If you're reading this, you're probably unemployed

Rate Jumps To 7.2%, 524,000 Jobs Axed

The nation's unemployment rate bolted to 7.2 percent in December, the highest level in 16 years, as nervous employers slashed 524,000 jobs, capping one of the worst years in modern history for American workers.

The Labor Department's report, released Friday, underscored the grim toll the deepening recession is having on workers and companies. And it highlights the difficulty President-elect Barack Obama faces in resuscitating the flat-lined economy. This year has gotten off to a rough start with a flurry of big corporate layoffs, pointing to another year of hefty job reductions.

For all of 2008, the economy lost a net total of 2.6 million jobs. That was the most since 1945, when nearly 2.8 million jobs were lost. Though the U.S. labor force has more than tripled since then, losses of this magnitude are still being painfully felt.

Nervous employers? I'm not so sure I'd categorize a business trying to cope with the implosion of the economy as nervous. More like shrieking terror combined with thoughts of jumping out the nearest window, while you scramble around trying to fire enough people so you can keep the lights on and so the old men upstairs won't fire you. Know what's worse than losing 524,000 jobs? Knowing that it will probably be revised up past 600,000 next month when more accurate numbers come in. It is nice to know that we Americans are at least being fired in big round numbers with three zeros on the end. But really, 524? Couldn't someone have fired 1,000 more people so we can get a nice 'divisible by five' number up there? Citibank? Newscorp? Target?

All I know is I'm sure glad we've been under the stewardship of the nation's first MBA President. Imagine where we'd be if we didn't have someone who understood business and the markets so well. We wouldn't be about to transition into the world's first ditchdigger economy, that's for sure. So if you're newly fired, you have These Bastards condolences. But move along, there's no work here. Two jobs, both filled. MOVE ALONG!