Almost double digits

Remember the optimism of last month where four straight months of job loss improvements were causing some people to think that happy days were here again and bluebirds would imminently be alighting on some shoulders? About that.....do the terms "devastating", "crisis", "enormity", "extreme weakness", and "fucked to death pile of burning ca-ca" sound positive or negative to you?

The American economy shed 467,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent from 9.4 percent, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. Job losses were widespread among the construction, manufacturing, and business and professional services sectors.

The losses were sharply higher than economists’ expectations of 365,000 lost jobs.

Do economists ever actually nail the job loss expectations? Every month they seem to miss it by about 50,000-100,000 over or under. Now Paul Krugman's back on top of the table, pants off and squatting over our favorite punch bowl. He's saying things like "jobless recovery" and that was before this month's job numbers made him sound a little optimistic.

If I recall correctly, TB Industries' official advice was to hoard canned goods, steal MRE's, and to stash especially good killing rocks and jabbing sticks. We still hold by that advice and hope that the brief bit of positive economic news didn't cause you to start opening and eating those tins of Hobo-grade beans or burning those sharp sticks for warmth. In fact, double down. Hoard more, scale up to jagged branches and tree limbs, take a leather tanning course, and work on your more animalistic grunts and cries. It'll serve you well as the horrific financial apocalypse seems back on schedule. See you in the Thunderdome!