Free Republic

Doesn't look like it's going so well: WASHINGTON - Finding a job got much tougher last year, as the number of available openings fell by nearly one quarter. At the same time, the unemployed population soared by more than one-third, leaving more laid-off workers competing for fewer jobs. All told, there were 6.1 unemployed workers in December, on average, for every available position, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. That’s a sharp increase from 3.4 jobless workers per opening in December of 2008, and much worse than the 1.7 unemployed people per opening in December 2007, when the recession...

During World War II in the Pacific, many native tribes were astounded by their first contact with an advanced technological civilization, when the Americans would come in, clear a strip in the jungle, set up a control tower and loud giant silver birds would appear from the sky bearing canned food, trinkets, fuel and other supplies. After the war, the Americans went away for the most part, but the memories remained. Many of the natives, changed forever by the experience, decided to replicate it. They cleared their own strips, built control towers of thatch and palm, and waited for the...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will introduce a jobs bill on Tuesday that he said would have Republican support. Reid told reporters the bill would be introduced on Tuesday, and that it would include an extension of the tax breaks, known as tax extenders, that expired last year. “As of last night, there will be Republican support for this bill,” Reid told reporters. He added that he doesn’t foresee changes to the bill that would cause it to lose Republican support. Reid also said the jobs bill would include a renewal of the highway trust fund through December. Sen....

...In his first public comments since the release of President Barack Obama's proposed NASA budget last week, Mike Coats said the space center will have to find new missions besides the International Space Station to replace the waning space shuttle program and the seemingly doomed Constellation program... Of the 17,000 civil servants and contractors who are funded through Johnson Space Center's programs, 7,000 work under the shuttle and Constellation programs. ...Obama's proposed wholesale cancellation of Constellation — NASA's next-generation exploration program that entailed development of rockets to carry humans to orbit, the moon and beyond as well as a versatile...

Job openings fell by nearly one-quarter last year as layoffs also soared Finding a job got much tougher last year, as the number of available openings fell by nearly one quarter. At the same time, the unemployed population soared by more than one-third, leaving more laid-off workers competing for fewer jobs. All told, there were 6.1 unemployed workers in December, on average, for every available position, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. That's a sharp increase from 3.4 jobless workers per opening in December of 2008, and much worse than the 1.7 unemployed people per opening in December 2007,...

Employing a broad-based lobbying effort, the soft drink industry has smothered a plan to tax sugared beverages — a plan advocates said would have reduced obesity and helped finance health care reform. Only months ago, public health advocates thought the tax would be a natural for congressional Democrats looking for revenues to fund expanded health insurance coverage. The soaring costs of treating ailments related to excess weight — including diabetes and heart disease — added urgency to the issue. But the White House staff reviewing funding options never embraced the idea even after President Barack Obama expressed interest last summer....

Of the more than $2 billion the federal government has given out to boost the economy and create green-energy jobs, more than three-quarters has gone to foreign-owned companies that dominate the global wind-power industry. This latest finding by the Investigative Reporting Workshop, a nonprofit at American University in Washington, D.C., is illustrated clearly in San Diego County, where about a dozen commercial wind developers have offices. La Jolla is the headquarters for Eurus Energy America, the subsidiary of a Japanese firm that received $91 million in federal stimulus money for a wind farm in western Texas. It plans to apply...

State legislators are criticizing a $35 million bailout plan for the cash-strapped city of Lawrence, as Beacon Hill prepares to debate the proposal amid growing public outcry over the new mayor’s refusal to resign his state representative post. With the city nearing bankruptcy, a key legislative committee will launch discussions today of a measure that would allow Lawrence to take out millions in loans to repair its tattered finances, while appointing an outside overseer to help the city stabilize its budget. Facing a deficit of close to $25 million, the city is in danger of running out of money this...

Federal officials review Toyota Corolla complaints The Associated Press Tuesday, February 9, 2010; 11:54 AM WASHINGTON -- Federal safety officials say they will look into complaints from Toyota Corolla drivers about difficulty with the steering on their vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received about 80 complaints from drivers of 2009 and 2010 Corollas. Many say their cars can wander when they drive on the highway, making it hard to stay in lanes. NHTSA says it will determine if a formal safety investigation is warranted. But agency officials also stress that it is standard procedure to review the...

