Danny Schechter of MediaChannel.org and NewsDissector gives a succinct response to Obama's remark during his speech on Wednesday night that the economy is back from the brink. The two people I was in the room with said "uh.." and "not if you talked to the man I talked to today" when Obama said that. It seemed probable that many people felt that way at the same moment all across the country. Danny is also making a movie and writing a book about the financial industry and crisis called "Plunder". We can't wait for it to come out.

"Are we back from the brink? And what brink is that? On Labor Day night, HBO featured a powerful documentary about a GM Plant in Ohio that was shutting down. It showed the workers, teary eyed and forlorn, making the last truck on “their” assembly line. Their faces told the rest of the story as they asked themselves and each other, ‘what do I do now? What happens to my family and my life?”

They had no answers, and neither, alas, does Barack Obama.

A “jobless recovery” will not give these workers the money to buy into even the cheapest health care option, public option or not.

Look around Mr. Obama: the unemployment rate in real terms is over 16%. The consumer economy is shattered. The commercial real estate market is imploding, and, yes, more foreclosures are on the way according to the Washington Post:

“A new report foresees another wave of foreclosures, as option adjustable-rate mortgages—an entire class of specialized home loans—will soon reset to higher payments. Estimated to jump by 63 percent on average, the higher rates will likely push many of the already-strained loan recipients over the brink. The loans, also called pick-a-pay loans, are a prime example of the risky lending techniques that created the housing crisis: Borrowers were allowed to pay back the loan with as little as they wanted each month, though that meant many paid less than the interest due…the report says the fallout from the loans could be felt for years, especially in states already hit hard by foreclosures.

Just who is back from the brink?"

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