It's not going to get better for decades... To create jobs a nation needs consistently 3 GDP growth points per year (the 1st GDP point alone is "spent" on maintaining a nation's infrastructures (everything roads/ energy / fixed industrial structures to non-consumable goods etc.)

Structural reasons :

shift of the global economy from a western pole to a bi-polar asian economy (China - India asian "tigers")

currently the first and second sectors, materials and manufacture - are the most impacted - soon to come : services and finance

brasil and several other emerging economies will further distribute high density capital

ecology / ethics / rarefection of main supplies will slow down the global economy and above all - the potential of growth

Cultural reasons :

Leisure vs work : we are unwilling to sacrifice ourselves as previous generations have (not our parents though - they took the cake) - no one will work 10 hours a day to get by with barely enough space and food for his/her family.

Honestly - this is exactly the liberal project taking shape - money goes were it's best spent allowing new employees to become the new employers.

Yeah the way I see it, there is a shifting of the guard. The western empire is never going to be the same. Standards of living in the western world are going to lower but they are rising in the east (especially China and India). The middle-class in the west is going to shrink. It's going to be more like the old days where you had a small base of property owners and a large working-class that doesn't own property. Except that this working-class will be working white-collar service sector jobs instead of blue-collar factory jobs. Life is pretty shitty for the average person on Earth. It's just that things are starting to balance out more between the west and east now.

I actually just got let go at my job. I had this job for about 8-9months. Before this job I was looking for one for 7months after the place I had worked for 4 years closed down due to money issues. The job I just had also let me go due to money issues. They have only family working there now and had held on to me as long as they could. I have put in about 40 apps in just over a week and have not recieved one phone call or email. Alot of the jobs i applied for are nothing great such as Mcdonalds,Wendys, Toy R Us, Target, and so on Im guessing its going to end up being another long stretch. I cant really get unemployment this time around as they paid me under the table so as far as the goverment is concerned ive been jobless over a year.

All I have to say is the government can not spend its way out of a recession/depression. It just leads to a second dip and I thik it is here. I was just talking to my buddy about it yesterday. Best just to let the economy fall naturally and it will pick up naturally.

Yes that might eventually happen, but the key word is might. The economy isnt the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago. Who knows what could happen.

That's why factories need to stop going to Mexico and China. Keep jobs in America. Raise the fuck out of tariffs and help your own economy.

Become Communist.

Great move by Obama extending Bush tax cuts that will inject more cash stimulus into the US economy. $750 billion will be injected into the US economy from the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Keynesian economic measure to help kick start the economy. Bernanke is doing his job with Quantitative Easing 2 to help inject more money into the US economy to devalue the US currency to make US exports cheaper on the world market. 

Keep the shops open and get more consumers spending. The US economy relies heavily upon a strong retail sector and good economic spending.

Increase in unemployment rate could also mean that more people have entered the labour market and an increase in the number of people looking for work. 

Europeans have accepted bailouts and are now implementing austerity measures: reduction in public spending and increasing taxes. 

yeha its pretty rough. I've been out of work since June, and I've gotten called for 2 interviews out of over 100 job applications. My initial 26 weeks of unemployment runs out this week, and the gov't still has failed to renew the "Emergency Unemployment Benefits", which tack on another 73 weeks of unemployment checks.

For me it particulary sucks, because I've worked in education since 1997. My resumé is full of school based/public sector experience. It sucks because of the timing. I just need to survive through 6 more months. School positions are posted in March- April, and are filled by June for a September start date. I just missed that cutoff, as I was terminated mid June. Private sector jobs don't really credit public sector work experience, so converting to private sector has been difficult, even though I've got over a decade of computer technician experience.

If the gov't fails to renew the unemployment benefits, I'll be kicked out of my apt by February. =(

When you increase tariffs on imports the countries impacted will increase tariffs on goods imported from your country, and (as a result) neither country is any better off ...