Facts are stubborn. Paul Krugman, a renowned economist turned New York Times columnist, is more flexible. But he has a lot to say about budget deficit facts. These days it’s hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we’re told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world.

"There is now a coordinated effort underway to demonize Anthem Blue Cross in California for raising rates. Obama singled the company out in a 60 Minutes interview over the weekend and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is playing dutiful attack dog, demanding that Anthem “justify” its rate hikes to the federal government:"

Finally, raising his voice over the din, Obama said loudly, "I'd like to hear what Senator McCain has to say, since we haven't heard from him yet." The room went silent and all eyes shifted to McCain, who sat quietly in his chair, holding a single note card. He glanced at it quickly and proceeded to make a few general points. He said that many members had legitimate concerns and that I had begun to head in the right direction on executive pay and oversight. He mentioned that Boehner was trying to move his caucus the best he could and...

DeepCapture has picked up something I've written about before, but none of these folks seem to put together the "big picture", as I outlined yesterday on my Blogtalk show. As Fiderer explains, Paulson asked the banks to create those CDOs “so that they could be sold to some suckers at close to par. That way, Paulson’s hedge fund could approach some other sucker who would sell an insurance policy, or credit default swap, on the newly minted CDOs. Bear, Deutsche and Goldman knew perfectly well what Paulson’s motivation was. He made no secret of his belief that the CDOs subordinate...

Marketers’ lack of confidence in the effectiveness of television spots is being reflected in smaller TV budgets, according to a fresh joint survey from the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research Inc. The report surveyed over 100 national advertisers whose budgets will stay flat this year; last year they allocated 41 percent of their media budgets to TV, compared with 58 percent in 2008. About 62 percent of the survey’s respondents said that TV ads have grown less effective in the past two years, citing clutter as the biggest challenge to commercial effectiveness. “As the overall marketing landscape is...

If you’re the President of the United States or one of his political appointees and you’re ideologically opposed to new oil and natural gas development offshore, what do you do when the public registers its overwhelming support for new drilling in public opinion polls?You dance, delay, and deceive. You speak melodious words about seeking the wisdom of the public in making these decisions and then ignore evidence of the public will when you get it, or worse, you hide it.First came the dance. In August 2008, after soaring gas prices and a dramatic shift in public opinion caused President Bush,...

The Coming Pan-European Soverign Debt Crisis Submitted by Reggie Middleton on 02/09/2010 05:12 -0500 Banks are the epicenter of the economic crises that face the developed and emerging nations over the last few years. The fact that governments worldwide have made the (generally unwise) attempt to bailout their big banks by transferring bad debts and liabilities from the private sector and bank investors to the public sector and taxpayers doesn't mean that the problem has been solved or even ameliorated. As a matter of fact, I believe the problem has now been amplified, for now we have effective increased the...

"Small business owners entered 2010 the same way they left 2009, depressed," said William Dunkelberg, NFIB chief economist. "The biggest problem continues to be a shortage of customers." ... Owners reported workforce reductions that average .52 workers per firm, basically unchanged for the past several months. Nine percent of the owners increased employment by an average of 3 workers per firm, but 19 percent reduced employment an average of 3.9 workers per firm (seasonally adjusted). ... still more firms planning to cut jobs than planning to add.

As the record federal budget deficit draws increasing scrutiny from Washington to Wall Street to Main Street, deficit hawks may take aim at entitlement programs including Social Security. And, the nearly 80 million Baby Boomers phasing into retirement will set in motion a dynamic that—if not addressed by Congress—could result in the next generation getting fewer benefits. However, despite fears that Boomers will trigger a collapse of Social Security, experts say the system can and will survive for decades and generations to come. Congress made significant fixes to Social Security during the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s, and there...

Businesses slashed wholesale inventories sharply in December, a much weaker showing than expected and a troubling sign that companies are still too pessimistic about the economy to begin restocking shelves on a sustained basis. Economists believe that the country won't be in a sustained recovery until businesses begin restocking their depleted shelves which will mean higher orders to factories and increased demand for manufacturing workers. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that wholesale inventories were reduced 0.8 percent in December. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected inventories to rise by 0.5 percent during the month.

