Surprise! The unemployment rate has risen again, to 9.7%.  Of course. And,

A broader measure of joblessness rose even more sharply than the headline unemployment rate. An expanded unemployment rate that includes people who have given up looking for a job out of frustration and who are working part time but want a full-time job rose to 16.8 percent, from 16.3 percent.

Of course, 83% of us are still gainfully employed, waiting out the Friday before Labor Day weekend, so that we too can be unemployed, for three days of drunkenness or and yard work.

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And the hits keep coming:

Wells Fargo, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, saw the black community as fertile ground for subprime mortgages, as working-class blacks were hungry to be a part of the nation’s home-owning mania. Loan officers, she said, pushed customers who could have qualified for prime loans into subprime mortgages. Another loan officer stated in an affidavit filed last week that employees had referred to blacks as “mud people” and to subprime lending as “ghetto loans.”

“We just went right after them,” said Ms. Jacobson, who is white and said she was once the bank’s top-producing subprime loan officer nationally. “Wells Fargo mortgage had an emerging-markets unit that specifically targeted black churches, because it figured church leaders had a lot of influence and could convince congregants to take out subprime loans.”

Bailouts, bitchez. Enjoy the new boss.

Bank Accused of Pushing Mortgage Deals on Blacks [New York Times]

Democracy!

In a special election on May 19, voters rejected a batch of measures on increasing taxes, borrowing funds and reapportioning state money that were designed to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap. The cuts Mr. Schwarzenegger has proposed to make up the difference, if enacted by the Legislature, would turn California into a place that in some ways would be unrecognizable in modern America: poor children would have no health insurance, prisoners would be released by the thousands and state parks would be closed.

Sounds like GOP nirvana – except for the part about freeing prisoners.

Deep Cuts Threaten to Reshape California [NYT]

NPR says that 400,000 children could die this year as a result of reduced giving due to the downturn.

Yet the Banksters feel sorry for themselves.  Everybody’s picking on them.

Remember Jim Cramer? Last time we checked, he was being skewered by Jon Stewart. And if the world has moved on, Cramer hasn’t:

“It was a complete and utter ambush,” Cramer said in an interview with The Lantern. “He told my staff that it was going to be fun, convivial, no clips, but [it] doesn’t matter, he’s a comedian, he can do whatever he wants.”

Of course Cramer’s a comedian too, unless all those props are common arbitrage tools. (And speaking of comedians: Ladies and gentlemen, Glenn Beck!) And about that “ambush” — Cramer himself predicted it earlier that day while cooking with convicted financier Martha Stewart:

“I mean, he’s going to be standing there giving me the business, I’m going to have to fight back,” Cramer said. “I’m not a doormat. Do I impress you as a doormat?”

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Bachmann Introducing Bill to Ban Use of Made-Up Global Currency.

That is all.

Found this over at John Cole’s place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQRmiWuwe2Y

And where the fuck is Khazakistan?

BONUS: Did you know Bachmann’s husband can cure teh gay?