by Jack Lee
Unemployment: And it just gets worse… 50 states and the District of Columbia recorded unemployment rate increases compared with the previous month and the year prior period, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported. The report marked the first time every state recorded a rise in monthly unemployment since the bureau began keeping such records in 1976. The national unemployment rate rose to 7.2% in December, up from 6.8% the previous month and from 4.9% a year earlier.
Banking: Now, more than 18 months into the biggest financial upheaval in the last eighty years, those bank executives that still have jobs are preparing to swallow large doses of regulatory medicine to help cure a crisis they are accused of causing.
With bank lending still frozen, the world sliding into recession and more than 300,000 financial jobs already gone, policymakers are replacing bankers in the driving seat at this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) to discuss short- and long-term solutions to the sector’s woes.
Real Estate: Home prices plunged a record 18.2 percent in November from a year earlier as the country’s housing market remains in the throes of a deep recession, according to an index from Standard & Poor’s.
Stock Market: Stocks struggled to rise Tuesday morning (DOW 8190) as Tim Geithner’s confirmation as Treasury secretary vied with gloomy reports on home prices, employment, consumer confidence and corporate profits.