Drivers have also started a Facebook group called Toronto Transit Operators against public harassment, mainly in response to a video recorded by a passenger last week showing a bus driver taking an unscheduled 7-minute stop outside a doughnut shop to get his nightly coffee. The driver was subsequently suspended. Another member of the group advises operators that if they see someone filming their actions, they should pull over and request police assistance: "You don't know why these people are recording your vehicle, you just know that they are not supposed to do it." The TTC's general manager, Gary Webster, then...

This looks pretty bad for both Goldman and Greece, as if things could look worse. According to a scathing piece in Der Spiegel, European statisticians in Luxembourg have had a very difficult time getting proper Greek economic and financial data for years. Worse yet, Goldman Sachs appears to have been helping Greece take advantage of a European regulatory loophole in order to understate its deficits: Der Spiegel:

With Washington, D.C. buried beneath at least 20 inches of snow, and with more in the forecast, common sense would suggest global warming alarmists look elsewhere to make the argument to raise awareness for their concerns. But no, Dylan Ratigan thinks it's ridiculous to suggest all the snowfall totals could cast doubt on the theory of anthropogenic global warming. On MSNBC's Feb. 8 "The Dylan Ratigan Show," Ratigan criticized those who would dare express misgivings about climate change based on the so-called "snowpocalypse." "Here's the problem - these ‘snowpocalypses' that have been going through DC and other extreme weather events...

Citi plans crisis derivatives Author: Laurie Carver Source: Risk magazine | 08 Feb 2010 Categories: Derivatives Topics: Citi, hedging, liquidity crisis bankrupt Credit specialists at Citi are considering launching the first derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis. The firm has drawn up plans for a tradable liquidity index, known as the CLX, on which products could be structured that allow buyers to hedge a spike in funding costs. Like the untraded US rates liquidity index (USRLI), the CLX is constructed as a sum of the Sharpe ratio – deviations from the mean divided by...

LONDON (Commodity Online): In the last few months, we have been reading predictions and forecasts from bullion analysts who insisted and argued that gold price is booming to touch $2,000, $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 per ounce in the coming years. These forecasts have caught people’s attention who have been pouring money into gold and other precious metals all these months. But after the big surge of gold price to $1,227 per ounce some two months back, the yellow metal has been climbing down the ladder of speculation. Despite speculators going on the 'boom-in-gold-price predictions', the yellow metal price has been sinking...

Daniel Rubin in today's Philadelphia Inquirer has exposed another egregious example of a prominent federal agency's absence of common decency and sense. This involved a businesswoman who wound up facing felony charges after a dispute stemming from her objections as to how screeners for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) handled her underwear during a private baggage screening at Philadelphia International Airport. She was acquitted of all charges. (snip) The TSA is the federalization of baggage screeners that occurred after 9/11. It was not wanted by the Bush Administration nor recommended by security experts but was insisted upon by leading Democrats...

The Panic of 2008 led to a sharp contraction in the U.S. economy last winter. But by midyear 2009, the U.S. economy got back on the growth path. Real GDP growth spiked 5.7% in the final quarter of 2009, the fastest pace since 2003. Despite this spike in growth and a drop in the unemployment rate, pessimism is still prevalent. Many economists argue that fourth-quarter growth was a function of inventory building, not real growth. This past weekend former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said the recovery in 2010 will be "trudging." We think these pessimists are wrong and that...

Voters are souring on the economy and the government’s remedies, according to February's IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index. It fell 4.1% to 46.8, matching December’s level and the weakest since July. “Persisting high unemployment and a wobbly stock market dampened January’s optimism,” said Raghavan Mayur, president of TIPP, IBD’s polling partner. Readings below 50 signal pessimism. Confidence in federal economic politics dived 7% to 38.3, the lowest since President Obama took office.

More than 70 years ago, Toyota entered the auto business based on a simple, but powerful, principle: that Toyota would build the highest-quality, safest and most reliable automobiles in the world. The company has always put the needs of our customers first and made the constant improvement of our vehicles a top priority. That is why 80 percent of all Toyotas sold in the United States over the past 20 years are still on the road today. When consumers purchase a Toyota, they are not simply purchasing a car, truck or van. They are placing their trust in our company....

Wake up investors. Are you prepared for the economic anarchy coming after a global-debt time bomb explodes? Are you thinking outside the box? Investing differently? Act now -- tomorrow will be too late. Start by looking past the endless cable skirmishes between Rush, Glenn, Bill and Shawn versus Harry, Nancy, Ben and Barack. Look way past the insurgency bonding Sarah and her diehard Tea Party revolutionaries with Ron Paul's Neo-Reaganite ideologues, Fat-Cat Bankers and the Party of No, all planning a massive frontal assault on the 2010 elections, hell-bent on destroying the presidency. All that's the sideshow. The Big One...

