To be more specific, 1.9 million have lost their jobs in 2008.  More than a quarter of them in November alone.  This is a staggering figure not matched in over 30 years (December 1974).  What’s worse, is the estimates in September and October were revised up further, and November’s survey of economists predicted only about 300,000 in losses for the month instead of the half million we actually had.  The unemployment rate is now at 6.7%.  For perspective we’ve now surpassed the job losses in the last recession, the dot-com bust of 2001, which lost 1.6 million jobs.  And we’re far from over.  Many economists expect 2009 to be worse, with unemployment moving to 9% or 10%.  I’m still employed for now, but I work at a bank.  I could lose my job today, and my 12 month outlook doesn’t look so hot either.

And I don’t give a damn.

You see, like my rant about the Dow last Friday, no one metric can ever define the state of our economy.  True enough we’re in a recession, but even if we get to 10% unemployment, I want you to keep in mind that is the same thing as 90% employment.  The media will have you thinking that the loss of a few million jobs means the end of everything for us.  The measure of recession is our GDP growth.  When we don’t grow we have a recession.  But no one has pointed out that even when we officially entered the recession in the 3rd quarter, we still had more GDP than we did in the 3rd quarter of last year!

These macro-economists don’t care to understand the economy they’re studying.  They sit on their nice chairs in their prestigious universities and well funded organizations and just simply watch us.  A loss of jobs is meaningless to economists on a personal level.  They’re simply watching us.  An economist’s job security never depends on the health of the economy, so they aren’t interested in addressing root causes.  They are content to report on each quarter and estimate on the next quarter.  All they know are these numbers and how they were taught to interpret them.  This is why when Congress asks economic experts for guidance on how to fix the economy, the economists simply respond with methods to pump up the metrics they worship.

• Pump up spending by giving the tax payers a rebate.
• Increase liquidity by pumping more debt into the system.
• Pump more cash into the Detroit Cartel to save 2.5 million jobs.

None of these solutions have addressed the root problem, and economists aren’t interested in that.  We all want to be heroes and save the economy.  When your job isn’t at risk, you have no problem recommending risky and short-sighted solutions.  The worst case scenario for you is you’re wrong, but with 20 other PhD’s backing your idea, no one will question your intelligence.

I question it. If you spent your entire life building gasoline engines and I came along with a proven better technology to move cars, would you quit building gas engines and follow me?  No, you would continue recommending what you know, what you are trained to know.  This is why change is very difficult in this country.  We can’t simply give up on what we know.  As an engine builder, you’ll continue with your antiquated methods until you die, or you’re funding runs out.  So I question your intelligence.

We could have moved on together, I had a job waiting for you, but I needed you to jump on board.  Now I’ve lost my funding too.  The economic model that has sustained us since the 1970s is based on consumption.  Not consumption of food, but of extending credit and buying too much crap.  When you buy too much of stuff for a generation, you’re left with the next generation of having no money to buy crap with.  So we are forced into adapting instead of willingly following.  We were warned about overconsumption, buying too much house, and leasing cars.  But we didn’t listen to those crazy guys who made perfect sense.  We have to be forced out of failed economic models.  Well we’re being forced out of the consumption model.

So I don’t give a damn about 2,000,000 jobs gone.  Those 2,000,000 people should be working on something bigger and better.  New technologies to power our future need production.  If the government insists on giving up billions more in debt to keep jobs, do it to create new jobs.  But they won’t.  Because it’s easier in our heads to stick another support pole under a falling bridge than build a new one, they won’t.

The job losses are not a noteworthy statistic alone, it’s simply a statement of the collateral damage of our overconsumption.  I may lose my job because of your foolishness but I pray that my next job is doing something important that betters our future.

Of note, I’m not a professional writer.  I didn’t major in journalism.  I edit my posts in a 30 second skim.  I am not CNN Money, but if I were, I’d edit better than this:

…seeing sharp declines were professional and business services, a category seen by some economists as a proxy for overall economic activity, and financial services, at the heart of the current crisis, financial services.

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By The Weakonomist

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categories: economics, media, personal