Heartland Coin Gallery

HEADLINE Economic, Financial & Global News...
every weekday, to keep you better informed.

Monday 09.05.2011 - Labor Day

Labor Day 2011: What Are We Celebrating?
The Lack Of Jobs In America?
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
If you still have a good job, you certainly have something to celebrate on Labor Day 2011. So far you have survived the decline of the U.S. economy. But your day may be coming soon. This weekend, there will be millions of Americans that will not be doing any celebrating. They are not enjoying a break from their jobs because they don't have any jobs. In fact, it seems kind of heartless for the rest of us to be celebrating while so many of our countrymen are destitute. What are we celebrating on Labor Day 2011? The lack of jobs in America? At this point, the U.S. economy closely resembles a gigantic game of musical chairs. Every time the music stops, even more good jobs are pulled out of the game and even more workers are added. Once upon a time, if you really wanted a job in America you could get one. But now the competition for even the most basic jobs is absolutely brutal. If you gathered together all of the unemployed people in the United States, they would constitute the 68th largest country in the world. It would be a nation larger than Greece. All of those unemployed people are not going to be taking trips with their families this holiday weekend. Instead, most of them are going to be trying to figure out what to do with their shattered lives.

Unemployment on Labor Day ... read the stats
10 Eye-Popping Labor Day Stats
By Andy Kroll - MotherJones.com
Labor Day was created more than 100 years ago to celebrate the might, ingenuity, and achievements of American workers. But for many, this year's holiday is a painful reminder of how few good jobs are out there. To mark this Labor Day weekend, here's a roundup of 10 eye-popping statistics on the American jobs crisis. It's a sobering snapshot of the issue that worries Americans morethan any other—and which hangs over President Obama as he gears up for his big jobs speech on Thursday (not to mention his reelection campaign).
25.3 million Americans: The true size of the unemployment crisis. This figure includes people who are out of work, forced to work part-time, or unable to find a full-time job, as well as those who want to work but have given up searching for a job in the past month, most likely out of frustration.

U.S. regulators close 2 small Georgia banks
By Andrew Ackerman
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. regulators announced the failure of two banks in Georgia Friday, the 69th and 70th bank closures this year across the country.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Patriot Bank of Georgia, in Cumming, and CreekSide Bank, in Woodstock, were closed. Georgia Commerce Bank, based in Atlanta, agreed to take over both banks as part of a purchase-and-assumption deal with the FDIC.
Patriot Bank had about $150.8 million in total assets and $111.2 million in total deposits. CreekSide Bank had $102.3 million in assets and $96.6 million in deposits. Patriot Bank had one branch and CreekSide Bank had two.

Postal Service Is Nearing Default as Losses Mount
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE - NYTimes.com
The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.

"Our situation is extremely serious," the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in an interview. "If Congress doesn’t act, we will default."

In recent weeks, Mr. Donahoe has been pushing a series of painful cost-cutting measures to erase the agency’s deficit, which will reach $9.2 billion this fiscal year. They include eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal locations and laying off 120,000 workers — nearly one-fifth of the agency’s work force — despite a no-layoffs clause in the unions’ contracts.

U.S. said ready to sue big banks over mortgages
FHFA to seek billions; Fed reportedly eyes B. of A. contingency plan
By William L. Watts and Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A federal U.S. agency is ready to sue more than a dozen major banks, arguing that they misrepresented the quality of mortgage securities they put together and sold in the run-up to the bursting of the housing bubble, according to a published report.
The New York Times reported Friday that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees government-seized mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is expected to seek billions in compensation. The lawsuits are expected to be filed in federal court Friday or Tuesday.

