More news on the economy from the New York Times:

Another 651,000 jobs were lost in February, adding to the millions of people who have been thrown out of work as the economic downturn deepens.

In a stark measure of the recession’s toll, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that the national unemployment rate surged to 8.1 percent last month, its highest in 25 years. The economy has now shed more than 4.4 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007.

And economists expect that unemployment will continue to rise for the rest of the year and into early 2010, with the unemployment rate reaching 9 to 10 percent by the time a recovery begins. But even then, with so many job losses centered in manufacturing, economists say that many positions devoured during this recession will not be coming back.

“This is not people being on furlough for six weeks or a month or two — this is permanent job losses, and that is what makes this so difficult,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia. “That is very telling in terms of how we’re really restructuring the overall economy.”

Although the tally of February’s losses was grim, the 651,000 jobs lost last month were actually fewer than the number in each of the past two months, according to revisions reported Friday. Some 655,000 jobs were lost in January, when the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent. December’s decline was revised to 681,000, from 577,000.

I love how they put the “it’s not as bad as before” spin on it. Like it’s no big deal.

Which brings me to this picture (saw it on Malkin’s website):

Yes, “Steve”, you did do that.

Stock market is crashing as we speak, unemployment is going up, red ink as far as the eye can see…but we’re on the road to recovery, thanks to Obama’s policies, yessiree!

And if you believe that…

Update: You wanna know something? I just bought a new house in October, right? If this were my first-ever home purchase, I would have gotten a tax break of 10% of the purchase price, $7500 maximum, on it this tax season as a first-time homebuyer. However, I would have to pay that back over 15 years.

Now say I waited a couple of months and bought the house on January 1, 2009, instead. Under Urkelbama’s “stimulus” plan, I would get a tax break of 10% of the purchase price, up to a maximum of $8000 this tax season. But wait, it gets better. In addition to the potential $500 extra deduction, I wouldn’t have to pay that back. Ever.

Not only can someone get an extra, free $500, but they would never, ever have to pay that back. “Free” money, courtesy of the federal government (via actual taxpayers, of course). Just don’t call it socialist “wealth redistribution”, or you’re a racist.

Pfft. And they wonder why we’re so far in the red and only going in deeper…

Update #2: Dana notes over at his blog that you can still deduct the interest of your mortgage. That is true, but I’d also like to point out that you can deduct the interest for other things, at least partially (student loans, business and construction interest, etc.). The reason being that tax breaks give incentive for people to do things, i.e., get a better education, improve their business, and so on.

I’ve no real problem with that, mind you, as long as there is a tangible result of these breaks and a contribution to the economy (better education means people are employed in higher-paid jobs, which means more tax revenue from them; improved business means more income for the business, more employees hired, and more tax revenue generated from both the business and the people they employ).

Giving an incentive to buy a home, especially in this market, and not expecting anything in return is irresponsible. Liberalism, in other words. This is what got us into this mess in the first place, with Fannie and Freddie giving out/subsidizing loans they had no business backing and people had no business applying for. Urkelbama is saying “go buy a house and we’ll not only back your bad loan, but we’ll make sure that they can’t foreclose on you when you default, and we’ll also make sure that you get a nice wealth redistribution check deduction on your taxes this year.”

Remember, this tax deduction is for THIS YEAR. You can get $8000 back right now. Cash. From Daddy Government. And you know what you can use that cash for, but nobody will? Your mortgage. $8000 will, in most cases, go a long way over the course of a year in paying a mortgage bill . Of course, the big question is what happens NEXT year, when they don’t get that credit? That’s right, crisis number two, when people Obama “saved” from being foreclosed on are right back in the same boat they’re now currently in and start defaulting on their home loans.

Of course, they’ll have to be rescued again. Rinse and repeat. I mean, why would anyone bother to pay their mortgage at all if Big Government libs are going to basically pay it for them? And that, my friends, is the dependency liberals want out of people. They want them to depend on them for their food, their clothing, their jobs, and now their home. It’s a guarantee that these people will never vote against them again. Nobody bites the hand that feeds them, after all.

As for banks not wanting to lend money to people, I don’t know what the conditions are in Dana’s area, but banks here are actually stepping up their efforts to give out loans. I had a lady tell me the other day that her daughter got a home loan that, one year ago, no bank would even talk to her about or consider her for (that is, she either doesn’t make enough or her credit is crap…or both). Now, that certainly may be an exception and not the rule, but I have seen and heard a lot of ads in the newspaper, on the radio, and on television, by home lenders who are willing to do what it takes to put you in a home (not THAT kind of home…although, that might not be a bad idea). It might not be that way in other areas of the country.

Looks, it’s not a crime to be poor, nor is it a disgrace. There will always be poor people no matter what we do. Poverty is, and always will be, part of the human existence no matter how much we wish it wasn’t so, especially if we continue to allow the Democrats to constantly redefine what the poverty level is.

The disgrace is in how we try to excuse the reasons they are poor. Now, that’s not an indictment of all poor people, mind you, but you have to admit that a lot of poor people, more often than not, are poor and stay poor because of stupid things they have done, and continue to do, and boneheaded decisions they’ve made, and continue to make. Buying a six-figure house on a poverty-level income is both stupid and boneheaded (so is voting Democrat, but I digress). But when you have banks agreeing to make these loans, because Fannie and Freddie basically told them to, then the problem compounds itself.

Like it or not, the solution to the problems we currently face is to suck it up and let the chips fall where they may. Government involvement created this problem, and now liberals want to tell us that government involvement is going to solve it? Give me a damn break! Just get out of our way, Big Government, and let the market take its course. Yeah, it means some short-term suffering, but in the end we’ll all be better off. AND we won’t have a government up to its ears in red ink with no hope of ever paying it back. Just like the current home buyers in this ‘crisis’.

(Post was edited for clarity)