"The diversity of the Northland area is why the conglomeration of neighborhoods was chosen for an AEP Ohio demonstration project that calls for the installation of 110,000 "smart meters." The meters not only enable the company to bill customers for their power usage, but could allow customers to control the amount of their bill. An AEP customer service representative gave a presentation on the "gridSMART" project at last week's meeting of the Northland Community Council. Virtually all of the Northland area was included in the pilot program that covers 150 square miles and encompasses parts of Columbus, Gahanna, Whitehall, Bexley,...

BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- Vehicle sales in China last month more than doubled from a year earlier to 1.66 million units, a semi-official industry group said Tuesday. Passenger vehicle sales more than doubled to 1.32 million units in January, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in a statement without giving year-earlier figures. China's auto sales last year rose 46% to 13.6 million units, displacing the U.S. as the world's largest auto market.

JAL said Tuesday that it will keep its partnership with AA in the Oneworld Alliance and it rejected an offer from rival Delta Air Lines Inc. Both U.S. carriers have been offering financial support to JAL for greater coordination on routes and ticket prices, as well as revenue sharing. JAL is Asia's second-largest carrier in terms of annual customers and destinations. "We respect that this was an important decision for JAL and the government of Japan, and we believe they have made the right choice for JAL's many stakeholders, for Japan's national interests and for consumers traveling between Japan and...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- A faulty elevator was behind the shutdown of the observation deck on the world's tallest tower that effectively closed the half-mile-high Burj Khalifa to the public, witnesses and a Dubai rescue official said Tuesday. Visitors who were on the viewing floor at the time of Saturday's incident told The Associated Press they heard a loud noise, then saw what looked like smoke but turned out to be dust seeping out of the crack in one of the elevator doors. ... "What just kind of shocks me is that they were going to brush this under...

As the Senate this week considers a "jobs bill" to reduce unemployment, lawmakers will have to decide whether to continue an unprecedented change in how the country treats people who are out of work, which was quietly approved last year. Through a series of laws, including the $787 billion economic stimulus, people in states with high rates of unemployment are eligible to get jobless benefits for up to 99 weeks, an all-time high. But Congress did this in a piecemeal fashion, and it must pass legislation to keep benefits going for an estimated 1 million people who would otherwise become...

Despite the wrongheadedness behind the SEC's decision, some unintended good may come of it.

A small group of West African men who came to the Rockies in search of economic opportunity are embroiled in a dispute with Wal-Mart, accusing it of a raft of discriminatory actions. Most say they were dismissed because supervisors wanted to give their jobs to local people in need of work.

Washington- The Obama administration on Monday proposed a new agency to study and report on the changing climate. Also known as global warming, climate change has drawn widespread concern in recent years as temperatures around the world rise, threatening to harm crops, spread disease, increase sea levels, change storm and drought patterns and cause polar melting. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced NOAA will set up the new Climate Service to operate in tandem with NOAA's National Weather Service and National Ocean Service. "Whether we like it or not, climate...

The best stock market rally in 74 years may have ended on Jan. 19, the same day Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat held by Democrats for 57 years. We don't know yet whether the alarming move down in stocks since then is simply a correction or something more serious. But the coincidence of these two history-making events raises troubling questions—especially since a Republican resurgence, on the face of it, would seem to be good for business and good for stocks. [snip]Just 24 hours after Mr. Brown's upset win, the White House let it be known that...

If you are still sticking with your New Year’s resolutions, congratulations. If, instead, you are warily eyeing the layer of dust on your new elliptical machine, take heart: everyone has a hard time with their resolutions. Even presidents. Last year, Barack Obama made some headlines when he vowed to “get serious” about reducing the national deficit in 2010. But here we are at the beginning of February, faced with the fact that Congress just passed the biggest increase in the national debt in American history. In a move equivalent to calling up Visa and begging for an extension on a...

The gift given by the wise men to the baby Jesus probably came across the deserts from Oman. The BBC's Jeremy Howells visits the country to ask whether a commodity that was once worth its weight in gold could be reborn as a treatment for cancer.