Bank of America, JPMorgan
Among 17 Banks Sued by U.S. for $196 Billion
By Bob Van Voris and Patricia Hurtado - Bloomberg.com
Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) were among 17 banks sued by the U.S. to recoup $196 billion spent on mortgage-backed securities bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, filed 17 lawsuits yesterday in New York state and federal courts and in federal court in Connecticut. The FHFA accuses the banks of misleading Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about the soundness of the mortgages underlying the securities.
"The loans had different and more risky characteristics than the descriptions contained in the marketing and sales materials provided to the enterprises for those securities," the FHFA said in a statement.

Endgame: When Debt is Fraud,
Debt Forgiveness is the Last and Only Remedy
We hold this to be self-evident: When Debt is Fraud, Debt Forgiveness is the Last and Only Remedy.
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
Today I present an important guest essay by long-time contributor Zeus Yiamouyiannis, who suggests that when debt is essentially fraudulent, then debt forgiveness is both the logical and the only remedy. In case you missed his previous analyses on oftwominds.com, I list some of Zeus's previous essays at the end of the entry.
Endgame: When Debt is Fraud, Debt Forgiveness is the Last and Only Remedy, by Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D., copyright 2011.

Nevada Wallops Bank of America With Sweeping Suit
by Paul Kiel, ProPublica - ukprogressive.co.uk
This post has been updated to reflect Bank of America's response.
The state of Nevada dramatically expanded its lawsuit against Bank of America today, turning the narrow case it filed late last year into a broadside that targets virtually all aspects of the bank’s mortgage operations. Bank of America has previously denied wrongdoing.
The sweeping new suit could have repercussions far beyond Nevada's borders. It further jeopardizes a possible nationwide settlement with the five largest U.S. banks over their foreclosure practices, especially given concerns voiced by other attorneys general, New York's foremost among them.

Federal Housing Finance Agency sues 17 banks over mortgage bonds
The U.S. regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac accuses the banks of negligence in misrepresenting the risks embedded in the securities sold to the home-finance giants.
By E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times
In the latest government effort to recoup mortgage meltdown losses, the federal regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Macsued 17 banks over mortgage bonds that were sold to the giant home-finance companies during the housing boom and proved to be toxic.
The lawsuits, filed late Friday in New York federal and state courts and Connecticut federal court, for the most part accused the banks of negligence in misrepresenting the risks embedded in securities backed by subprime mortgages and other risky loans. Some of the lawsuits, filed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, also alleged fraud against some of the banks.

Robo-signing more extensive
Questionable documents muddy property ownership
By Pallavi Gogoi - The Washington Times
NEW YORK — Counties across the United States are discovering that illegal or questionable mortgage paperwork is far more widespread than first thought, tainting the deeds of tens of thousands of homes dating to the late 1990s.
The suspect documents could create legal trouble for homeowners for years.
Already, mortgage papers are being invalidated by courts, insurers are hesitant to write policies, and judges are blocking banks from foreclosing on homes. The findings by various county registers of deeds have also hindered a settlement between the 50 state attorneys general who are investigating big banks and other mortgage lenders over controversial mortgage practices.

World Economy Hanging By A Thread
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA - FinancialSense.com
It’s not just the U.S. economy that is throttling growth back to stall speed but the global economy as a whole. One of the most powerful big picture concepts that has taken place over the last decade is globalization, the interconnectedness of the world economy, and right now it's skating on thin ice. While the U.S. may have been the fire starter with its subprime crisis back in 2007-2008, this time it may be the Euro crisis that pulls the global economy underwater. The heart of the matter in the Eurozone and other developed economies is too much debt relative to their productive output—a situation set to intensify as a slowdown in growth (shrinking economies) exacerbates the debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratios as it becomes more difficult to service debt with shrinking revenue.

IMF: global economy faces a 'threatening downward spiral'
The International Monetary Fund has called on the US and Europe to abandon fiscal austerity and switch to stimulus measures, warning that the global economy faces a "threatening downward spiral".
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Christine Lagarde, the IMF's managing-director, said the outlook had darkened suddenly over the summer.
"There has been a clear crisis of confidence that has seriously aggravated the situation. Measures need to be taken to ensure that this vicious circle is broken," she said.
"The spectrum of policies available is narrower because a lot of ammunition was used in 2009. But if governments, institutions and central banks work together, we'll avoid recession," she told Der Spiegel.

