EconomicCrisis.US

Small-business owners haven’t seen much improvement in the U.S. economy and more are expected to cut jobs instead of adding them over the next three months, a monthly survey shows.

The National Federation of Independent Business Index of Small Business Optimism edged up 0.3 of a point in October to a reading 89.1, but the index has been below 90 for six straight quarters. In the 1980-82 recession, by comparison, the index fell below 90 for only one quarter.

“The October gain was minor, so the good news is still less bad news,” said William Dunkelberg, NFIB’s chief economist, in a statement.
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It’s what the G20 didn’t say.

Global traders pushed the U.S. dollar to new lows in a bet that leaders of the world’s major economies are unlikely to take steps to stem the currency’s long slide.

By omitting any discussion of the faltering U.S. dollar at a key gathering, global financial leaders effectively pulled the rug out from under the world’s reserve currency as it continues a months-long decline.

The U.S. dollar sank to new lows against a basket of currencies in the wake of a Group of 20 gathering in Scotland on the weekend, where finance ministers, central bankers and International Monetary Fund officials discussed policies aimed at nursing the global economy back to health.
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The U.S. unemployment rate may rise to a post-World War II high of 13 percent in the aftermath of the recession, said David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates Inc. in Toronto.

“This is going to be the mother of all jobless recoveries,” Rosenberg said today in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. “At the beginning of the year, who was calling for unemployment to go up to 10 percent?”

Rosenberg said the recession, the deepest since the Great Depression, “is truly secular in nature” and said the economy is “in a post-bubble credit collapse.”
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The changes in the economy over the past 18 months have had profound effects on the lives of people across the country. Now, for the first time, a new PARADE survey shows just how dramatically Americans’ goals, hopes, spending habits, relationships, and even their attitudes toward trusted institutions have been transformed by the recession.

Do you believe the American Dream is still attainable? Take the poll!

Nearly four out of five respondents (79%) say that they’ve felt the impact of the financial downturn, with one-third saying that the turmoil has had a big impact on their lives. Most respondents haven’t had to turn on the TV to appreciate the scope of the declining economy—they’ve registered its toll in their own faces or those of friends, family members, and neighbors. Sixty-nine percent have lost a job, suffered a reduction in pay, or know someone who has experienced one of these. Close to half have had difficulty making their mortgage or rent payments or know someone who has.
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