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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Regulators seized six more U.S. banks on Friday, bringing the tally of failures to 130 this year as the bank industry continues to suffer under the weight of deteriorating loans. Small banks are expected to continue to fail at an elevated pace through next year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, which protects bank accounts, has said the banking industry's recovery will lag behind the general economy. The economy showed some signs of brightening on Friday as a report showed U.S. employers cut far fewer jobs than expected last month in the best showing for the labor market...

President Barack Obama will extend his push to revive the U.S. economy next week with a speech outlining job creation ideas, from encouraging home insulation programs to diverting funds meant to rescue failing banks, officials said on Friday. With unemployment hovering around 10 percent, political pressure is building on Obama to do more to boost the economy after months of debate on overhauling the U.S. healthcare system and a months-long review of Afghan war strategy. The White House has not given specifics of Obama's strategy but U.S. officials said his proposals included incentives to homeowners to make their homes more...

Given the downturn's depth, some optimists think jobs will return quickly. They got some ammunition on Thursday, when new weekly claims for jobless benefits fell to a 14-month low. Payroll cuts, meanwhile, have steadily gotten less bad and could end soon. But fast-snapback hopes are countered by a mountain of data suggesting the recovery from this recession will be just as jobless as the prior two. The percentage of jobless workers on permanent layoff, with no hope of getting called back to work, is at a record 55.1%. A record 9.3 million are working part time because there's nothing else...

In recent months, there has been a good deal of discussion of change in the United States. Sadly, over the last two centuries, the direction in which this country has been changing seems to be away from liberty and towards more control. The present changes are hardly unprecedented and certainly not unforeseen. In this essay I will examine two authors, Hilaire Belloc and F.A. Hayek, who present a useful analysis of our present situation. In 1912, Hilaire Belloc published The Servile State, in which the Englishman prophesied that the world was moving to a reestablishment of slavery. This book made...

Bill reported earlier about a Global Warming/Hitler video which was released (10/3/2009) before the climategate scandal broke out: More Global Warming Fraud HumorA new improved video has been released to incorporate the climategate scandal. Version 2, is much better, imho.Hitler was behind global warming-climategateAlso, FoxNews reports:Comedy Central Scoops Network News on Climate-Gate Scandal Comedy Central Scoops Network News on Climate-Gate ScandalABC didn’t cover it. CBS didn’t either. And NBC apparently wouldn’t go near it.The network news broadcasts have ignored a growing scandal over evidence of a potential climate cover-up — and now they’ve even been scooped by the fake news...

Follow the bouncing ball: TARP, the trillion-dollar-plus banking bailout, has morphed from a toxic assets purchase plan to a capital injection plan, back to a toxic assets purchase plan, to a life insurance company bailout, to an auto supplier bailout. I’m sure I forgot more. Well, now the Democrats want to use it to bail out state governments and convert unused TARP bucks into…a government union slush fund.

It never ceases to amaze me how differently the Old Media treats Republican presidents compared to how they treat Democrat Presidents during times of unemployment reporting. Today, in the vaunted era of Obama, the unemployment numbers for November 2009 have come out and it shows some of the highest unemployment numbers since the Great Depression. Despite that the Old Media seems to be playing this as a sign of optimism. Such optimism was decidedly not in the cards when that same Old Media was reporting rates during Bush's years, however. Let's take two reports from The New York Times for...

Investment Profit Vehicles For The Intensifying Financial And Economic Storm Stock-Markets / Investing 2010 Dec 04, 2009 - 01:11 PM By: DeepCaster LLC “A Great Collapse. The U.S. economic and systemic solvency crises of the last two years are just precursors to a Great Collapse: a hyperinflationary great depression. Such will reflect a complete collapse in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity, a collapse in the U.S. financial system as we know it, and a likely realignment of the U.S. political environment. The current U.S. financial markets,...

If you still have a job, maybe Friday's numbers from the Labor Department will give you a chance to exhale. Since the recession began in December 2007, the employment market, for the most part, has been one negative headline after another. Now, we've learned that the U.S. lost only 11,000 jobs in November, that the unemployment rate surprisingly ticked down from 10.2% the previous month to only 10%, and that for the prior two months the total of jobs lost actually wasn't as bad as initially thought. The last time the data were so bright, if they can be called...

