Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Thanksgiving To All VDARE.COM Readers! “Thank God There’s No More Of Us.”











Friday, November 18, 2011

Why Full Employment Is Required to Sustain a Society That We're Proud to Live in


from alternet.org
by Eileen Appelbaum/for Boston Review
This article is part of Back To Full Employment, a forum on the possibilities for full employment in today’s economy.
Robert Pollin makes a compelling case for the centrality of full employment to the creation of a decent society, to the ability of individuals and families to live with dignity rather than despair, and to the overall health of an economy in which consumer spending is key to sustained growth. His capsule history of economic thinking on the causes of unemployment and the tradeoff between employment and inflation -- from Marx to Milton Friedman to Gösta Rehn -- is informative, and his main policy recommendations are difficult to argue with: increase employment in the United States by shifting $330 billion in annual spending from the military and fossil-fuel sectors to public and private investments in education and clean energy for a net gain of 4.8 million jobs.
I do have one quarrel with the analysis. Pollin observes the low unemployment achieved by the U.S. economy in the late 1990s despite globalization and accepts this as evidence that the United States doesn’t have to address its trade deficit to achieve full employment. But this was possible only in a bubble scenario. With a high trade deficit, either the public or private sector (the latter, in the 1990s example) must incur debt in order to maintain high employment. Reducing the trade deficit is essential to sustaining full employment without a repeat of bubble boom and bust.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Occupy Wall Street costs local businesses $479,400!

Last Updated: 1:26 PM, November 13, 2011
Posted: 12:52 AM, November 13, 2011

     It makes no cents.
     The Occupy Wall Street movement has cost surrounding businesses $479,400 so far, store owners said.
     A Post survey of a dozen restaurants, jewelry shops, beauty salons, a chain store and mom-and-pop establishments tallied almost a half-million dollars lost in the 53 days since the Zuccotti Park siege began on Sept. 17.
     “We’re done with them!” barked one Broadway business owner. The restaurateur -- who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals -- said his profits drained as soon as campers moved in.
     “My customers used to take food to eat in the park, but now they can’t,” he lamented.
     With clogged streets, aggressive signs and stories of predators and criminals lurking among the knot of protesters, business owners and managers say shoppers are not taking the risk of coming to the area.
    “They think the protesters are violent,” said Jewelry 21 manager Danny Nia.
     It’s worst on Saturdays, when protesters parade up and down Broadway all day long, the businesses said.
     “When they march on the sidewalk, everyone runs away,” said Mike Rauach, owner of VIP Men’s Suits on Broadway. “They kill business.”
     Some businesses have suffered higher staffing costs. Stubborn occupiers, for example, often hold impromptu meetings inside coffee shop Pret a Manger, forcing workers to stay hours past closing time.
     “They’d keep asking for 20 minutes, 20 minutes,” one worker complained.
     And the coffee shop has lost loyal customers who now can’t find a place to sit.
     “But we can’t tell [OWS protesters] to leave,” the worker added.
     The movement costs the dozen businesses just over $9,000 a day.
     That figure doesn’t include money spent on toilet paper, cleaning supplies and repairs, businesses said, as the tent dwellers turn bathrooms into personal washrooms.
     On two separate occasions the owner of the Essex World Cafe has rolled up his gate to find someone had defecated on it overnight.
     “It must be a good place for them to hide,” the owner cringed.
     Next door at Ho Yip, a Chinese restaurant, filthy clothes and underwear carpet the bathroom floor, the manager said.
     “I have to pick it up,” the manager groused.

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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Washington spars over government regulations



 @CNNMoney October 27, 2011: 5:17 PM ET


     NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Onerous government regulations are either strangling the U.S. economy and killing job creation ... or they're not.
    
     In Washington, there is no middle ground.

     On Monday, the White House called the idea that an uncertain regulatory environment was holding back hiring a "commonly repeated misconception."
     If new regulations were a significant drag, the consequences would show up in data that measure business profits, workforce trends and investment levels, the government contends.
     But that's just not happening, the Treasury Department said
     Republicans offered up their own evidence on Thursday, railing against "massive amounts of red tape raining down from the administration."

Regulation: Not the job killer GOP says

     In a blog post, Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee cited a Gallup poll in which 22% of small business owners identified complying with government regulations as the most important issue they face.
     "One of the biggest failures of the Obama Administration is its determination to rely upon theoretical academics rather than listen to those who deal with the reality of the administration's actions," the blog post said.


Monday, November 7, 2011

Jobless rate drops to 9.0% (updated)

Rick Moran
November 4, 2011

     I guess when you're at the bottom, any positive news is cause for hope.

     Or, if you're a partisan and need to spin anemic job numbers to make it appear that the economy is "gaining some momentum," it makes perfect sense that you would willingly put lipstick on a pig and take the sow to the prom.
     Unfortunatately, you're only fooling yourself.
Reuters:

U.S. employment rose less than expected in October, but a drop in the jobless rate to a six-month low of 9.0 percent and upward revisions to prior months' job gains pointed to a strengthening labor market.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 80,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, missing economists' expectations for a gain of 95,000.
However, figures for August and September were revised to show 102,000 more jobs than previously reported. In addition, the decline in the jobless rate from 9.1 percent in September came even as more people entered the labor force.
While job growth last month was less than expected, details of the report suggested the economy was gaining some momentum.
"It's not a game-changer but when you take into account the upward revision to prior months and the drop in the unemployment rate, it's a step in the right direction," said John Canally, an economist at LPL Financial in New York.
"It's about in line with the growth you're seeing in the economy but it's not enough to break us out of the range we're in."
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