German endgame for EMU draws ever nearer
For fifty years Germany has invariably stumped up the money required to keep Europe’s Project on track, responding to unreasonable demands with grace and generosity.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
It bankrolled French farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy, that disguised tithe for war reparations. It then bankrolled Spanish farmers as well.
It funded each new wave of EU expansion, though reeling itself from the €60bn annual cost of its own reunification. It gave up the cherished D-Mark, the anchor of German economic stability.
We are so used to German self-abnegation for the sake of Europe that we can hardly imagine any other state of affairs. But the escalating protest against EMU bail-outs by Germany’s key insistutions go beyond the banalities of money. The fight is over German democracy itself.

Greek bailout program hits new roadblocks as IMF,
E.U. officials break off talks
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
International negotiators unexpectedly halted talks meant to release the next round of emergency loans to Greece as the country’s increasingly complex bailout program threatened to founder on several fronts.
Greece’s recession is deepening, and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said at a news conference in Athens on Friday that it may last through next year — despite forecasts from the International Monetary Fund and others that growth would resume. As a result, the country may miss the targets for lowering government deficits included in a joint IMF and European Union bailout.

Sir Mark Allen: the secret link between MI6, the CIA and Gaddafi
Former counter-terrorism chief is the only British intelligence officer named so far named in the Tripoli files
By Richard Norton-Taylor - Guardian.co.uk
The key figure behind secret co-operation between western spy agencies and the Gaddafi regime – and the only British intelligence officer so far identified in the documents discovered in Tripoli – is Sir Mark Allen, formerly MI6's director of counter-terrorism.
A Middle East expert – he wrote a book entitled Falconry In Arabia – Allen left MI6 in 2004 in the wake of the row over the Iraq weapons dossier to join BP, for which he later helped arrange lucrative oil and gas contracts in Libya.

Sept Fed policy: Will there be $2000 gold & $45 silver?
By Renisha Chainani, Edelweiss - CommodityOnline.com
The first week of August, 2011 saw the world financial markets tumbling like a house of cards, the trigger being the US debt downgrade by credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's. Financial markets continued to demonstrate large volatility with equities, risky assets and commodities (except for gold) tumbling and bonds rallying.
For many markets, August’s savage sell-off has been the worst since the October following Lehman Brothers’ implosion and investors diversified into havens such as high credit government bonds and gold.
The fact that the US and European economies are down in the dumps is obvious enough. But almost three years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a massive dosage of stimulus packages, debate still prevails as to whether the global economy is on its path to recovery or is likely to sink into another recession; having said that, more than one indicators point to the latter scenario.

RON PAUL INTERVIEW ON GOLD TO CNBC 30 AUG 2011

$1,500 or $2,000 Gold?
BY JULIAN PHILLIPS - FinancialSense.com
For the last week and more gold has been on a roller coaster moving between $100 and $200 each way until now where it is hovering above $1,800. A broad spectrum of analysts points to $1,500 or above $2,000. With gold currently just above $1,800 we are around the half-way point for each move. The move each way would represent a move of just over 16%, which is not deeply significant in today’s gold world except for the trading fraternity; there is more, however, beneath these moves than meets the eye!

Silver may accelerate to $50 on strong price channel support
By Deepak Rangan - CommodityOnline.com
With Gold prices taking a tumble, investor interest is now turned to silver. After a strong consolidation in May-June,Silver prices have formed a trading channel, providing profitable opportunities to open new positions in the metal.
The chart below shows the long term support, the short term support (blue lines) and also the current price channel (red).
THE FUNDAMENTALS
-Silver fundamentals are extremely bullish, particularly since gold prices crashed and investor interest might turn to silver which has been in a consolidating phase.

