Thank God for that Obama stimulus package, huh? We were warned that unemployment could hit 9% if we didn’t pass it immediately and without reading the contents. Now the national unemployment is only, er, 9.5% and growing. *launch confetti cannons*

WASHINGTON – Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Workers also saw weekly wages fall, suggesting Americans will have little appetite to spend and the economy’s road to recovery will be bumpy.

The Labor Department report, released Thursday, showed that even as the recession flashes signs of easing, companies likely will want to keep a lid on costs and be wary of hiring until they feel certain the economy is on solid ground.

You’ll be comforted to know that President Obama is “deeply concerned” that he won’t get re-elected that the unemployment percentage isn’t going down anytime soon, with many economists predicting a double-digit figure by the end of summer. We’ll add this to the other events Obama is “deeply concerned” about, including but not limited to the Iranian election violence, the ongoing missile tests in North Korea, and the coup in Honduras.

June’s payroll reductions were deeper than the 363,000 that economists expected and average weekly earnings dropped to the lowest level in nearly a year.

However, the rise in the unemployment rate from 9.4 percent in May wasn’t as sharp as the expected 9.6 percent. Still, many economists predict the jobless rate will hit 10 percent this year, and keep rising into next year, before falling back.

All told, 14.7 million people were unemployed in June.

The good news is that the chance of amnesty passing this year dwindles as the unemployment figure rises. It’s kind of hard to sell Americans on the idea that million of illegal aliens are doing the jobs Americans won’t when, you know, millions of Americans are looking for jobs.

If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 16.5 percent in June, the highest on records dating to 1994.

“We were on the road of things getting less bad in the jobs market, and that has been temporarily waylaid,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. “But this doesn’t change my view that the recession will end later this year. We’re probably two months away.”

The Dow Jones is down 177 points as I post this.

The relevance here isn’t so much the weight his name carries in the financial community, but the fact that he’s a vocal supporter of President Obama. Buffett isn’t exactly prone to criticize the president or his policies, and yet here the Oracle of Omaha is insisting that the economy remains in total shambles:

BECKY:  The last time we sat down to talk to you was on May 4, and at that point you told us that you think we’re in an economic war right now.  How much progress do you think we’ve made in that war?

BUFFETT:  Well, it’s been pretty flat.  I get figures on 70-odd businesses, a lot of them daily.  Everything that I see about the economy is that we’ve had no bounce.  The financial system was really where the crisis was last September and October, and that’s been surmounted and that’s enormously important.   But in terms of the economy coming back, it takes a while.  There were a lot of excesses to be wrung out and that process is still underway and it looks to me like it will be underway for quite a while.  In the (Berkshire Hathaway) annual report I said the economy would be in a shambles this year and probably well beyond.  I’m afraid that’s true.

The good news here? There isn’t any. We’re expecting double-digit unemployment by the end of the year, inflation is going to be high, major companies are still filing for bankruptcy, financial institutions remain in serious trouble, the automakers we now own don’t appear to be doing any better, and Obama is hinting at another deficit-exploding stimulus package. Oh, and the Dow Jones closed down again today.

As National Journal has editorialized, Democrats better be praying that the economy recovers by next year’s election. Americans aren’t going to be thrilled if we’ve spent many trillions of dollars, nationalized industries, expanded governmental power, raised taxes, and the economy still hasn’t turned around.

Just in case you thought the news couldn’t get any worse for Californians, the Department of Labor now reports that unemployment in the most populous American state has reached 11.5%.

California’s unemployment rate shot up to 11.5% in May, its highest level since current record-keeping began more than three decades ago.

That’s a substantial increase over a revised rate of 11.1% in April, the U.S. Department of Labor reported this morning. …

Only four states have higher unemployment rates than California: Michigan at 14.1%, Oregon at 12.4% and Rhode Island and South Carolina, tied at 12.1%.

The massive budget crisis and continuing recession will almost guarantee that California’s unemployment rate will only go up over the summer.

Many, many people have taken an unexpected drubbing during the financial collapse. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill), the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, is not one of those people. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the Illinois Democrat used insider information gained from closed meetings to manage his stocks:

As U.S. stock markets plummeted last September, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, sold more than $115,000 worth of stocks and mutual-fund shares and used much of the money to invest in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

The Illinois senator’s 2008 financial disclosure statement shows he sold mutual-fund shares worth $42,696 on Sept. 19, the day after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged congressional leaders in a closed meeting to craft legislation to help financially troubled banks. The same day, he bought $43,562 worth of Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B stock, the disclosure shows.

