest level in nearly two decades, the F.D.I.C. is racing to keep up with rising losses to its insurance fund, which safeguards savers’ deposits. On Tuesday, the agency announced that it had placed 702 lenders on its list of ‘problem’ banks, the highest number since 1993.

Not all of these banks are destined to founder, and F.D.I.C. officials said Tuesday that they expected failures to peak this year. But they also warned that the fund might have to cover $ 20 billion in additional losses by 2013 – a bill that could be even greater if the economy worsens.”

“If” the economy worsens? The economy is in a death spiral. About 140 banks failed in 2009, and the chairwoman of the agency said she expected even more than that to go under this year. The F.D.I.C. admitted earlier that it was carrying a negative balance of $ 20.9 billion at the end of 2009.
Simply put, unemployment puts the U.S. buyer out of business and inevitably causes U.S. banks to fail. Let’s not be concerned about probable “additional losses by 2013”. The nation will be in shambles by then unless we create 30 to 40 million new jobs … and only an Emergency Shipbuilding Program can provide that many employment opportunities.