Glenn hosts a job summit - get real solutions from those who were not invited to obama's photo op summit yesterday! STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread. Join us won't you!

Just about every time the monthly jobs numbers comes out, economic research firm TrimTabs comes out and slams the government's methodology, usually honing in on the Birth/Death model of new businesses entering the market. This week is no exception. Frankly, we're not sure what to make of their arguments. We've been hearing about this Birth-Death issue for a long time, but unless you believe they're changing their methodology from month to month, then that issue only goes so far. We welcome your thoughts. ------------ TrimTabs’ Estimates 255,000 Jobs Lost in November, While BLS Reports a Decline of Only 11,000 BLS...

On the occasion of Ben Bernanke's bid to keep his job, Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute rips into the Fed governor, arguing that he's only getting to keep his job because he's one of the good boys on the inside. Video at site

Yesterday, I listened to President Obama say these words. Despite the progress we’ve made, many businesses are still skittish about hiring. Some are still digging themselves out of the losses they incurred over the past year. Many have figured out how to squeeze more productivity out of fewer workers. And that cost-cutting has become embedded in their operations and in their culture. That may result in good profits, but it’s not translating into hiring and so that’s the question that we have to ask ourselves today: How do we get businesses to start hiring again? From the perspective of an...

Our Current Economic Illusions Daryl Montgomery December 04, 2009 When reading economic statistics, you should see if they are consistent (they rarely are) and make sense based on real world observations (lately they don't). On Thursday, December 3rd the U.S. productivity numbers were released, as were same store sales and weekly unemployment claims. The stories these three pieces of data are telling are quite different, which means at least one and possibly two of them are not correct. Productivity in the U.S. is supposedly up astronomically. It rose by 8.1% last quarter and this is after being revised down from...

New Zealand Climate Scientists Faked Data, Too. From Anthony Watts at Watts Up With That The New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn’t there. The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain’s CRU climate research centre. In New Zealand’s case, the figures published on NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century [go to the link to see...

Our Annual Predictions For 2010. Good News And Bad News (Kitco)Roger WiegardDec 1 2009 1:54PM Will 2010 be a 1930 or, comparable to 1937? Is it different this time? When one nation state of a formerly high productive stature destroys itself with inflation, the untouched others can soften the blow and in time bail out the fallen one. This was Germany’s fate in the 1920’s. In our current instance, most all of the world’s economies are on their knees with some hurting worse than others. Who can help with recovery this time? There is no one. It will not be...

The hordes of Black Friday shoppers weren't enough to save retailers from dispiriting November sales, according to company data released Thursday. About 30 national chains reported monthly sales at established stores on Thursday, a key measure of the industry's health. Several chains, including Costco and J.C. Penney, performed worse than analysts expected. Retailers said that unseasonably warm weather dampened sales at the beginning of the month. In addition, shoppers saved their cash for post-Thanksgiving deals. "It was a month that disappointed us and, I think, the industry," said Michael Niemira, chief economist for the International Council of Shopping Centers, a...

FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures fell sharply on Friday, breaking below the $1,200-level, as the U.S. dollar surged against its rivals buoyed by data showing that unexpectedly few jobs were lost in November. Gold for December delivery fell to an intraday low of $1,186 an ounce in electronic trading on Globex. The contract was last down $31.20, or 2.6%, to $1,186.20 an ounce. Gold and the dollar have a very strong inverse correlation -- when the dollar gains, gold prices tend to fall. "The pullback is related to the dollar reaction to the jobs data," said James Steel, gold analyst...

[I] thought the slight shake up in Dubai was interesting [the other day]. Piddly little country couldn’t pay its tiny $60 billion debt, and the global marketplace shuddered. The Dow lost 160 points. What happens when we can’t print enough money, and no one will loan us anymore? What happens when the U.S. $100 trillion debt collapses? [analogy alert] In the early 1970s Eastern Airlines flight 401 suffered a slight mechanical failure in its landing lights. For four arduous minutes, the flight crew screwed around with the lights not noticing that the auto pilot had been inadvertently turned off. They...

