No doubt the howls for Uncle Sam to step in and make it all better will become screams today. Why stop at a trillion dollar "stimulus"? Why not 2 or 3 million? As long as we're printing money why stop?

I've got my orange jumpsuit on with shovel in hand. I'm ready to go!

I was watching CNBC when they announced the numbers and a couple of interesting points were made and not made:

CNBC guest DID make the point that the number of LONG TERM unemployed embedded in those figures was around 23.5% (25% last being breach in the early 1980s recession).

CNBC mentioned repetitively that the hourly wage rate had risen by 0.3% over the period, as if we should all run out to the mall with our new-found average hourly pay increase.

A point NO-ONE made was that the hourly rate increase is down to the DESTRUCTION of jobs and wages at the BOTTOM of the earnings ladder.

Once again, the rich stay rich, the poor can't afford a bowl to beg with and the media looks the other way.

Yes, why not 2 or 3 million. Add that to a 1 trillion package and you have a .0003% increase in the package's size!

In the first fifteen minutes of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow rose over 100 points -- because, speculated the Wall Street Journal, traders were betting that "the grim jobs report would hasten the passage of the stimulus package."

I just heard my company's CEO tell us that 401k matching would be suspended, and that the pace of layoffs would increase. I suspect lots of other companies are doing the same thing, which will cause a significant drop in the demand for shares of stock as 401k plans reduce their purchases.

Market Watch had this headline: Stock futures gain; job losses less horrible than expected

and the S&P was up nearly 2%...

Here I thought I'd pick up a few shares on the cheap this morning, go figger...

speaking of the dow jones, hasn't it gone up by around 100 points each of the last three days? i was wondering what was going on there...i figured they all thought the bottom was near. guess they were all just hoping that the stimulus would pass already...

I agree with president Obama we need to not follow the failed polocies of the past.That is why I say my father was right when he taught me that any job that is important enough to rush is just as important to insure is being done right the first time.The war in Iraq and the Wall Street bailout come to mind,act now!! we must do this now we don't have time to really look at and think about this or the sky falls and world ends.We shouldn't continue with these failed polocies.You mention 1992 unemployment well President Clinton met with congress for over 35 days of meetings and give and take from both parties before they put together a stimulus that worked and cut almost 500 billion off the deficit but we are being asked to take it or leave it with this Porkulus bill?What happens if Princess Pelosi is wrong?I mean she stated over 500 million americans would lose thier jobs each month we fail to act,more than the current US population!!,she was corrected but then spoke again and repeated the scare tactic using the 500 million number.The same used car lot is in business it just has new salespeople using the same rush tactics.This is not change and it aint the change we need and americans are beginning to realize it.This bill is filled with so much that isn't necessary and won't stimulate anything soon.There is little to address housing and stock market rules like "Mark to Market" that were great contributors to this crisis.We can do better,YES WE CAN!!!!

And Wall Street just loves to hear about workers being laid off as they visualize working the remaining workers twice as hard for the same wages.

I want a job-loss clock, like the world population and national debt clocks, clicking over 10 new families out of work every minute, and I want the clock running above the head of every Republican foot-dragger whenever their faces hit national television.

And will someone explain to me why the Today Show is still interviewing Newt Gingrich?

we continue to see evidence of wide-spread economic destruction, from mammoth job losses to (as others here have mentioned) a suspension of employer matched 401(k)s, the Right remains blithely ignorant--or worse, simply unmoved--of what's happening. Witness the words of the always-insightful Peggy Noonan at the WSJ: "[Obama's] serious and consequential policy mistake is that he put his prestige behind not a new way of breaking through but an old way of staying put. This marked a dreadful misreading of the moment."

An old way of staying put; that, I suppose, is a weak-sister attempt to further the GOP attack on FDR. Just as bad, however, is her preposterous statement that it "marked a dreadful misreading of the moment." Would that Noonan and her GOP pals actually had the courage to go out there and see the destruction wrought by their policies. But they probably don't want to range too far from their fine restaurants and top-flight country clubs, lest that teach them the literacy required to stop "misreading" the moment.

Thanks, Andrew, for not stating the change in the Dow (today) was solely the result of job loss report. Let WSJ make those speculative statements.

The facts are that no one knows (on any particular day) what causes change in the Dow. The change is speculatively ascribed without any facts to support the claims. Many times the decision to make a stock trade are made days before the transaction is consumated.

Cheers.

I agree with the lady or gentleman who said that Wall Street LOVES layoffs. Thier long term plans must now be to see how they can still make a killing off of a severely contracted economy that is unlikely to ever rebound to the levels of consumption we saw circa 1994-2006. But if they can keep inflation under control, and lots of out of work people certainly helps that, they can get some Obama infrastructure spending and tax cuts, keep the obscenely high "defense" outlays, and shift to new strategies for bilking the shunken pie of American wealth. I fear Obama lacks either the will or the ability to wrest control from the top 10% who still don't seem all that upset about this economic meltdown.