September: Strong US dollar, consolidation in gold, higher Oil
NEW YORK (Commdoity Online): After one wild August where financial markets have swung like a bamboo raft in a pacific storm, we enter the September trading series. Traditionally September has been negative for stocks. And considering the current economic scenario, history might well repeat itself.
Let's however take a look at Gold, Oil, Dollar and S&P 500 and try to determine what September might be holding in store for its unwary investors.
The US Dollar
The dollar is forming a strong support at around 73.50 as shown in the picture below. Break down will inevitably cause a massive sell off- meaning falling dollar. However, the pattern in generally a bullish one -a break upwards will result in a strong dollar.

Dollar Rises Against Euro on Merkel Election Defeat,
U.S. Slowdown Concern
By Masaki Kondo and Monami Yui - Bloomberg.com
The dollar rose against all of its major counterparts on speculation European nations will struggle to contain the region’s debt crisis, spurring demand for the world’s reserve currency.
The euro slid to a three-week low versus the yen after an election loss for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party in her home state added to concern opposition is growing to bailouts for debt-saddled European nations. The Swiss franc held a three- day gain against the euro as Asian shares extended a global rout and before a U.S. report that may show growth in the service sector slowed in August.

Renminbi may replace dollar in Sino-African trade
In a sign of China’s growing influence as Africa’s largest trading partner and investor, Standard Bank estimated that up to 40%, or $100bn, of China’s trade would be denominated in renminbi by 2015.
SURE KAMHUNGA - BusinessDay.co.za
BUSINESS Unity SA’s (Busa’s) new CEO, Nomaxabiso Majokweni, takes a cautious tone at the start of her tenure at the contested organisation. With good reason, too.
With barely time to find her desk at Busa's Sandton office, Ms Majokweni has to shepherd her organisation — the country’s main business lobby group — through a period of change more fundamental than any other it has faced since it was founded in 2003.
Next week, she attends the Black Business Consultative Council, a gathering of black business organisations triggered by the high-profile walkout from Busa in July of the Black Management Forum (BMF).

Peter Schiff on Goldseek Radio - Aug. 31, 2011

Bad News Is Bad News, for Banks and for Stocks
By Mark Gongloff - AP - WSJ.com
So it turns out bad news is bad news, at least when the bad news comes at you in a flurry from all sides.
An awful jobs report and more bad news out of Europe conspired to drive the Dow down more than 250 points, not far from its lows for the day, wiping out all of the gains this week. The Dow’s biggest losers today were Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard, J.P. Morgan, Alcoa and Caterpillar.
The S&P fell 2.5%, and the Nasdaq lost 2.6%.
Bank of America, which fell 8.3% and is now just 26 cents a share away from its closing price the day before the Warren Buffett rescue, led S&P 500 financials down 4%, the worst performance in the broad index.

About Those Falling Interest Rates
and the Fallacy of Monetary Deflation at the Zero Bound
Liquidity Trap, Straight Up, with a Twist
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
I think we are all familiar with the recently popular viewpoint that as the financial economy crashed, what people called 'money destruction' would follow. Well actually the destruction of credit which some considered the same as money, as money itself. There were many detailed and complex thought experiments to explain why this must happen, involving monetary theories.
This would result in a much stronger dollar, since in fewer dollars would result in an outsized dollar demand, especially to pay off debt, a simple equation resulting from what might best be described as pidgin monetarism, favored heavily by non-economists, using what passes for common sense. Unfortunately these are uncommon times.