On yesterday's "Jobs Summit": They're asking today, "Why aren't we creating jobs?" ... If you have a business, would you expand it if you didn't know what the rent was going to be? Would you hire employees if you had no idea what your income was going to be and what your taxes were going to be, what your rent's going to be, and what you're going to have to pay them? Would you hire any new employees right now on the verge of this health care debacle without knowing what that's going to cost you? Would you hire anybody...

Lately, Republicans have had a field day attacking the Obama administration for rising unemployment. The first Friday of every month, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the previous month's unemployment rate, has become a day Republicans eagerly look forward to and Democrats dread. In part, Democrats have themselves to blame. In promoting a big fiscal stimulus earlier this year, two of the administration's top economists, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, estimated that the unemployment rate would not go above 8% if stimulus were enacted. It has been well above that rate since February and is now above 10%. In...

Stocks Soar On Jobs Report By Melinda Peer 12/04/09 - 09:36 AM EST NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stocks broke out of the gate strong on Friday after U.S. job losses eased at a swifter pace than expected in November. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 101.65 points, or nearly 1%, at 10,467.8 at the start of trading on Friday. The S&P 500 added 12.19 points, or 1.1%, to 1112.11 and the Nasdaq gained 30.75 points, or 1.4%, to 2203.89. The U.S. economy lost 11,000 jobs in November, which was much better than the 125,000 job losses anticipated by...

When President Barack Obama launches a multicity tour Friday to take Main Street's temperature, he will likely get a cool reception from business leaders and workers here who say he hasn't delivered. Swing voters in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley helped Mr. Obama win this pivotal, populous state. But the region's jobless rate inched up another half percentage point in October to 9.8%. About 41,000 people are out of work, the highest number since 1984. Small businesses that power the economy here are starved for credit and laying people off. Stimulus dollars for roads, bridges, schools and social services are mired in...

JPMorgan's aggregate global manufacturing and services indicators both tell the same unfortunate story -- the global economic recovery slowed down in November. JPMorgan: "The global economic recovery continued in November, but a growth pause in services hit the overall rate of expansion. However, new business is still rising and this should support growth looking ahead. In addition, official activity data continue to advance, suggesting the underlying recovery remains intact." Yet while both the global services and manufacturing indices are slightly above the 50-level, which indicates continued expansion, it's clear that the up-trend in the data has lost steam. They also...

"Steve Novich of Jersey Street Furniture Rental in Clifton, N.J., arranging seating for the “Bring Your Own Business” party on Wednesday at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in West Orange, N.J. Gone were the lavish affairs of just a few years ago. Even scaled-down events were few and far between as the economy continued to sputter. That was basically the genesis for a different sort of holiday gathering: one event “shared” by a hodgepodge of smaller companies on limited budgets. Name tags, it seems, are a must accessory"

Today, the White House holds its “Jobs Summit” stunt. It’s typical Washington-think: Assemble interest groups and concoct special tax credits and handouts to the politically connected. What conceit. The political class think that economies revolve around them, that Washington makes things happen, that politicians are the most important players. Today’s Washington Post suggests that the way to create jobs is public spending by the federal government: Obama's options are limited, as the administration already has signaled that it is unwilling to make any investments that would add significantly to the nation's ballooning deficit. At least the Administration talks about the...

Over a thousand sensitive emails and documents from Britain’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia were published online in late November without CRU’s permission. Some of their content suggests that the data used to support the theory of human -caused global warming have not been accurately represented.[1] The leaked emails have surfaced in time for the United Nations summit on climate, set to commence in December. Most of the emails are mundane, but some contain dialogue between scientists about adjusting climate data to support the man-made global warming hypothesis. The university is currently investigating the information...

Recently Jim Robinson posted two threads declaring Free Republic’s determination to see Conservatives elected and ousting Rino's from government. Jim and a great many Freepers believe that we need to take back control. But the RNC is not hearing us. Activism is called for NOW. 2010 is nearing and we need Conservative candidates to run. The time is ripe and people are ready for another 1994 type election. But we need to make the RNC hear us loud and clear. This is the Rino Free America Project. Get involved. Make them listen. Write a letter and MAIL it. Republican...

