NEW YORK – Only five metropolitan areas in the U.S. will escape job losses this year, according to a forecast released Saturday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

 

New York is expected to take the biggest hit as thousands of jobs are lost on Wall Street. Big financial firms are slashing workers as they cope with bad debt. Other companies have gone under, like Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which filed for bankruptcy in September.

 

The New York area is expected to lose 181,000 jobs in 2009, the report said. Consulting company IHS Global Insight produced the report for the group.

 

The Los Angeles area is expected to see 164,000 lost jobs, in part because of the huge drop in home prices that has punctured the California economy.

 

After New York and Los Angeles, the Miami area is expected to see the greatest loss, with a decline of 85,000 jobs. Chicago and the surrounding area are next, with losses projected at 80,000.

 

Unemployment is expected to top 10 percent in 70 areas, from already hard-hit cities like Detroit and Cleveland to places that had until recently been prosperous like the Riverside-San Bernardino area in California. Other big cities like Denver and St. Louis are expected to see unemployment rise above 9 percent.

 

Ithaca, N.Y.; Fairbanks, Alaska; and St. George, Utah, are among the handful of the nation's 363 metropolitan areas expected to see employment remain flat or increase slightly.

 

 

With such massive job losses an the general economic malaise, how, I wonder, are all these cities and states going to find all the funds needed to make up the coming deficits? Since the federal government has basically mortgaged the future of a generation to bail out the banks and in a failed effort to stimulate spending, surely they can't expect Washington to bail them out as well? If so, expect the US dollar to tank as the government starts printing lots more bills.

With such massive job losses an the general economic malaise, how, I wonder, are all these cities and states going to find all the funds needed to make up the coming deficits? Since the federal government has basically mortgaged the future of a generation to bail out the banks and in a failed effort to stimulate spending, surely they can't expect Washington to bail them out as well? If so, expect the US dollar to tank as the government starts printing lots more bills.

 

Likely? In Detroit, it's already happened (within the city proper itself, the unemployment rate is estimated at over 14%)! The drop in the City population over the last 50 years (it's currently less than half of what it was) hasn't helped, of course.

 

Because of the massive borrowing by the federal government, I have no doubt at all that the US dollar over the long term will substantially depreciate. I'm just not sure how you play this investment-wise (and I'm not all that optimistic that other countries won't eventually follow the same self-destructive economic path). Perhaps in 20 or 30 years, most people will be fondly remember the "good old times?"

 

With such massive job losses an the general economic malaise, how, I wonder, are all these cities and states going to find all the funds needed to make up the coming deficits? Since the federal government has basically mortgaged the future of a generation to bail out the banks and in a failed effort to stimulate spending, surely they can't expect Washington to bail them out as well? If so, expect the US dollar to tank as the government starts printing lots more bills.

The cities turn to the state for funds and the states have nowhere to go except the federal government. Either cut services or get the money from Uncle Sam and mortgage the future. Since the dollar is a world currency we are fortunate to be able to print more dollars and therefore pay back our debt in cheap dollars.

 

 

Because of the massive borrowing by the federal government, I have no doubt at all that the US dollar over the long term will substantially depreciate. I'm just not sure how you play this investment-wise (and I'm not all that optimistic that other countries won't eventually follow the same self-destructive economic path). Perhaps in 20 or 30 years, most people will be fondly remember the "good old times?"

I do not know how to play this investment-wise, either. If I had to guess, I would go with real estate. In an inflationary situation, which printing more money usually causes, real estate is usually a safe bet.

But the government's most likely course of action is printing more dollars = inflation and reduction in the value of the dollar.

I have no doubt at all that the US dollar over the long term will substantially depreciate. I'm just not sure how you play this investment-wise

 

(and I'm not all that optimistic that other countries won't eventually follow the same self-destructive economic path).

 

If you think the dollar will depreciate ETFs such as FXF (Swiss francs) or FXY (yen) might be a good play.

 

If you think all currencies will inflate then a commodity futures fund such as PCRIX is an interesting play but in the short term many think commodities have further to fall.