US warns 10 Swiss banks to hand over information on tax cheats
The US government has warned 10 Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse, that they must hand over confidential information exposing tax cheats by tomorrow or face legal proceedings.
By Jamie Dunkley - Telegraph.co.uk
US deputy attorney general James Cole has written to the Swiss government demanding that detailed figures relating to tax evasion at Credit Suisse and nine other smaller Swiss banks are sent this week.
In the letter, which was quoted by Swiss newspapers, Mr Cole demands that Switzerland deliver a significant number of client accounts, adding that US authorities are ready to test a Swiss offer to settle the dispute under existing law.
A long-term tradition of secrecy has helped Switzerland build up a $2 trillion (£1.2 trillion) offshore financial industry. However, the country has agreed to do more to help hunt tax cheats in recent years amid a global crackdown on tax havens following the financial crisis.

QE3 no silver bullet for markets
By Edward Krudy - Reuters.com
(Reuters) - Friday's jobs report that showed hiring in the United States unexpectedly ground to a halt in August is increasing speculation the U.S. Federal Reserve will move to stimulate the economy. But will it help stocks?
Fed action -- if it happens -- is no longer viewed as the elixir for the stock market it once was.
Wall Street tumbled over 2 percent on Friday as investors fretted more about the economic outlook rather than looking ahead to another round of Fed bond buying.

Wall Street Banks: Too Big To Blame For Subprime?
Submitted by EconMatters - ZeroHedge.com
Goldman Sachs has historically been one of the more bullish investment houses on Wall Street, but the firm has recently taken a dark macro view. The Wall Street Journal reported on Sept. 1 that Goldman issued a 54-page report sent to their institutional clients on August 16th arguing that as much as $1 trillion in capital may be needed to shore up European banks; that small businesses in the U.S., a past driver of job production, are still languishing; and thatChina’s growth may not be sustainable.
The trading ideas suggested by Goldman,

"....a fancy option play that offers a way to take a bearish position on the euro, and a bearish bet through an index of insurance contracts on the credit of European financial stocks."

Bernanke's Next Easing May Not Do Much
to Aid 14 Million Jobless Americans
By Jeannine Aversa and Craig Torres - - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will probably try to spur economic growth this month by cutting near-record-low borrowing costs, economists said. His new stimulus may not aid the 14 million Americans without work.
Hiring stalled in August in the worst month for U.S. employment in almost a year, the Labor Department said yesterday. The unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.1 percent.
The Fed may decide at its Sept. 20-21 meeting to replace short-termTreasury securities in its $1.65 trillion portfolio with long-term bonds in a bid to lower rates on everything from mortgages to car loans, said economists at Wells Fargo & Co., T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., Barclay’s Capital Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The Fed’s influence on the economy will probably be muted as sagging consumer confidence, depressed home values and 6 million workers unemployed for six months or more weigh on demand.

Why The Full Faith And Credit Of Governments
Is Inferior To Real Assets And How We Can Fix It Once And For All
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
I used to think like a statist, and I used to agree with them. It's appealing to redistribute wealth, especially when it's not fairly achieved. But what I've realized is that the solution to creating distortions in the market is not to create more distortions by attacking the symptoms. What ends up happening when you do that is that you create a hugely complex set of rules and regulations that hinder the market, make it inefficient and most importantly makes it ripe for abuse via regulation in favor of those who make the right campaign donations to the right politicians. This is the situation we find ourselves in now: A very broken market setup to benefit those who've made the right political moves. On the other hand, you can simply end the sole cause of the problem to begin with. That sole problem is bad monetary policy. You might say that we should replace everyone in charge of the Federal Reserve with the "right" people. But even if you were able to do that, it's really a temporary fix. So how do we fix this? Sound money, debt forgiveness and a truly free market that isn't guided by the hand of the government and is instead determined by what the aggregate investor pool thinks is the right direction. Gordon Gecko was wrong overall, but he was right that greed is good. The profit motive is the key to good decisions and long-term thinking. That doesn't mean we need to be miserly dickheads who only care about ourselves, but self-enrichment and the unfettered ability to be as successful as possible is the only route to a truly higher standard of living.