Whoopee! There was a big drop in the unemployment rate for January. But if you look at the numbers closely the sound you'd hear is more Whoopee Cushion than cheering. According to the official Labor Department numbers, the jobless rate in the US dipped impressively from 10.0 percent in December to 9.7 percent in January. Since I have kids who need jobs, there is nobody in this country who'd be more happy to leave it just like that -- the recession is over, employment is on the way up. But I'll share with you some discoveries that a few inquisitive...

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel about the president's proposed health care reform summit today, asking if the "President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over so that we can develop a bill that is truly worthy of the support and confidence of the American people?" Referencing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius telling Sam Stein of the Huffington Post that President Obama is “absolutely not” resetting...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called studies supporting global climate change a "bunch of snake oil science" Monday during a rare appearance in California, a state that has been at the forefront of environmental regulations. Palin spoke before a logging conference in Redding, a town of 90,000 about 160 miles north of the state capital. The media were barred from the event, but The Associated Press bought a $74 ticket to attend. Palin said California's heavy regulatory environment makes it difficult for businesses to succeed, a point that is shared by many business leaders in the state. She criticized what...

Over the weekend, a Marion, Va., cop became the third local police officer charged – in less than a month – with driving under the influence. Sgt. Shawn Levont Conklin, 39, of Glade Spring, Va., was arrested Friday evening and charged with driving while intoxicated, first offense, and refusal to submit to a breath test. According to a news release from the Virginia State Police, Conklin ran his 1998 Volkswagen off the road around 7 p.m. and got stuck in a snowy yard in the Thomas Bridge section of Smyth County, outside of Marion. The Smyth County Sheriff’s Office responded...

At a crucial stage in the Democratic primaries in late 2007, Barack Obama rejuvenated his campaign with a barnstorming speech, in which he ended on a promise of what his victory would produce: “A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again.” Just over a year into his tenure, America’s 44th president governs a bitterly divided nation, a world increasingly hard to manage and an America that seems more disillusioned than ever with Washington’s ways. What went wrong? Pundits, Democratic lawmakers and opinion pollsters offer a smorgasbord of reasons – from Mr Obama’s decision to devote his first...

China's sovereign wealth fund has lifted the veil on its U.S. securities holdings, revealing more than $9.6 billion of holdings in about 60 U.S. companies. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday, China Investment Corp. said it had spread its investments among a wide variety of index funds and blue-chip companies such as Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Visa, Pfizer and Apple.

ELIZABETHTON — A Saturday afternoon incident between five boys and an Elizabethton Police Department police dog led to the death of the dog on Sunday. Three boys were treated for dog bites at the Sycamore Shoals Hospital Emergency Room. The dog, Yoris, was a Belgian malinois and was a two-year veteran of the Elizabethton Police Department. He was euthanized on Sunday after suffering numerous injuries, including knife stabbings. Yoris was the partner of K-9 officer Shane Darling. Darling was in Florida over the weekend on family business when Yoris somehow got out of his kennel. The dog apparently wandered onto...

Harry Reid To Hit Up California For Cash February 8, 2010 Congress may not be in the mood to do much to help California out of its budget mess, but that isn't stopping prominent lawmakers from looking to the state to keep their campaign coffers full. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will make the rounds this month. Fundraiser invitations obtained by the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation show he'll be hitting up donors for cash at a breakfast at the luxurious Fairmount Hotel in San Francisco, hosted by the son of former mayor Joseph Alioto, as well as a cocktail party in...

Loud laughter followed Palin’s references to “lame-stream media” and jeers accompanied every reference to global warming. Enthusiastic boos followed a reference to Nancy Pelosi. She endeared herself to the logging conference crowd by holding her hand up to show what was written on the palm of her hand: “Loggers rock!” - an apparent dig at “lame-stream media” who recently ridiculed her for writing memory prompts on her hand. And toward the end of her talk she complimented logging industry folks when she referred to an administration that talks about green jobs. “You guys were doing green jobs before green jobs...

In all the coverage lately given to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its embattled chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, one rather important part of the story has largely been missed. This is the way in which, in its obsession with climate change, different branches of the UK Government have in recent years been pouring hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money into a bewildering array of "climate-related" projects, often throwing a veil... --snip-- Then why should DfID have paid £30 million to assist "climate change adaptation in Africa"; or £2.5 million for the same in China? Why...