Jobless Claims at Seven-Year High

From Bloomberg News: "First-time claims for U.S. unemployment insurance rose last week to the highest level since September 2001, when the economy was last in a recession, as weakening demand led companies to fire more workers." Last week, jobless claims were higher than expected at 516,000 (it was 484,000 the week before). Linda Barrington, Conference Board labor economist, said, "The labor market is only reinforcing a very pessimistic picture. When you start to see the downward pressure on wages as well as the credit crunch, that's only going to make consumers much more nervous." Currently, unemployment is at 6.5% and many believe it could go up to 8% next year. Stock futures were "wobbly," but right after the open, the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 are all up about 1%.