Capitalism goes pop

World economy 'may lose 51 million jobs'
Up to 51 million jobs worldwide could disappear by the end of this year as a result of the economic slowdown that has turned into a global employment crisis, the International Labour Organisation says.
The ILO said that under its most optimistic scenario, this year would finish with 18 million more unemployed people than at the end of 2007, with a global unemployment rate of 6.1. More realistically, it said 30 million more people could lose their jobs if financial turmoil persists through 2009, pushing up the world's unemployment to 6.5 percent, compared to 6.0 percent in 2008 and 5.7 percent in 2007. In the worst-case economic scenario, the Global Employment Trends report said 51 million more jobs could be lost by the end of this year, creating a 7.1 percent global unemployment rate. "If the recession deepens in 2009, as many forecasters expect, the global jobs crisis will worsen sharply," it said. "We can expect that for many of those who manage to keep a job, earnings and other conditions of employment will deteriorate."

Who woulda thunk that a global economy based on Enron-esq financial house of cards structures where debt was wrapped up and sold to allow easy cheap credit from the developing world to feed first world credit card tastes of SUVs, plasma TVs and cosmetic surgery wouldn’t be sustainable. We have been in denial about the pop and we are still in denial, at some point people will have to accept that we are in a massive and dramatic decline and only then will there be a real examination of unsustainable capitalism. Humans really have to feel pain before being motivated to change their consumer habits.