I got laid off two weeks after 9/11. I was a 10 year employee making well over 100k per year. I had a 401k with over 200k which I depleted to pay bills, taxes, mortgage and cost of opening a business.
Business failed to meet expectations and when I went thru all my savings trying to save everything I was forced to file for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.
Still looking for the right career, still trying to make it on my own in a new business adventure. I would prefer the later since I feel it is a better opportunity for me in the long run.
But for this article's rants and raves about the economy, I would STRONGLY DISAGREE with its message. It maybe tough out there, but you can survive. (Maybe not on the grandscale as they are use to living, but surviving non the less)
I believe we are already seeing one of the best recoveries this country has ever seen! I belive in Tax Cuts and Bush.
We don't need a big nanny (read Hillary)for government, way to many people like sit and complain about their lives, yet few are willing to do what is necessary for themselves or their families to move forward.
In sales and in life "pessimism sells newspapers, optimism sells everything else!"* Just my two cents....
Job Growth Returns to Sector After Three Years of Decline
By MICHAEL SCHROEDER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Manufacturing in November showed the most robust activity in two decades, lifting employment in the sector higher than expected.
The Institute for Supply Management, a private research firm, said Monday that its index of manufacturing activity rose to 62.8 last month from 57 in October.
Providing solid evidence of an improving manufacturing jobs picture, the ISM employment index climbed to 51 from 47.7. The last time the employment gauge was above 50 was September 2000.
Readings of at least 50 point to strong growth in the industrial sector, which has lagged behind other sectors as the economy digs out of the recession that started in 2001.
Economists had expected the industrial index would rise to 59, according to a survey by Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC.
Calling the survey results "astonishing," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics Ltd., said the latest reading is consistent with year-over-year growth in gross domestic product of about 7%. He added that the employment survey suggests "the three-year run of industrial job losses will soon end."
Meanwhile, construction spending increased 0.9% in October as still low mortgage rates drove residential home building to unprecedented levels. Big gains were registered in public projects as federal and state governments have ramped up spending.
Overall construction spending rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $922 billion, the highest level on record, from an upwardly revised $913.5 billion in September, the Commerce Department said Monday.
Private residential construction spending rose 2.2% to a record $484.1 billion, while private nonresidential construction slipped 2.1%. The decline, the steepest since a 2.3% drop last December, was driven by weakness in construction of commercial facilities, power plants and factories.
The economic reports suggest that growth is likely to continue. "Based on this data, it appears that the recovery is gaining momentum," Norbert Ore, who directs the survey for the ISM, said in a statement. "Indications are that the manufacturing sector is ending 2003 on a very positive note, and all of the indexes support continued strength into 2004."
The ISM survey's backlog-of-orders index increased to 59 in November from 53.5 a month earlier, an indication that orders exceeded production during the month.
Write to Michael Schroeder at mike.schroeder@wsj.com
Updated December 1, 2003 12:42 p.m