Altogether, Durbin sold investments worth $116,000 in September. By Oct. 2, he had invested $98,046 in Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway, the form shows.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index plunged 4.7 percent last Sept. 15 after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp.’s government-engineered takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. By the end of October, the index had fallen 22.6 percent.

Durbin’s spokesman claims that he didn’t receive insider information or use it to manage his portfolio. Uh huh. Do you think that excuse would fly if a regular investor met with Bernanke and Paulson, learned information behind closed doors, and traded their investments the next day? The SEC would be on his ass and Democrats would be calling for his head on a spike. But it’s Dick Durbin, so noticeable silence ensues.

Via Hot Air.

Italian authorities seized $135 billion in U.S. bonds from two Japanese nationals preparing to cross into Switzerland, leaving many to wonder how two individuals managed to get their hands on so much money. In fact, the bond denominations the men had are only used in state-to-state transactions.

Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 500 million each, plus ten Kennedy bonds and other US government securities worth a billion dollar each.

Italian authorities have not yet determined whether they are real or fake, but if they are real the attempt to take them into Switzerland would be the largest financial smuggling operation in history; if they are fake, the matter would be even more mind-boggling because the quality of the counterfeit work is such that the fake bonds are undistinguishable from the real ones.

What caught the policemen’s attention were the billion dollar securities. Such a large denomination is not available in regular financial and banking markets. Only states handle such amounts of money.

A few things. First of all, assuming the bonds are real, how did these two guys get their hands on bonds in denominations that only states use in transactions? Were they stolen from a government – or did a government give them the bonds? The amount is large enough to affect how the dollar trades.

Second, if they are fake, how many of these counterfeit bonds are making their way around the world? And more importantly, who or which country is responsible for printing the counterfeit bonds? Ed Morrissey points out that North Korea has printed fake U.S. money in the past, though this seems to be on an entirely different level of sophistication.

The mere suggestion that Democrats would attempt to control executive pay across the entire private sector would’ve been laughed off as fear mongering during the campaign. In fact, I believe very similar claims were labeled fear mongering from desperate Republicans. But much like the prediction that President Obama would be reading Miranda rights to terrorists, this one has come to fruition.

Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee said Thursday the administration’s efforts to hector the private sector into reining in executive pay might not go far enough.

The administration contends that excessive compensation contributed to the U.S. financial crisis, but rejects direct intervention in corporate pay decisions.

Instead, the administration plans to seek legislation that would try to rein in compensation at publicly traded companies through nonbinding shareholder votes and less management influence on pay decisions.

“I do differ with the administration in that hope springs eternal and their position seems to be that if we strengthen the compensation committees we will do better,” said the committee chairman, Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat…

Democrats and administration officials agreed that companies across the private sector need to adjust compensation practices to avoid damaging the economy.

That’s exactly what I want: A bunch of morons who rejected Bush Administration attempts to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including the moron who claimed repeatedly that neither was in financial danger, telling me how to avoid damaging the economy. I honestly believe these people are living in their own universe, unaware of how ridiculous they sound to those around them.

While the administration has approached the issue with caution, a top Republican said the plans amounted to “incessant government intervention.”

“The president cannot continue his heavy-handed meddling in the private sector and expect it to function, much less flourish,” said Rep. Tom Price, chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

And yet he will continue his intervention in the private sector, regulation the pay of executives, firing CEOs he no longer likes, telling companies what products to produce and, most of all, taxing the crap out of whatever profits companies can pull together after all of that.

As the article in Pravda said, socialism is on the march. And it’s getting here quickly.

Let’s keep in mind that Democrats had attacked President Bush as fiscally irresponsible for his spending trillions of dollars over eight years. Since President Obama’s taken office we’ve spent $800 billion on porkulus, $400 billion on mortgage rescues, $400 billion on an omnibus spending bill, and proposed $1.5 trillion for health care and $2 trillion on climate change. All of that in four months. Is this a joke?

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sought on Tuesday to show he was serious about improving the U.S. budget picture as he called on Congress to pass new limits on tax cuts and spending programs to avoid adding to deficits.

Obama urged passage of “pay-as-you-go” legislation that would require any new tax cut or automatic spending program to be paid for within the budget.

“The ‘pay as you go’ principle is very simple. Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere,” Obama said in a speech at the White House attended by several Democratic members of Congress.

“Entitlement increases and tax cuts need to be paid for. They are not free,” said Obama, who has been criticized by Republicans for proposing a hefty domestic agenda that includes overhauling the health care system, bolstering education and tackling global climate change.

