Bin Laden Releases a New Video

Hey George that Osama guy is still alive. What happened to smoke him out of his cave?

I guess you did manage to force him to move to more comfortable quarters where they even have recording equipment. Mr Bush you are a failure on every single level. I doubt you could find your own ass with both your hands. You are a frat boy moron who has ruined this nation. 2009 can not come soon enough. Lets hope there is something left to salvage.

Unexpected Job Dip In Aug. Jolts Stocks, Ups Recession Odds

The U.S. economy lost jobs for the first time in four years in August, raising the odds of a recession and making aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate cuts more likely.

Nonfarm payrolls fell by 4,000, the Labor Department said Friday, confounding Wall Street's forecast of a 110,000-job gain. It was the first decline since August 2003.

June and July payrolls were revised down by a combined 81,000.

The jobless rate held steady at 4.6%, near a six-year low, according to the separate household survey. But that was because 592,000 people left the work force.

"There's not a lot of sugar coating that can be done here," said Richard DeKaser, chief economist at National City Corp. (NYSE:NCC) "I think it's time for some aggressive action" by the Fed.

Payrolls at builders dropped by 22,000 in August after falling 14,000 the month before. More construction job losses are likely.

Pending home sales plunged in July to the lowest since September 2001. That was before lenders began tightening credit even further as Wall Street lost its appetite for buying mortgages.

Countrywide Financial cfc said late Friday that it will cut 10,000 to 12,000 jobs over three months, up to 20% of its work force. Earlier, IndyMac imb said it would cut 1,000 jobs, the latest in a slew of lender-related layoffs in recent weeks.

But labor weakness was widespread, one of the first clear signs that the housing and credit woes are hurting the broader economy.

Why was everyone so shocked at this report? Did anyone really think the bursting of the housing bubble would not eventually take down the entire economy? I have been saying since I started this site that a recession was coming. This report certainly makes that more likely. Who will really suffer? The poor and middle classes will bear the brunt of any downturn while those that helped cause it, with economic ponzi schemes like subprime mortgages, will weather the storm just fine.

Homes Entering Foreclosure At Record

The housing slump, Midwestern economic woes and resetting ARMs send late payments higher.

The delinquency rate for mortgage borrowers spiked higher in the second quarter and the number of homes entering the foreclosure process hit a record high, according to a report released Thursday.

Deliquencies hit 5.12 percent of all outstanding mortgages, up from 4.39 percent a year ago, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said in a quarterly survey.

Serious delinquencies, those 90 days or more late, jumped to 1.11 percent of all loans, from 0.98 percent in the first quarter.

The loans actually entering foreclosure proceedings stood at 0.65 percent, a rise from 0.58 percent in the first three months - and the highest rate in the MBA's 55-year history.

This disaster is the result of greedy mortgage brokers and banks which loaned money knowing damn well that the borrowers could not pay it. Where are the criminal charges against those that run these institutions?

Bush Knew There Were No WMD

Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.

On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller. "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."

If this is true then President Bush should be impeached immediately and brought up on charges as a war criminal. This is the proverbial smoking gun that proves this war was all a big lie. How does he sleep at night with all the blood on his hands? My guess is that he sleeps soundly because the death and destruction are meaningless to him. We impeached President Clinton for a consensual affair and yet this President is given a pass as the number of dead grows daily. His lies have cost over 3700 of our soldiers their lives and possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis their lives.

Can someone explain to me how George W. Bush is any different than Saddam Hussein?

Record Drop In Pending Home Sales

Index that measures contracts being signed for existing home sales drops to lowest level since 9/11 attack.

The meltdown in the mortgage market caused the biggest drop on record in July for pending home sales, taking the index down to the lowest level since the month that included the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack.

The National Association of Realtors' pending home sales index, which measures contracts to buy existing homes, fell 12.2 percent to a reading of 89.9.

It is the second lowest reading on record for the seven-year-old index, trailing only the 89.8 reading in September 2001. Economists had been looking for only about a 2 percent decline in the latest reading.

"There's bad reports and then there are truly awful ones. This is clearly the latter," said Mike Larson, real estate analyst for independent research firm Weiss Research. "Even I'm shocked by a 12 percent decline."

Now I really do think we will be headed into a recession very soon. The housing market has been what has propelled the economy for the past few years as homes prices skyrocketed.

This report is just the latest in a long string of reports that shows our housing market is collapsing around us. If this trend does not stop look for foreclosures to be even worse than expected. Also look for layoffs in construction and industries that rely on a vibrant housing market. The worst is yet to come and this could not be worse news for the Republicans.

July Construction Drop Largest In 6 months

Construction activity plunged in July by the biggest amount in six months as spending on homes fell for a record 17th straight month.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that construction spending dropped 0.4 percent in July, compared with June, the weakest showing since a 0.6 percent fall in January.

It was a bigger drop than economists had been expecting and underscored the continued drag the severe slump in housing is having on building activity.

The worst is yet to come in the housing market as more families are forced into foreclosure and the glut of homes on the market grows. The more that grows the less construction activity will be needed. This will cause layoffs in the construction industry and and other industries connected to the housing market. I still think the worst is yet to come and that the housing market will not see significant improvement until the affordability index comes back to reasonable levels.

The lower and middle classes are hurting as a result of the housing bubble and the pain will continue to be felt until after the Presidential election.

Craig Reconsidering His Resignation

This man is in deep denial about more than just his sexuality.

Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho may reconsider his resignation if he is cleared of a disorderly conduct charge to which he pleaded guilty last month, his spokesman told CNN on Tuesday.

Dan Whiting said it was still the GOP senator's intention to resign effective September 30, "however, he is fighting these charges and should he be cleared before then, he may -- I emphasize may -- not resign."

Craig announced his resignation Saturday after almost a week of speculation.

The Republican senator was arrested in a restroom in June at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on suspicion of making sexual advances to an undercover police officer in the next stall.

I hate to tell the poor Senator but Idahoans will not be so kind to you after the bathroom incident but go ahead stay in the Senate and run again in 2008. I feel sorry for this man. He lives in a delusional state. I can't imagine what life must be like when you like to have sex with men but consider yourself straight. I am Gay and proud of who I am. It must be hard to look in the mirror with so much self hatred inside.

The Real Rudy

Watch this new short film about Rudy Giuliani. I just can't stand this man. How can this be the Republican front runner? Why not just choose Larry Craig for the Republican nomination for President?

GDP Growth Not Reaching Paychecks

The economic expansion that began six years ago has failed to benefit most workers, according to a report from the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, released Monday.

Productivity growth, although slower of late, has been strong since 2000. After a sluggish start in the period, employment has picked up, although at a slower pace than in past recoveries. Yet, that growth hasn't transferred to workers' paychecks, particularly for workers at the lower and middle end of the pay scale, the report found.

After rising quickly in the second half of the 1990s, most workers real wages have been stagnant in the 2000s, especially since 2003.

While productivity jumped almost 20 percent since 2000, the real median hourly wage of all workers rose just 3 percent in the same period. Since 2003, productivity has risen 5 percent, while the median hourly wage fell 1.1 percent.

Gee what a surprise!! You would think that the country's negative savings rate would have been a tipoff that things weren't so rosy for the workers while the owners reap ever larger profits.

Working longer hours for less money ---- Thanks a Republican. The proof is in this report. The disconnect in wages came after the Bush presidency.