Congratulations to the 35,000 doomed people who filed new unemployment claims last week — thanks to you unlucky folks, January job losses hit 626,000, the highest unemployment numbers since the Ronald Reagan Recession/Depression of 1982. That was a fun catastrophe. Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about Reagan’s Depression? MORE »

• UGH: “DETROIT — Chrysler says it will close all 30 of its manufacturing plants for a month starting Friday.” It’ll be like a vacation for auto workers, except they won’t travel anywhere and will enter poverty. We just couldn’t afford that $14 billion loan! [AP]

This is always the problem with furries: they talk a good game, and that’s about it. Even during the recession. [SF Chronicle]

Here’s heavy-petting Saxby Chambliss defending himself, on the Fox News, against a Jim Martin ad that quotes Chambliss saying he doesn’t even know what the term “recession” means. We’ll cut him some slack on that, because a new person is declaring a new version of the word everyday. But what’s notable is that Chambliss defends his comment by saying that he was quoting Alan Greenspan, people. He appears still to think that this is the ’90s/early ’00s, when name-dropping Greenspan worked as a blanket defense against criticism or, more importantly, an excuse not to learn anything about economics. This caused several problems. [YouTube]

It seems like just yesterday our little recession spent all its time wailing for food and pooping its pants, but it’s already pretty big! Soon it will be all growns up and cooking meth in the back yard shed while it asks us for “rent money.” The National Bureau of Economic Research says our recession is one year old, in the sense that the employment situation was at its very awesomest one year ago. Since then we have all lost our jobs and begun eating melamine-tainted cat food for sustenance. [MarketWatch]

Peggington. We love Peggington so much, and we don’t even care who knows! In this week’s very special Thanksgiving edition of her Wall Street Journal psychodiary, “Declarations,” the Noonanism — an embarrassingly insular worldview in which no personal anecdote is void of world-historical spiritual import — has been cranked deep into the red. Here’s what Peggy’s thankful for this weekend: that the mysterious Negro president has been such a delight so far; that she doesn’t have to see poor people on the street; and that God safely carries her around on airplanes when she needs to travel. We will focus on the second and the third. MORE »

Holy Jesus God do you know how bad this recession is? So bad that one of the most recession-proof industries ever invented, THE WEATHER, has now hit upon hard times. The Weather Channel is laying off some untold number of staff, probably millions, more than the whole auto worker’s industry plus Wall Street combined, because there is no weather anywhere anymore. There’s just no budget for it. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Not that you’d know it from the collapse of real estate, manufacturing, finance, retail and basic employment, but America is now officially in a Recession! In the third quarter of this wretched year of Our Lord — which doesn’t even include the 1929-style stock market collapse this month — the economy shrunk by .03%. Not outrageously terrible, as the never-ever-correct people known as economists predicted a half-percent contraction, but it’s still the worse since Our Terrorized Quarter of 9/11. Never forget! MORE »

This New Depression has gotten off to a swimming start! Now that nobody has any homes or monies or televisions and the election is almost over, there will be no news anymore, so ABC News is instituting some DRACONIAN cost-cutting measures. No holiday parties, no more “paying for meals for impoverished tech crews on location” type nonsense, and freelancers are seeing their hours cut cut cut. MORE »

• WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?: Your Wonkette will now link you to a Huffington Post page that excerpts a New York Times article about the Recession possibly celebrating its first birthday now, according to math and economists. Rather than link directly to the New York Times article, we wanted to ask you, the reader, to figure out why the Huffington Post illustrated this story with an AP picture of a polar bear in a zoo staring at an enormous wooden advent candle. Is it… “bear market?” Ben Bernanke is a bear? Oh, ha!…?? In any event, happy birthday, you brutal cycle of deleveraging, you. [HuffPo]

If you own a house, it’s now worth negative nothing. If you’re a renter, your landlord is probably already in foreclosure and you will soon be homeless. Got some investments, maybe a 401k or whatever? You really don’t even want to look. Got one of those fancy jobs with benefits and health care and such? You will soon be unemployed, living in a Hobo Jungle down by the railroad tracks in the darkness on the edge of town. Happy Monday, everybody! But how can you blame this on McCain and his boyfriend George W. Bush? MORE »