The White House has forecast a budget deficit for this year of $1.84 trillion, or 12.9 percent of gross domestic product.

Which makes this all blatantly disingenuous. Obama has carried out or proposed increases in areas of  entitlement spending, global warming, health care, corporate bailouts, and just about every left-wing issue known to man. Suddenly he wants to be Mr. Fiscal Responsibility?

“The reckless fiscal policies of the past have left us in a very deep hole,” Obama said. “Digging our way out will take time and patience and tough choices.”

So the way out is more reckless fiscal policies? Yes, Republicans have attempted to reclaim the mantle of fiscal responsibility after a Republican president and Republican Congress spent our treasure irresponsibly. But usually those attempts are qualified with an admission that we lost our way and were irresponsible. Is President Obama about to admit that his out-of-control spending over the past four months alone are irresponsible and regrettable? Doubtful.

By the way, Brian Riedhl writes at The Heritage Foundation that Obama’s PAYGO proposal won’t work. His posting is worth a read if you have the time.

No one messes with Sheriff Joe, you know. Because it’s not nice to mess with retarded people (no offense to the actually mentally handicapped). Remember, this is the guy President Obama put in charge of running the stimulus efforts.

That new tunnel? The one NJ Transit has been touting for years? That the Federal Transit Administration made a huge commitment to on Monday?

It’s for cars.

Or so Vice President Biden apparently thinks.

Biden had just finished telling reporters on a conference call Monday that federal stimulus money might have gone out slower in the past few months than some people liked because, “We don’t end up with any major glitches.” …

“Look, this is designed, this totally new tunnel, is designed to provide for automobile traffic,” Biden said. “It’s something, as you know, up your way, that’s been in the works and people have been clamoring for for a long time.”

For the record, the tunnel is for trains, and its completion would allow for more NJ Transit trains during peak hours and “one-seat” rides into Midtown Manhattan on lines serving Bergen and Passaic counties. Currently riders on those lines must switch trains.

Such a promising sign that the people in charge of spending $800 billion of our hard-earned money have absolutely no clue as to the projects the money will fund. We have morons in charge of spending money our great-grandchildren will have to work to pay off.

The United States Supreme Court has granted a stay of the approval by the Second Circuit of the Fiat/Chrysler deal. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is reportedly responsible for putting the breaks on the deal.

The lower court’s approval of the deal will be stayed to give the court time to consider whether to hear an appeal on the merits. A group of pension funds had sued to keep the deal from going through, alleging that the Treasury Department’s use of TARP funds to partially finance the deal was improper.

I’m sure we’ll be getting more information soon, so be sure to check back.

Update: More details from BBC News:

Three Indiana state pension and construction funds filed papers at the court on Sunday calling for the sale to be halted so they can pursue an appeal.

The Obama administration, which strongly backed the sale, had called on the court to reject the request.

The court says that the Chrysler sale is “stayed pending further order”.

Update X2: More from the AP wire, via Hot Air.

Chrysler has said a delay could scuttle the deal.

A federal appeals court in New York had earlier approved the sale, but gave opponents until 4 p.m. EDT Monday to try to get the Supreme Court to intervene.

Ginsburg issued her order just before 4 p.m., when Chrysler would have been free to complete the sale of most of its assets to Fiat.

How bad is the intervention when the liberal Ginsburg opposes the deal?

All thanks to the stimulus package, of course. How does one prove that a job has been “saved” by porkulus? You can’t, of course, and that’s the point. As long as 600,000 jobs still exist come the end of summer — even if 30 million jobs have been lost in the same period — the Obama Administration will claim a success. Slimy but not unexpected.

Anyway, we all know how accurate any of these predictions are. As Ed Morrissey reminds us, Christine Romer predicted that unemployment wouldn’t hit such a crazy rate as 8.8%. The national unemployment rate is now 9.4% and growing, with many economists predicting that more than 10% of the country will be unemployed by December. Having said that:

Eager to show action on the ailing economy, President Barack Obama promised Monday to speed federal money into hundreds of public works projects this summer, vowing that 600,000 jobs will be created or saved.

Surrounded by his Cabinet, Obama emphasized what has become a dominant issue of public concern — an economy that keeps bleeding jobs — on the day after returning from a week of diplomacy and sightseeing in the Middle East and Europe.

He concentrated in his remarks on the billions of dollars from a taxpayer-funded plan that will be disbursed this summer, although much what he was described was already in the works, spurring new debate about just how much the $787 billion stimulus plan is helping so far.

Uh huh.