LOTSA GREAT WEEKEND STUFF

California unemployment rate jumps to 9.3 percent in December; highest level since 1994
Samantha Young, Associated Press Writer
Friday January 23, 2009, 2:09 pm EST

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- California's unemployment rate jumped to 9.3 percent in December, capping a tumultuous year of massive job losses and a housing slump that has struck most of the country.

The land of the big mortgage! Everybody plays and everybody wins. Oops. Sorry about that everybody wins thing.

The jobless rate announced Friday by the state Employment Development Department represents a jump from the 8.4 percent figure in November 2008.

This only matters if you believe their numbers. I don't. I say the unemployment is double what they say it is. Ahnold can't get the legislature to cut back. They have too many votes bought and paid for to let them go away.

Excluding farmworkers, California lost 78,200 jobs in December as employers sliced payrolls to deal with the slowing economy.

See! I told you their numbers were a bunch of lies. We now know they are not counting farm laborers who are out on the street.

California's unemployment rate hasn't been at this level since January 1994, when the state was coming out of its recession in the early part of that decade, said Stephen Levy, senior economist for the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.Highest unemployment in 25 years."California, like the nation, is in the midst of a terrible and deepening recession," Levy said. "We all expect the job losses to continue and unemployment rates to go higher."

This guy is getting to it! He is actually telling something close to the truth. He has not used the word DEPRESSION but he is close.

The national unemployment rate jumped to 7.2 percent in December.

Well, that number ain't gonna go down! Maybe when the official rate is 20% it will slow up.

About 1.7 million Californians were looking for work last month -- up by 166,000 since November and up 653,000 since December 2007.

First goes California and New York and then goes the rest of the country. Hang on tight folks!

Some 785,200 were laid off, while 125,300 chose to leave their job. The rest were either temporarily employed or new job seekers.

Yada, yada, yada. Break it down into categories and sub-categories and people get bored and sleepy. Makes 'em want to go look at the ball scores and forget this other bullshit. Let's go see what Lesbian Lindsay Lohon and the oft screwed Ms. Spears are doing! Let's forget this bad stuff and maybe it will go away!

The construction sector, hit hard by the housing slump and foreclosures, accounted for the most job cuts over the past year-- 92,600 positions, a 10.8 percent annual drop.

But you can still get a helluva deal on a new house! Thousands of them. And they make the price pretty attractive. Nobody is bidding anything up these days!

The latest job figures followed a revised loss of 73,500 payroll jobs in November. That means California has lost nearly 152,000 jobs in the last two months.

When it gets another 0 on the end of it, as in 1,520,000 jobs, things will get shaky on the Left Coast.

The state's unemployment rate was 5.9 percent a year ago.

But that was before we understood how deep the banks had taken us into the water. Now we must store FOOD.

California labor leaders said the skyrocketing job losses should persuade Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers to expand the state's unemployment insurance system and provide benefits to seasonal and new workers. That would make California eligible for an additional $900 million as part of a federal economic stimulus bill Congress is considering, said Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation.Expand the unemployment insurance.

See, that is BULLSHIT. All those Californicate companies have been paying into the unemployment fund for years and the money has been used for something else. I wonder if they invested the money in real estate default swaps. I know they invested some of the state employee pension money in that area. Lost everything they stuck in there. Over a billion dollars.

"It's crucial that we update our unemployment system to ensure benefits get to those who need it most," Pulaski said in a statement.

It's crucial because they don't want an armed citizenry coming to Sacramento looking for their money.

And for our finishing touch we bring you this from Marketwatch.com

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- 1st Centennial Bank of Redlands, Calif. was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and state regulators on Friday. It was the third bank failure this year, and brings to 28 the number of banks that have closed since the beginning of the current credit crisis.

First California Bank, based in Westlake Village, Calif., will assume the bank's insured deposits, the FDIC said in a statement. The six branches of 1st Centennial will reopen on Monday as branches of First California Bank. Depositors of the failed bank will automatically become depositors of First California.

As of Jan. 9, 1st Centennial had total assets of $803.3 million and total deposits of $676.9 million, of which there were approximately $12.8 million that exceeded the insurance limits.

1st Centennial also had approximately $362 million in brokered deposits that are not part of Friday's transaction. The FDIC said it will pay the brokers for the amount of their insured funds. The FDIC said First California agreed to assume the insured deposits for a 5.29% premium. It will also purchase approximately $293 million of the failed bank's assets. The assets are mainly cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition. The cost to the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund is estimated to be $227 million.

SO LONG, CALIFORNIA!

Stay alive.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net