Global Economies Continue Their Collapse

In a celebratory atmosphere, the U.S. recently announced its jobs numbers, having added 114,000 jobs for September. However, this number of jobs is not enough to even keep up with all the people entering the jobs marketplace, but still the official unemployment rate dropped to 7.8% from 8.1 percent.

But let's take a closer look at those numbers. 2/3s of those new jobs were part-time, most without medical or other benefits. And when one adds in all the people who are no longer counted for being out of work too long, and those who work part-time who are seeking full-time work, the total equals about 25 million people, which far exceeds the 7.8% official unemployment rate. This impacts a huge number of households.

Meanwhile, Europe's economies continue their collapse, with no end in sight. Greece, Spain and Italy are already in a Depression and desperately need more money to pay their bills. In answer to them, the European Central Bank is proposing printing vast numbers of Euros and loaning it to them. In other words, creating paper out of thin air and loaning it to nations that can't afford to pay it back, a recipe for disaster.

As Europe is Asia's biggest marketplace, Asian exports are dropping sharply, especially those from China, which is now beginning to hurt as well. Yet as the world's financial problems mount, there is little being done to address them.

This is a time for the world to unite to use all of its financial resources to help one another and yet it tries to avoid confronting its many problems, as if they will somehow solve themselves. The result will be a global economic Depression.

But as we saw in the Great Depression of the 1930's, the good news is that people unite to help one another through the hard times, and I believe that will happen this time as well, as we again find our sense of humanity and compassion.

Dick