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On The Fed And WFPBruce KrasteringSeptember 9, 2012 The most disappointing element of Friday’s NFP report was the drop in Work Force Participation (WFP). This important measure of the labor force fell to a 31 year low. A look at the details shows that things are even worse than the headline report. Consider this chart of WFP for two groups; workers 22-55 (white) and those 55+ (brown). The lines crossed in 2002. The negative gap has widened every year. It’s fallen off the chart the past three years. . This chart describes a real crisis for America. The long term...

Despite his private sector experience, Gov. Mitt Romney's Massachusetts ranked a low 47th in job creation during his term. While Mitt Romney was governor, Massachusetts' population declined by3,000 people, with only 45,800 jobs added during Romney's four years in office - an anemic 1.4 percent job growth rate. At the same time, the U.S. as a whole experienced 5.3 percent job growth. Since Rick Perry has been governor, Texas, by comparison, has added 4.29 million people and 1.077 million jobs, an 11.3 percent job growth rate. During Perry's tenure, state job growth flourished despite two national recessions. At the same...

Boston’s Mayor Menino continues to pop his moron pills every morning, and local businesses continue to feel the consequences. The latest story involves the city’s soon-to-be-shut-down cigar bars.  Menino’s Department of Public Health has ordered the handful of cigar bars that haven’t already been driven out of business by ridiculously high taxes to shut down by 2018, anyway.Why is Boston closing popular, profitable private businesses? To “protect the workers,” a.k.a. “the people who choose to work there.”“Anybody working in a bar of any kind shouldn’t have to breathe in secondhand smoke in order to make a living,’’ said Michael Siegel,...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Unemployed Americans have collected $319 billion in jobless benefits over the past three years due to the federal government's unprecedented response to the Great Recession, according to a CNNMoney analysis of federal records. The cost of such benefits will be central to the heated debate in Congress in coming weeks over whether to extend this safety net for the fifth time this year. Lawmakers must act by Nov. 30 or two million people will start losing extended benefits next month.

The Senate on April 15, 2010, approved an $18 billion extension of eligibility for unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits in a vote of 59-38, but the amended measure, which was approved by the House on March 17, must return to the lower chamber for another vote before it can be signed into law. The Senate passed an amendment (S.A. 3721) offered by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) in the nature of a substitute to the House-passed Continuing Extension Act of 2010 (H.R.4851) that would extend unemployment benefits through June 2, 2010 (retroactive to April 5) and extend the...

How do fish get caught? They open their mouth. How do investors get ensnared or misled? They believe in non-existent phenomenons like a “jobless recovery.” Surprising as it is, for nearly a year, investors have shrugged off mounting jobless claims and rising unemployment as an ingredient that is not really required for an economic recovery. Yesterday’s (2-4-10) announcement by the Department of Labor that claims for unemployment benefits rose by 8,000 to 480,000 sent stocks spiraling. Does that mean that the trend of the “new bull market” in stocks has changed? Or are we in for further declines? The real...

When the BALLOON hits and they fall hard and fast, to what degree will it further devastate the American economy?

WASHINGTON - America’s payrolls grew by a rather tepid 56,000 in October, a sign that the nation’s job market is slowly regaining its footing after the beating administered to the Gulf Coast area by Hurricane Katrina. The unemployment rate dipped to 5 percent of the labor force. The latest snapshot released by the Labor Department on Friday offered fresh insights into the impact of Katrina, the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history. Importantly, job losses in September turned out to be just 8,000, according to revised figures. That was smaller than the 35,000 decline in jobs that was reported...