A surprisingly honest article on the doctored unemployment numbers ... Here are the article highlights ...
"Since November, the number of Americans counted as employed has grown by 765,000 -
But the number of Americans counted as unemployed has shrunk by much more — almost 1.3 million — during this time. That means the labor force has dropped by 529,000 workers."
"The percentage of adults in the labor force is a figure that economists call the participation rate. It is 64.2 percent, the smallest since 1984."
"the drop in unemployment from 9.8 percent in November to 9 percent in April isn't as good as it looks."
"if the participation rate were as high as it was when the recession began, 66 percent, in December 2007, the unemployment rate could have been as high as 11.5 percent."
"The labor force grew by just 15,000 in April from March — not even enough to keep up with population growth."
"The share of men 20 and older in the labor force peaked long ago, at 89 percent in 1952. It's been falling ever since and is now under 74 percent"
"...the number of factory jobs has dropped 40 percent since peaking in 1979."
"Teenagers .... peak participation rate of 59.3 percent in 1978" fell "to a record low of 33.5 percent in February."
More job seekers give up, reducing unemployment
WASHINGTON – Where did all the workers go?
The labor force — those who have a job or are looking for one — is getting smaller, even though the economy is growing and steadily adding jobs. That trend defies the rules of a normal economic recovery.
Nobody is sure why it's happening. Economists think some of the missing workers have retired, have entered college or are getting by on government disability checks. Others have probably just given up looking for work.
"A small work force means millions of discouraged workers, lower output in the future and a weak recovery," says Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the ranking Republican on the Congress' Joint Economic Committee. "Those are unhealthy signs."
By the government's definition, if you quit looking, you're no longer counted as unemployed. And you're no longer part of the labor force.
Since November, the number of Americans counted as employed has grown by 765,000, to just shy of 139 million. The nation has been creating jobs every month as the economy recovers. The economy added 244,000 jobs in April.
But the number of Americans counted as unemployed has shrunk by much more — almost 1.3 million — during this time. That means the labor force has dropped by 529,000 workers.
The percentage of adults in the labor force is a figure that economists call the participation rate. It is 64.2 percent, the smallest since 1984. And that's become a mystery to economists. Normally after a recession, an improving economy lures job seekers back into the labor market. This time, many are staying on the sidelines.
Their decision not to seek work means the drop in unemployment from 9.8 percent in November to 9 percent in April isn't as good as it looks.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110602/ap_on_bi_ge/us_economy_missing_workers
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Massachusettes' tornadoes kill 4
How often do you hear of tornadoes in Massachusettes or New England ?? Is it just me or are there severe weather patterns hitting in places they never used to ??
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The Rev. Bob Marrone was pained to see the steeple of his 137-year-old church shattered and strewn on the grass in the central Massachusetts town of Monson, yet he knows he's more fortunate than some of his neighbors who lost their homes after tornadoes tore through the state, killing at least four people and injuring about 200.
"I can see the plywood of roofs, and see houses where most of the house is gone," said Marrone, pastor of The First Church of Monson. "The road that runs up in front of my house ... There's so many trees down, it's completely impassable."
Residents of 18 communities in central and western Massachusetts woke to widespread damage Thursday, a day after at least two late-afternoon tornadoes shocked emergency officials with their suddenness and violence and caused the state's first tornado-related deaths in 16 years.
Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown joined Gov. Deval Patrick on a helicopter tour of the damaged areas, including Springfield, the state's third-largest city. Kerry said it looked like a "blast zone" and was confident that federal disaster aid would be made available, particularly because of damage to businesses.
Patrick said it was unbelievable that so much destruction was caused in such a short period of time.
"We have a real mess on our hands," he said. "People are badly shaken. There are folks who have lost everything."
Two people were killed in West Springfield, one in Springfield and another in Brimfield, Patrick said earlier. Public health officials said about 200 people sought medical treatment for storm-related injuries.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The Rev. Bob Marrone was pained to see the steeple of his 137-year-old church shattered and strewn on the grass in the central Massachusetts town of Monson, yet he knows he's more fortunate than some of his neighbors who lost their homes after tornadoes tore through the state, killing at least four people and injuring about 200.
"I can see the plywood of roofs, and see houses where most of the house is gone," said Marrone, pastor of The First Church of Monson. "The road that runs up in front of my house ... There's so many trees down, it's completely impassable."
Residents of 18 communities in central and western Massachusetts woke to widespread damage Thursday, a day after at least two late-afternoon tornadoes shocked emergency officials with their suddenness and violence and caused the state's first tornado-related deaths in 16 years.
Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown joined Gov. Deval Patrick on a helicopter tour of the damaged areas, including Springfield, the state's third-largest city. Kerry said it looked like a "blast zone" and was confident that federal disaster aid would be made available, particularly because of damage to businesses.
Patrick said it was unbelievable that so much destruction was caused in such a short period of time.