Money: How to Get It and Keep It
BY DOUG CASEY - FinancialSense.com
Even if you are already wealthy, some thought on this topic is worthwhile. What would you do if some act of God or of government, a catastrophic lawsuit or a really serious misjudgment took you back to Square One? One thing about a real depression is that everybody loses. As Richard Russell has quipped, the winners are those who lose the least. And as far as I’m concerned, the Greater Depression is looming, not just another cyclical downturn. You may find that, although you’re far ahead of your neighbors (you own precious metals, you’ve diversified internationally and you don’t believe much of what you hear from official sources), you’re still not as prepared as you’d like.
I think a good plan would be to approach the problem in four steps: Liquidate, Consolidate, Create and Speculate.

10 Years After 9/11, Is America A Better Place?
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
What is the true legacy of 9/11? Unfortunately, it may be how the American people have responded to that event. 10 years after 9/11, is America a better place? Sadly, the answer clearly is no. In the ten years that have passed, a fundamental shift in our culture has occurred. The American people have eagerly given up large amounts of liberty and freedom in exchange for vague promises of increased security. We were once the land of the free and the home of the brave, but now we are the land of the scared and the home of the slave and we seem to like it that way. Most of us don't even remember how to act like Americans anymore. American culture has moved so far in the direction of communist China, the USSR and Nazi Germany that it is absolutely frightening. When most of us were growing up, we were taught that the enemies of America were "totalitarian police states" that did not give liberties and freedoms to their people. Well, today nearly everything that we do is watched, monitored, tracked and tightly controlled. 10 years after 9/11, the American people are living in fear, the federal government is run by control freaks and paranoia has become standard operating procedure. What we have allowed to happen to this nation is absolutely shameful.

The Last Haven Standing
BY PETER D SCHIFF - FinancialSense.com
The markets are going through another sell-off phase, yet the traditional notions of a 'safe haven' are changing. No longer is the US dollar the default shelter; instead, gold, the Swiss franc, and the Japanese yen are the preferred assets.
All three of these havens - gold, francs, and yen - have been surging upward this month. Two of them, however, are being actively devalued by central banks desperately (and foolishly) trying to curtail appreciation. The Swiss and Japanese are enlisting both policy measures and all the banker-speak they can muster to stem the tide of investment flows into their currencies.

The Limping Middle Class
By ROBERT B. REICH - NYTimes.com
THE 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases, according to the latest research from Moody’s Analytics. That should come as no surprise. Our society has become more and more unequal.
When so much income goes to the top, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without sinking ever more deeply into debt — which, as we’ve seen, ends badly. An economy so dependent on the spending of a few is also prone to great booms and busts. The rich splurge and speculate when their savings are doing well. But when the values of their assets tumble, they pull back. That can lead to wild gyrations. Sound familiar?

As workforce ages,
industries struggle to prepare for wave of retirements
By Jason Alcorn and Jason Tomassini - WashingtonPost.com
Within a year of Johnney Pollan's retirement, Dow Chemical asked him to come back. This time as a contractor.
With his pension after 31 years of work and his health-care benefits, he and his wife were living comfortably in East Texas. And he could devote more time to his hobby, archaeology.
But he answered the call, and his retirement plans have been put on hold — for more than a decade now. Pollan was one of a few hundred people skilled in a propriety language used to run processes at Dow’s plants. Many of them retired at once, and the company was caught in the lurch.

AMR Faces Union Stalemate in Bid for $800 Million Labor Savings
By Mary Schlangenstein - Bloomberg.com
AMR Corp. (AMR)'s American Airlines, saddled with the U.S. industry's highest labor costs, now faces contract negotiations stalled so badly that federal mediators have walked away from the talks.
A stalemate with three unions is thwarting American's bid to chop what it says is an $800 million-a-year disadvantage to rivals in labor expenses. Pilots say "considerable gaps" remain as they meet with executives at a rural Texas resort this week to assess what to do next in bargaining that began in 2006.