(snip) “Why did I do this? I want my time to count. I want to be seen as someone who can solve a hard problem by working with my colleagues across the aisle. I want to do something that matters. I can’t think of a better use of my time than to work with Democrats and Republicans to break our dependency on foreign oil, to create jobs for our next generation of Americans that will never go to China. And yes, leave behind a cleaner planet.” (snip)

Even as CNBC, which seems to be unaware it is now under new ownership and can stop selling GE stock all day, every day (will Cramer be allowed to pump the worthless equities of competitor cable and satellite companies going forward? Inquiring minds want to know), could not stop praising the fabulous improvement in continuing claims which plummeted by a whopping 5,000 from 462k to 457k, one number that everyone ignored, is the explosion in Emergency Unemployment Compensation - yes, the same name for insurance benefits as they roll beyond their standard expiration horizon, and which the Administration is set...

I was curious to hear how the economy has been effecting everyone's lives and communities? Has your job been effected, or do you see empty strip-malls on your block? How are you handling the new troubles that come with such an economy?

Don’t Rule Out The Double Dip By Ian Mathias 12/03/09 Baltimore, Maryland – Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to their lowest level in over a year last week. Likely a precursor to their jobs report tomorrow, the Labor Department proudly announced that “just” 457,000 Americans filed for their first week of unemployment benefits. That’s the fifth straight week of decline, the lowest number since September 2008 and the second consecutive report under half a million… a sort of “Dow 10,000” headline grabber. It would appear that the jobs scene has suffered its worst: But what how does this same...

Join us for Ron Paul's view on Ben Bernanke's second term......STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread!

The Essence and Future of Texas vs. California by Tory Gattis 11/21/2009 I know there have been a lot of articles and references to Texas vs. California recently in this blog, but, well, there's a new one with some genuinely new contributions to the argument ("America's Future: California vs. Texas", Trends magazine, hat tip to Jeff). And it says some nice things about Houston too, so how can I pass on it? The beginning of the article is here - including an overview of both states' situations - but here are some key additional excerpts: ...Both the Brookings Institution and...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. retailers from Macy's to Costco posted much weaker-than-expected sales for November as shoppers focused only on big bargains at the start of the key holiday selling season. The Thomson Reuters same-store sales index rose 0.5 percent for the month, falling far short of Wall Street expectations for a 2.1 percent increase.

The original $787 billion Stimulus was sold as a jobs bill. Today President Obama will host a "Jobs Summit" and Congress is moving towards passing a second stimulus package. But the first stimulus bill did not work, and there is little reason to believe that a second round will be any more successful. During his weekly radio address on January 10, 2009, Obama promised that the economic stimulus' No. 1 goal was to create 3 to 4 million new jobs over the next two years: "Our first job is to put people back to work . . . ." He...

Dec. 3, 2009, 10:57 a.m. EST Services side of economy contracting again ISM non-manufacturing index falls to 48.7% By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The service sectors of the U.S. economy contracted in November after two months of expansion, the Institute for Supply Management said Thursday. The ISM's non-manufacturing index fell to 48.7% from 50.6% in October. Readings under 50% indicate more firms said business was worsening than said it was improving. Read the full report. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were expecting the index to rise to 51.5%. See our complete Economic Calendar and forecasts for this week's data....

WASHINGTON — Productivity surged in the third quarter by the largest amount in six years while labor costs fell. While that indicates inflation is remaining under control, it also signals that workers' wages are getting squeezed, raising doubts about the durability of the economic recovery. The Labor Department said Thursday productivity was rising at an annual rate of 8.1 percent in July-September period, the biggest jump since 2003, while unit labor costs were falling at a 2.5 percent rate. The productivity gain was revised down from an initial estimate of 9.5 percent made a month ago while the drop in...

Just breaking news.....

Politicians constantly need to create the impression that they're actually getting paid to do something. President Obama is no different. Today, the White House will host a Jobs Summit featuring 100-plus business leaders, union chiefs, academics, mayors and representatives of nonprofit groups. Obama's goal is to show he's serious about taking action on the backsliding economy and to convince the electorate that public activity means real policy action. I'll have to crash Obama's party, because summits are giant publicity stunts where loads of taxpayer money is spent on fancy backdrops, flower arrangements and so much glad-handing and back-slapping that the...