"We have a real mess on our hands," he said. "People are badly shaken. There are folks who have lost everything."
Two people were killed in West Springfield, one in Springfield and another in Brimfield, Patrick said earlier. Public health officials said about 200 people sought medical treatment for storm-related injuries.
TV Execs Admit a Liberal Agenda
The controversy is supposed to be that they are pushing their "agendas" but what we fail to notice is that they are right. We always act like this liberal/conservative argument is one of equals but it is not. The Liberal agenda is one of equality, inclusion & fairness. The CONservative agenda is one of inequality, exclusivity & "too bad you weren't born a white male .. sorry "!!
TV Executives Admit in Taped Interviews That Hollywood Pushes a Liberal Agenda
Some of TV's top executives from the past four decades may have gotten more than they bargained for when they agreed to be interviewed for a politically charged book that was released Tuesday, because video of their controversial remarks will soon be hitting the Internet.
The book makes the case that TV industry executives, writers and producers use their clout to advance a liberal political agenda. The author bases his thesis on, among other things, 39 taped interviews that he'll roll out piecemeal during the next three weeks.
The Hollywood Reporter obtained several of the not-yet-released clips. Each contains a snippet of an interview, usually some historical footage of the TV shows the interviewee was responsible for and, naturally, a plea to purchase the book, "Primetime Propaganda" by Ben Shapiro and published by Broad Side, an imprint of HarperCollins.
In one video, "Friends" co-creator Marta Kauffman says that when she cast Candace Gingrich-Jones, half-sister of Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as the minister of a lesbian wedding, "There was a bit of [a middle finger] in it to the right wing."
http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/tv-executives-admit-in-taped-interviews-that-hollywood-pushes-a-liberal-agenda--3086?mwp_success=NONJS_POST_SUCCESS#mwpphu-container
TV Executives Admit in Taped Interviews That Hollywood Pushes a Liberal Agenda
Some of TV's top executives from the past four decades may have gotten more than they bargained for when they agreed to be interviewed for a politically charged book that was released Tuesday, because video of their controversial remarks will soon be hitting the Internet.
The book makes the case that TV industry executives, writers and producers use their clout to advance a liberal political agenda. The author bases his thesis on, among other things, 39 taped interviews that he'll roll out piecemeal during the next three weeks.
The Hollywood Reporter obtained several of the not-yet-released clips. Each contains a snippet of an interview, usually some historical footage of the TV shows the interviewee was responsible for and, naturally, a plea to purchase the book, "Primetime Propaganda" by Ben Shapiro and published by Broad Side, an imprint of HarperCollins.
In one video, "Friends" co-creator Marta Kauffman says that when she cast Candace Gingrich-Jones, half-sister of Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as the minister of a lesbian wedding, "There was a bit of [a middle finger] in it to the right wing."
http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/tv-executives-admit-in-taped-interviews-that-hollywood-pushes-a-liberal-agenda--3086?mwp_success=NONJS_POST_SUCCESS#mwpphu-container
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Lowest Home Prices in 8 Years
Home Prices fall to lowest level in 8 Years according to S & P Case/Schiller
New York, May 31, 2011 – Data through March 2011, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that the U.S. National Home Price Index declined by 4.2% in the first quarter of 2011, after having fallen 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2010. The National Index hit a new recession low with the first quarter’s data and posted an annual decline of 5.1% versus the first quarter of 2010. Nationally, home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels.
http://www.standardandpoors.com/indices/sp-case-shiller-home-price-indices/en/us/?indexId=spusa-cashpidff--p-us----
New York, May 31, 2011 – Data through March 2011, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that the U.S. National Home Price Index declined by 4.2% in the first quarter of 2011, after having fallen 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2010. The National Index hit a new recession low with the first quarter’s data and posted an annual decline of 5.1% versus the first quarter of 2010. Nationally, home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels.
http://www.standardandpoors.com/indices/sp-case-shiller-home-price-indices/en/us/?indexId=spusa-cashpidff--p-us----
Ominous Day For Wall Street
June starts ominously for teetering Wall Street
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street ended a four-day rally with its worst session since August on Wednesday and could suffer more losses in coming days as investors faced more signs the economic recovery is fading.
All 10 Standard & Poor's sectors ended more than 1 percent lower and all 30 stocks in the Dow industrials fell. Banks were the biggest decliners as the economic reports painted a glum picture for jobs and manufacturing.
The recent four-day winning streak had some investors pointing to resilience in the market, but Wednesday's decline took the S&P through its 50-day moving average, leaving the market vulnerable to more losses.
According to ADP, U.S. private employers added a scant 38,000 jobs in May, the lowest since September 2010 and far below what had been expected. Several banks cut their forecasts for Friday's non-farm payroll report from the Labor Department.
"The ADP number suggests that we'll see a weak payroll report on Friday, and it's very possible that soon people will be reducing their GDP forecasts," said Tim Speiss, head of personal wealth advisers at EisnerAmper in New York. "We could see some additional contraction."
