NYTimes:

The American economy shed another 663,000 jobs in March, the government reported Friday, bringing the toll of job losses during the recession to 5.1 million. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the national unemployment rate climbed to 8.5 percent from 8.1 percent in February, its highest levels in a quarter-century, as employers raced to cut their payroll costs. It was the 15th consecutive month of job losses.

. . . “There is no letup,” said James O’Sullivan, senior United States economist at UBS. “The trend has been truly dismal.” . . . In all, nearly 16 percent of the people in the United States are now looking for a job, working part-time because they cannot find full-time work, or are out of work and not actively looking, the government said.

I have not had much time to look around and really do not know if someone has found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to wash away our economic troubles, but I appreciated this part of a Krugman blog post:

To justify the scheme as announced [the Geithner Plan], you have to either assume that the toxic assets are wildly underpriced, or take as a given extreme political and legal constraints preventing you from doing anything close to the right thing.

And about those legal constraints: it’s funny how GM is being treated as a ward of the state, even though it hasn’t formally declared bankruptcy, in a way that AIG — which is 80% government-owned! — is not.

(Emphasis supplied.) More . . .

I'm not sure why anyone expected the friendly carnival atmosphere to hold, but it didn't.

Sporadic clashes between protesters and police continued into the evening as officers refused to allow demonstrators leave the streets around the Bank of England. Plastic bottles and toilet rolls were thrown at police as the crowd chanted: "Let us out." Simon O'Brien, a Metropolitan police commander, said officers would be making further arrests in the coming days. He also said police would be asking the peaceful "flash camp" of more than 100 tents pitched on Bishopsgate to move on before the morning.

[More...]

Are any of you quitting today?

How are you going to do it? A spa would be nice. Click through the photos here. Here's another, program here and photos here -- although $1,200. a night for the room on top of the cost of the 14 day program and airfare to the Maldives puts it out of most people's reach. But it does make the tax look cheap by comparison.

A trillion dollars for the Masters of the Universe ain't gonna do squat about this, via Atrios:

Job losses in the U.S. private sector accelerated in March, more than economists' expectations, according to a report by ADP Employer Services Wednesday. Private employers cut jobs by a record 742,000 in March versus a 706,000 revised cut in February that was originally reported at 697,000 jobs, said ADP, which has been carrying out the survey since 2001.

[MORE . . .]

Stiglitz:

THE Obama administration’s $500 billion or more proposal to deal with America’s ailing banks has been described by some in the financial markets as a win-win-win proposal. Actually, it is a win-win-lose proposal: the banks win, investors win — and taxpayers lose.

And it is not even gonna work to "save" the financial industry:

So what is the appeal of a proposal like this? Perhaps it’s the kind of Rube Goldberg device that Wall Street loves — clever, complex and nontransparent, allowing huge transfers of wealth to the financial markets. It has allowed the administration to avoid going back to Congress to ask for the money needed to fix our banks, and it provided a way to avoid nationalization. But we are already suffering from a crisis of confidence. When the high costs of the administration’s plan become apparent, confidence will be eroded further. At that point the task of recreating a vibrant financial sector, and resuscitating the economy, will be even harder.

But Krugman Stiglitz always hated Obama, and a Nobel in Economics does not mean squat and . . .

Speaking for me only

Paul Krugman point us to Adam Posen's analysis that Obama/Geithner are following the path of Japan in their Lost Decade. The essence is this:

What the Obama team is proposing is disconcertingly similar to the actions of Japanese Prime Ministers Hashimoti, Obuchi, and Mori in 1995 and 1998: Rather than ask the legislature for straightforward recapitalization money, you have the political leadership preferring to risk overpaying current owners of toxic assets rather than forcing sales. For all of Japan’s supposed intervention in markets, its government still lacked the stomach for taking over banks, let alone closing them.

Nothing we have not heard before. But I think Krugman's postscript is the really interesting part:

Via Atrios, the Geithner Plan to pretend "legacy assets" are not actually, um, toxic, will have to be a long term one:

Home prices in 20 U.S. cities fell 19 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, as demand plummeted and foreclosures rose. . . . A glut of unsold properties may keep prices low, shrinking household wealth and damping spending. Still, sales of new and previously owned homes rose in February, indicating the housing slump, now in its fourth year, may ease as policy efforts to unclog credit and aid borrowers begin to take hold.

“There is still a lot of downward momentum,” said Michelle Meyer, an economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. “We don’t think we’ll see a bottom in home prices until the second half of next year. The decline in home prices will continue to depress household balance sheets.”

It will also depress the value of those "legacy assets" Geithner is so sure are underpriced.

Speaking for me only

Jim Manzi writes:

Chrysler may have to play Lehman to GM's Citigroup.

The idea is Chrysler will be allowed to fail like Lehman and GM will be rescued like Citi. Here's my question -- where is the tough talk to Citi?

It will require creditors to recognize that they cannot hold out for the prospect of endless government bailouts. Only then can we ask American taxpayers who have already put up so much of their hard-earned money to once more invest in a revitalized [financial] industry.

When will President Obama say that?

Speaking for me only

Eugene Robinson writes:

Both the credit crunch and the reluctance of consumers to spend what money they have left are the direct result of Wall Street's atrocious misbehavior. Yet the administration's plan for rescuing the banking sector involves generous inducements, big subsidies and the opportunity for wealthy investors to become much wealthier while assuming very little risk. There are reasons for structuring the bank bailout this way, and there are reasons to take a get-tough attitude with the auto companies. But the juxtaposition is galling -- and, for many autoworkers, potentially devastating.

(Emphasis supplied.) What are those reasons? I think the Geithner Plan is going to fail. Surely the reason is not that. I assume they think it is going to succeed. But is it really the only way to accomplish a plan Obama/Geithner think will succeed? Really?

Speaking for me only

I will bore you to tears, but this time using Robert Kuttner:

At a recent conference of the New America Foundation, economist and Obama adviser Laura Tyson, an in exchange with me, defended the administration's approach on the premise that there was no way that Congress would legislate the one to two trillion dollars in public funds that will be needed to make this rescue work. So, in Tyson's view, there was no alternative other than having Treasury contrive its own plan, using the Fed as an all purpose source of unlegislated financing.

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Jed Lewison creates a straw man, acting as if the complaint about the Obama auto industry plan is that Rick Wagoner got the boot. No one cares about Rick Wagoner. The issue is about how Wall Street has gotten a free ride while President Obama says this about the auto industry stakeholders:

It will require unions and workers who have already made painful concessions to make even more. It will require creditors to recognize that they cannot hold out for the prospect of endless government bailouts. Only then can we ask American taxpayers who have already put up so much of their hard-earned money to once more invest in a revitalized auto industry.

President Obama has said nothing like that about Wall Street. THAT is the issue. The auto industry plan is not the problem. The free, no strings bailouts to Wall Street are the problem.

Speaking for me only