Colossal spending and regulatory programs impend, based on the Al Gore conventional hysteria that unreduced carbon emissions will destroy the earth. This will eventually be seen as one of the modern world’s most inexplicable descents into public-policy madness. The basic relevant facts are that carbon emissions are not the principal, nor even a measurable, factor in global warming, and despite dire forecasts and ever-increasing carbon emissions in the world — especially as the economies of China and India, representing 40 percent of the world’s population, expand by 6 to 10 percent each year — the world has not grown...

With Democrats joining Republicans in the Senate in saying that a public plan should not be a part of the final health care reform bill, attention has moved to the idea of keeping a public plan in reserve as a last resort if other reforms fail to work as advertised. The idea is that a "trigger" would implement a government-run public option in any state not achieving certain outcomes in a specific period. But while the trigger idea may seem like a reasonable compromise, it is unworkable and would actually slow down or undermine creative solutions to coverage gaps at...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may or may not be a viable 2012 presidential candidate, but the bowling industry is probably hoping she is at least a better bowler than President Obama. Palin will be giving the keynote address at the International Bowl Expo 2010 in June of next year, the Bowling Proprietors' Association of America (BPAA) announced today. Dubbed the bowling industry's "premier international convention," the expo will take place between June 27 and July 1 at the Las Vegas Hilton and Las Vegas Convention Center. Palin's keynote speech is slated for the morning of June 30. The BPAA...

There are three things everybody knows when we talk trash: 1.We know we're running out of landfill space; 2.we know we're saving resources and protecting the environment by recycling; and 3.we know no one would recycle if they weren't forced to. Let's look at these three things we think we know. Are they real or are they rubbish? 1. Are We Running Out of Landfill Space? Two events created the perfect garbage storm in the late 1980s. One barge and one bureaucrat created this overhyped myth. The garbage barge was the Mobro 4000. The bureaucrat was J. Winston Porter. The...

Unemployment Worsens, Climbs In Nearly Half Of U.S. Metro Areas Vince VenezianiDec. 2, 2009, 3:03 PM Despite all of our government's recovery efforts, it still can't get a grasp on the dampened job market. ------------- AP: Unemployment worsened or stayed the same in most metro areas in October, the Labor Department said Wednesday, as jobs remained scarce nationwide. The report comes a day before the Obama administration is to hold a "jobs summit" at the White House that will gather economists, academics and corporate executives to consider how the government can spur job creation. The jobless rate rose in 162...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. labor market improved in November, with private sector job losses declining for the eighth straight month and employers planning fewer layoffs, separate reports showed on Wednesday. Although employers are still shedding jobs, economists said the figures suggest the United States is on track to start adding jobs next year. A recovery in the labor market is considered key to a revival in U.S. consumer spending, which has typically accounted for roughly 70 percent of the country's economic activity. The Federal Reserve also saw glimmers of hope in the labor market in its latest Beige...

Does obama understand that we are in a fight to the death against radical islam? Hmmmm, does he have a clue? STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread

"WASHINGTON -- The economic recovery gained traction in the late fall as shoppers spent a bit more and factories bumped up production, according to a Federal Reserve survey released Wednesday. The Fed's latest snapshot of business barometers nationwide found that "economic conditions have generally improved" since the last report in late October. Eight of the Fed's 12 regions surveyed reported "some pickup in activity or improvement in conditions," the Fed said. Those regions were: Boston, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas and San Francisco. The other four regions -- Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond and Atlanta -- described conditions...

Private-sector firms in the U.S. eliminated 169,000 jobs in November, according to the ADP employment report released Wednesday. It was the fewest jobs lost since July 2008. The private-sector has shed jobs for 22 months in a row. In October, a revised 195,000 jobs were lost compared with the 203,000 originally reported, ADP said. Job losses peaked at 736,000 in March and have lessened every month since. "Although overall economic activity is stabilizing, employment usually trails economic activity, so it is likely to decline for at least a few more months," ADP said. Goods-producing jobs fell by 88,000 in November,...

For Richard Crane, the "new normal" in the labor market began when he was laid off from a New Jersey battery plant in the summer of 2006. Mr. Crane had been earning more than $100,000 a year operating heavy machinery at Delco, a former unit of General Motors. He worked there for 23 years, since graduating from high school. But when he lost his job he was thrust into a netherworld of part-time gigs: working the registers at Taco Bell, organizing orders at McDonald's, whatever he could find. "I thought it would be temporary," says Mr. Crane, 49 years old....