Unemployment Rate Hits 9.5 Percent As Economy Sheds 467,000 Jobs In June

Unemployment Rate Hits 9.5 Percent As Economy Sheds 467,000 Jobs In June: "The U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs in June as the national unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the government announced on Thursday morning. While that's only one-tenth of a percentage point from May, the current rate is the highest rate in 26 years.

Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said that the loss of 6.5 million jobs since the start of the recession combined with the growth of the workforce means that the gains of the previous business cycle have been completely blown away.

'This is the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all jobs growth from the previous business cycle, a devastating benchmark for the workers of this country and a testament to both the enormity of the current crisis and to the extreme weakness of jobs growth from 2000-2007,' said Shierholz in a statement."

What worries me is that we may be coming to the end of American capitalism. The model developed originally in England assumed that t was in the national interest to promote efficient use of capital by a, then, colonial power. As a colonial power, Britain imported raw materials and exported manufactured goods.

Malthus and Ricardo warned that this model would eventually fail as the3 supply of raw materials became limiting. They were wrong only because of Britain's colonial status.

Now, for the US, two things have changed. First raw materials are truly becoming limiting. We are approaching the era where the erg or watt, units of energy, will replace dollars and pounds as currency. The lifer (of water) may not be far behind. However,l we are also in a post colonial world. Capital driven efficiencies no longer mean jobs in the mother country. As colonialism has died, more efficient manufacture has meant manufacture outside of the US.

Since capital naturally seeks its greatest gain, the inevitable result has been more and more concentration of capital in the most efficient "industry" of all ... financial manipulation. This may make economic sense to the owners of the capital BUT the very efficiency of finance demands that the labor involved by very small.