Unemployed face tough competition: underemployed
The unemployed will face tough competition from the underemployed once economy improves
Paul Wiseman and Christopher Leonard, AP Business Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The job market is even worse than the 9.1 percent unemployment rate suggests.
America's 14 million unemployed aren't competing just with each other. They must also contend with 8.8 million other people not counted as unemployed -- part-timers who want full-time work.
When consumer demand picks up, companies will likely boost the hours of their part-timers before they add jobs, economists say. It means they have room to expand without hiring.

Overworked America: 12 Charts that Will Make Your Blood Boil
Why "efficiency" and "productivity" really mean more profits for corporations and less sanity for you.
By Dave Gilson - MotherJones.com
Want more rage? We've got eleven charts that show how the superrich spoil it for the rest of us.
In the past 20 years, the US economy has grown nearly 60 percent. This huge increase in productivity is partly due to automation, the internet, and other improvements in efficiency. But it's also the result of Americans working harder — often without a big boost to their bottom lines. Oh, and meanwhile, corporate profits are up 20 percent.

Hiring standstill points to growing recession risk
Employers added no jobs in August, signaling economy is still at risk of another recession
Paul Wiseman and Christopher S. Rugaber, AP - Yahoo.com
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Employers added no jobs in August -- an alarming setback for the economy that renewed fears of another recession and raised pressure on Washington to end the hiring standstill.
Worries flared Friday after the release of the worst jobs report since September 2010. Total payrolls were unchanged, the first time since 1945 that the government reported a net job change of zero. The unemployment rate stayed at 9.1 percent.

Employers add zero net jobs in August;
rate unchanged at 9.1 percent
By Christopher S. Rugaber- AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Employers stopped adding jobs in August, an alarming setback for an economy that has struggled to grow and might be at risk of another recession.
The government also reported that the unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent. It was the weakest jobs report since September 2010.
Stocks tumbled on the news. The Dow Jones industrial average sank 245 points soon after trading began.
A strike by 45,000 Verizon workers lowered the job totals. Those workers are now back on the job.

Demand for Food Stamps Remains High
By Sara Murray - WSJ.com
The number of Americans receiving food stamps dropped in June from declining disaster assistance, but there’s still little sign of waning demand for the food assistance program.
Food stamp rolls declined by 0.5% in June to a still-high 45.2 million, the Department of Agriculture said Friday. It was the first decline since October 2008 and likely reflects declining disaster assistance to states like Alabama rather than improvements in household finances.
Alabama was hit by tornadoes in late April that sent the number of food assistance recipients soaring in May. Because disaster-assistance declined in June, it lowered the national tally. The number of recipients in the food stamp program, formally known as theSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), may continue to rise in coming months as families continue to struggle with high unemployment and other natural disasters.

Black unemployment: Highest in 27 years
By Annalyn Censky @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The August jobs report was dismal for plenty of reasons, but perhaps most striking was the picture it painted of racial inequality in the job market.
Black unemployment surged to 16.7% in August, its highest level since 1984, while the unemployment rate for whites fell slightly to 8%, the Labor Department reported.
"This month's numbers continue to bear out that longstanding pattern that minorities have a much more challenging time getting jobs," said Bill Rodgers, chief economist with the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

Bankruptcy usually doesn't erase student loan debt
When saddled by debt, talk with a bankruptcy attorney before filing to discuss your situation and find out whether you are 'judgment proof.'
By Liz Weston - Money Talk - LATimes.com
.... Bankruptcy could wipe out your credit card debt but probably won't erase your student loans. Student loan debt usually can't be discharged in bankruptcy unless you're totally and permanently disabled. Since you've been looking for work, that doesn't seem to be your situation.
Besides, filing for bankruptcy costs money that you probably don't have. A Chapter 7 filing can easily cost $1,500.
What you might want to do instead is discuss your situation with a bankruptcy attorney to find out if you might be "judgment proof." If you are, your creditors can still sue you, but they'll be unable to collect — at least until your circumstances improve.

