Surprise! The House of Representatives has signed “Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act,” also known in some circles as “The Motor City Shakedown.”
The bill passed in the House of Representatives by roll call vote. The totals were 236 in favor; 170 against; 27 voted present or did not vote. Reportedly the bil is running into resistance in the Senate.
The final version of the bill was not yet available, but here is draft I found last night:
Read the bill
Friday we found out that 533,000 Americans lost their job in November, the highest decline in non-farm payrolls in 34 years. The consensus expectation was a drop between 300,000 and 320,000. Despite this awful number the market took it well. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down about 250 points in early morning trading—barely worth a mention given recent moves— and actually ended the day at 8635.42, up 259.18 points.
When you add the revisions from previous months that number grows to 732,000 jobs and the net job loss over the last three months is 1.26 million.
Remember last month when the unemployment rate shot up to 5.7% from 5.1%? Well, in August, things continued to deteriorate in the jobs scene. Unemployment increased to 6.1% and nonfarm payrolls decreased by 84,000, with concentrated losses in manufacturing and employment services, interestingly enough. In the past 12 months, according to the Labor Department, the number of unemployed has increased by 2.2 million and the unemployment rate has risen by 1.4% in the past year.
