In four previous blog entries in this space (April 03, May 25, June 06, and July 05), comments were made regarding the search for signs of the “bottoming out” of the current recession that had already reigned for fourteen months under Bush 43 and that has since bedeviled the new President Obama.

While there were in fact several published statistics that suggested a recession bottom may have been reached after Obama’s $787 billion Economic Stimulus Program was enacted earlier this year, sympathy for the woes of the unemployed caused us to focus on the monthly jobs reports from the US Department of Labor. Using that indicator, hopes that we had reached the bottom of the recession during Q2 2009 were dimmed when the June 2009 unemployment numbers seemed to reverse the declining trend of fewer and fewer job losses of the previous few months, even though we knew that unemployment numbers are lagging economic indicators.

But finally, a report on the actual GDP of the United States for the second quarter of 2009 appeared on July 31. While the country’s output was still declining in Q2, the annual pace was only minus 1%, compared to the plunge of more than minus 6% in Q1 2009. (Indeed, until Q2 2009, the nation’s GDP had been on a steep negative slope since reaching +4% in Q3 2007.). The just-published Q2 2009 GDP report provides unequivocal evidence that the Obama Stimulus is working and that the bottom of the recession has already been reached.

But recovery from this bottom point will take months and months; after all, this is already the longest recession/downturn since the Great Depression of the 30’s.

Because job losses are a lagging indicator, the current unemployment situation will be with us for quite a while longer. (The next monthly jobs report will be for July and it will be released by the Labor Department on August 7, 2009). Given the unemployment situation and the worsening budget crises in many states across the country, many economists are arguing that a second Obama Stimulus should be enacted soon.

Contrary to the 2009 Obama Stimulus money that is going to the states to boost local economies and create jobs for ordinary Americans, we recall the October 2008 Bush-Paulson $750 billion bailout money that went solely to selected banks and Wall Street firms -- the same ones that brought us derivatives, credit default swaps and a sea of deregulation that led to the real estate crash and the credit crisis. About the only “comfort” we taxpayers got out of that bailout, was that the traditional exorbitant bonuses to the management and employees of those bailed out firms were to be severely curtailed.

Oops! Breaking news reveals further sordid facts from that mess. According to a report released July 30, 2009 by NY Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, it turns out that nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of 2008 federal bailout money in fact paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers bonuses of more than $1 million apiece for 2008! At Goldman Sachs, for example, bonuses of more than $1 million each went to 953 traders and bankers, and Morgan Stanley awarded seven-figure bonuses each to 428 employees. Even at weaker banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, million-dollar awards were distributed to hundreds of workers. Instead of being severely curtailed, the 2008 bonus pools at the nine banks that received our bailout money totaled $32.6 billion, while those same banks declared losses of $81 billion.

Meanwhile, meager unemployment benefits have run out for millions of innocent common folks across the country that have already lost their jobs and their health insurance coverage.

The country still has much to do.