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street ended a four-day rally with its worst session since August on Wednesday and could suffer more losses in coming days as investors faced more signs the economic recovery is fading.
All 10 Standard & Poor's sectors ended more than 1 percent lower and all 30 stocks in the Dow industrials fell. Banks were the biggest decliners as the economic reports painted a glum picture for jobs and manufacturing.
The recent four-day winning streak had some investors pointing to resilience in the market, but Wednesday's decline took the S&P through its 50-day moving average, leaving the market vulnerable to more losses.
According to ADP, U.S. private employers added a scant 38,000 jobs in May, the lowest since September 2010 and far below what had been expected. Several banks cut their forecasts for Friday's non-farm payroll report from the Labor Department.
"The ADP number suggests that we'll see a weak payroll report on Friday, and it's very possible that soon people will be reducing their GDP forecasts," said Tim Speiss, head of personal wealth advisers at EisnerAmper in New York. "We could see some additional contraction."
The Next Bubble Is About to Burst
The Next Bubble Is About to Burst: College Grads Face Dwindling Jobs and Mounting Loans
Today's graduates face miserable job prospects, and experts say the student loan crisis could be worse than the credit card or housing bubbles.
It's the beginning of summer: warmer weather, longer days, the end of the school year. And that means graduation for thousands of young people across the U.S.; graduation with more student debt than ever before, and into a job market that is anything but promising.
Young people between the ages of 16 to 24 face an unemployment rate nearly twice that of the rest of the population, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute. 2010's 18.4 percent rate for youth was the worst in the 60 years that economists have collected such data. ColorLines notes that in 2010, 8.4 percent of white college graduates were unemployed, 13.8 percent of Latino graduates, and a dismal 19 percent of black graduates.
Those bright, shiny new degrees simply aren't worth the paper they're printed on all too often. The cost of a college degree is up some 3,400 percent since 1972, but as we all know too well, household incomes haven't increased by anything close to that number -- not for the bottom 99 percent of us, anyway.
Pell Grants for students have shrunk drastically in relation to the ballooning cost of a four-year college, and Paul Ryan wants to cut them even more, pushing some 1.4 million students into loans, more of which come each year from private lenders with little to no accountability.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/151149/the_next_bubble_is_about_to_burst:_college_grads_face_dwindling_jobs_and_mounting_loans_/
Today's graduates face miserable job prospects, and experts say the student loan crisis could be worse than the credit card or housing bubbles.
It's the beginning of summer: warmer weather, longer days, the end of the school year. And that means graduation for thousands of young people across the U.S.; graduation with more student debt than ever before, and into a job market that is anything but promising.
Young people between the ages of 16 to 24 face an unemployment rate nearly twice that of the rest of the population, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute. 2010's 18.4 percent rate for youth was the worst in the 60 years that economists have collected such data. ColorLines notes that in 2010, 8.4 percent of white college graduates were unemployed, 13.8 percent of Latino graduates, and a dismal 19 percent of black graduates.
Those bright, shiny new degrees simply aren't worth the paper they're printed on all too often. The cost of a college degree is up some 3,400 percent since 1972, but as we all know too well, household incomes haven't increased by anything close to that number -- not for the bottom 99 percent of us, anyway.
Pell Grants for students have shrunk drastically in relation to the ballooning cost of a four-year college, and Paul Ryan wants to cut them even more, pushing some 1.4 million students into loans, more of which come each year from private lenders with little to no accountability.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/151149/the_next_bubble_is_about_to_burst:_college_grads_face_dwindling_jobs_and_mounting_loans_/
Cellphone = Increased Cancer Risk
This won't get admitted very often & the science will always have some people on the other side saying there is nothing to worry about (Head-in-the-sanders, Polyanna types) ... but there have been many other correlations between technology & diseases ... including living next to power lines & increases in cancer in children ... also in UK it is against the law for a child to use a cell phone 10 & under ...
Cellphones a 'possible' carcinogen — like coffee
A respected international panel of scientists says cellphones are possible cancer-causing agents, putting them in the same category as the pesticide DDT, gasoline engine exhaust and coffee.
The classification was issued Tuesday in Lyon, France, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer after a review of dozens of published studies. The agency is an arm of the World Health Organization and its assessment now goes to WHO and national health agencies for possible guidance on cellphone use.
http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/ap/eu_med_cellphones_and_cancer
Cellphones a 'possible' carcinogen — like coffee
A respected international panel of scientists says cellphones are possible cancer-causing agents, putting them in the same category as the pesticide DDT, gasoline engine exhaust and coffee.
The classification was issued Tuesday in Lyon, France, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer after a review of dozens of published studies. The agency is an arm of the World Health Organization and its assessment now goes to WHO and national health agencies for possible guidance on cellphone use.
http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/ap/eu_med_cellphones_and_cancer
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