N.C. tobacco and cotton crops pummeled by Irene
In one county, farmers who had expected great harvests face a grim reality after the hurricane. Their fields have been shredded, with wilting leaves on stalks angled by winds.
By Jay Price - LATimes.com
Reporting from Craven County, N.C.— Before Hurricane Irene smacked his tender tobacco plants sideways, David Parker was headed for a terrific crop, maybe his best in 32 years of farming.
Now, as Parker rushes to save a few acres of shredded leaves before they rot on the dying stalks, the math looks different.
"I've never had a year I didn't make money farming, but I think this will be the one that gets us there," he said last week, driving up a dirt road between a beaten-down cotton field and a 17-acre patch of dejected-looking tobacco.

A decade after the 9/11 attacks,
Americans live in an era of endless war
By Greg Jaffe - WashingtonPost.com
This is the American era of endless war.
To grasp its sweep, it helps to visit Fort Campbell, Ky., where the Army will soon open a $31 million complex for wounded troops and those whose bodies are breaking down after a decade of deployments.
The Warrior Transition Battalion complex boasts the only four-story structure on the base, which at 105,000 acres is about twice the size of Washington, D.C. The imposing brick-and-glass building towers over architecture from earlier wars.

Cheney: U.S. would be different if Hillary Clinton were president
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t president, but former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that if she were in theWhite House rather than Barack Obama, then things might be different today in the country.
Mr. Cheney wouldn't get into specifics, but he said that "perhaps she might have been easier for some of us who are critics of the president to work with."

Quake strikes off Alaskan coast
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck Friday off the coast of Alaska, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The Geological Survey initially measured a 7.1-magnitude quake, but later downgraded it slightly. It was 22 miles deep, the Survey reported.
The earthquake occurred 120 miles east-southeast of Atka, Alaska, in a sparsely populated part of the Aleutian Islands known as the Fox Islands. The epicenter was 1,030 miles west southwest of Anchorage, the Geological Survey said.

Unseemly Scrabble for Libya’s Post-Gaddafi Oil Assets Underway
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
While NATO members, led by France, piously proclaimed at the onset of their military offensive in Libya that their concerns were solely humanitarian, a covert tussle to gain a commanding lead in developing the country’s energy riches in light of Colonel Gaddafi’s departure is well underway.
The Libyan economy depends primarily upon revenues from the oil sector, which contribute about 95 percent of export earnings, 25 percent of GDP, and 80 percent of government revenue.
Prior to the outbreak of conflict, Libya was exporting about 1.3-1.4 million barrels per day from production estimated at roughly 1.79 million barrels per day, of which approximately 280,000 barrels per day were indigenously consumed. But analysts believe that with reconstruction Libya could soon be exporting 1.6 million barrels per day of high-quality, light crude.

Jihadists plot to take over Libya
U.S. steps up surveillance of suspects among rebels
By Bill Gertz-The Washington Times
Jihadists among the Libyan rebels revealed plans last week on the Internet to subvert the post-Moammar Gadhafi government and create an Islamist state, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.
U.S. officials said spy agencies are stepping up surveillance of Islamist-oriented elements among Libyan rebels. A government report circulated Tuesday said extremists were observed "strategizing" on Internet forums about how to set up an Islamist state in Libya after the regime of Col. Gadhafi is defeated.

air car ? why not in u.s.a.? can you power a car on air ?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Heartland Coin Gallery - Economic & Financial News Headlines

2621 N. Greenwich Road - Suite 300
Wichita, Kansas 67226
(North of K-96 on Greenwich)

(316) 858-3050

HEADLINE Economic, Financial & Global News...
every weekday, to keep you better informed.

Heartland Coin Gallery - Economic & Financial News Headlines

HEADLINE Economic, Financial & Global News... every weekday, to keep you better informed.

HEADLINE Economic, Financial & Global News...
every weekday, to keep you better informed.