The economy

gets worse.

Everyone is on pins and needles waiting for today's jobs report from the American Department of Labor. The consensus number at the moment is 340,000 lost jobs in the month of November, pushing the unemployment rate into the neighbourhood of 6.8%, but those figures have been shifting a bit for the worse, in recent days. A really bad number could mean an ugly day for markets, among other things. UPDATE: Oh heavens, the decline was 533,000, the most since 1974.

Pretty bad!
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