When Will Jobs Return
October 30, 2009
CNN Money
By Chris Isidore
The economy is growing again. So when are the jobs that go with growth going to get here?
Not anytime soon, unfortunately.
The consensus forecast is that job losses will continue through the end of this year, with many economists not expecting unemployment to peak until next summer. That will add to the 7.2 million jobs already lost in this downturn.
Even with Thursday’s report that showed the economy grew at a 3.5% annual rate in the third quarter, the continued job losses are not a shock.
Jobs are what are known as a trailing or lagging indicator, meaning that they change in response to other economic events, rather than predicting changes the way a leading indicator, such as the stock market, does. That’s because even after a recession has ended, employers are slow to add staff until they’re sure that demand has returned.
The real worry is that the deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression will be followed by a jobless recovery, just like what happened after the recessions in 1990-1991 and 2001.
50 Best Jobs in America
It took almost two years after the end of the 2001 recession before the economy started adding jobs on a consistent basis. And it wasn’t until February 2005 until the job market got back to the employment levels of four years earlier.
Some economists argue that the job losses in this downturn will prompt employers to start hiring at a rapid clip soon after the economy starts to improve.
“People cut so quickly that they cut things they shouldn’t have, not just fat but also muscle and bone,” said Robert Brusca of FAO Economics.
Many other economists were already looking for a tough labor market for at least the next year.
According to a survey by the National Association of Business Economics, the consensus forecast of 44 top economists is for an addition of only 12,000 jobs a month in the first quarter of next year.
The economists surveyed also indicated they don’t expect monthly job gains to top the 150,000 level — which is generally thought of as what is needed to keep pace with population growth — until the end of 2010.
And in the most troubling sign, more than a half of the economists surveyed said they didn’t expect a recovery to pre-recession levels in the job market until 2012 while a third said they didn’t believe a full job recovery would occur until 2013 or beyond. There are number of reasons for this pessimism.
Money to hire is tight
Small businesses are typically the engine of job growth, but their access to credit is still severely limited. That means that even if they’re confident about their future prospects, many small employers won’t be able to afford to add staff.
“Recessions that involve a financial crisis take a much longer time for there to be a jobs recovery,” said Heidi Shierholz, labor economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. “The credit crunch isn’t getting worse, but it’s still very tight.”
Columbia Wants Greater U.S. Military Presence
October 30, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 30, 2009
Guardian
By Associated Press
Colombia and the US today signed a pact to expand Washington’s military’s presence in the country.
The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, said the agreement was a threat to the region’s security.
The US ambassdor, William Brownfield, signed the deal with the Colombian foreign, justice and defence ministers at the foreign ministry in Bogota, Ana Duque, a US embassy spokeswoman, said.
Officials said the agreement would increase US access to seven Colombian bases for 10 years.
The Colombian foreign ministry said the pact “respects the principles of equal sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states”.
Chávez, who survived a 2002 coup attempt he claimed was backed by the US, warned that Washington could use the bases agreement to destabilise the region.
However, South America’s main power broker, the Brazilian president, Inacio Lula da Silva, dropped objections to the agreement after senior US officials visited to discuss it.
Colombia’s conservative president, Alvaro Uribe, told a regional summit in August that US military operations would be restricted to Colombian territory, where a 50-year-old leftwing insurgency, and violence related to drug trafficking, persist.
US anti-drug flights that have previously operated from Ecuador will be based at Palanquero, in the central Magdalena valley, and navy port visits will be more frequent.
Colombian and US officials said the pact would not increase the current limits of 800 military and 600 civilian contractors set by US law.
The leading US defence department official for Latin America, Frank Mora, told the Associated Press in August that there would be no “US offensive capacity”, such as fighter jets, operating from any of the bases.
However, construction to expand facilities at Palanquero is planned.
Under the terms of the pact, US military personnel will continue to have diplomatic immunity from prosecution. Some Colombians had objected to exempting them from local criminal jurisdiction.
Duque said the text of the agreement would be published in the US federal record within about a month.
Stimulus Money Going to Contractors Currently Being Investigated
October 30, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 30, 2009
Washington Post
By Kimberly Kindy
President Obama and members of Congress told federal agencies earlier this year to avoid awarding funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to contractors with troubled histories of work for the federal government.
But that isn’t happening at numerous agencies, a Washington Post analysis shows. So far, 33 federal departments and agencies have awarded more than $1.2 billion in stimulus contracts to at least 30 companies that are ranked by one watchdog group as among the most egregious offenders of state and federal laws.
Government records show that as a group, these contractors have sold defective products, manufactured safety tests, submitted false travel claims and padded contracts with fraudulent fees.
“Even a simple Google search could raise red flags about some contractors’ performance,” said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.).
Honeywell International, for example, is defending itself against a Justice Department lawsuit accusing it of selling defective shields for bulletproof vests to the Defense and Homeland Security departments, costing the federal government tens of millions of dollars. But that did not prevent the company from winning $2.9 million in stimulus contracts from the Air Force.
On a larger scale, UT-Battelle, a partnership of the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute, has been awarded 43 Recovery Act contracts worth more than $331 million by the Department of Energy for work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In every instance, competitive bidding rules were waived, but officials said the contracts were largely extensions of competitively bid work that was already underway at the site.
Obama explicitly warned against awarding contracts without competitive bidding in a memo released to agency heads weeks after he signed the act, saying they create “a risk that taxpayer funds will be spent on contracts that are wasteful, inefficient, subject to misuse.” (So far, half of the $16 billion awarded under the stimulus has gone to contractors that did not have to compete for the work.)
The administration followed up on Obama’s memo Tuesday, instructing agencies to cut contract spending by 7 percent in the next two years and hire at least 5 percent more contracting officers in the next five years to manage the large contracts. Agencies must also cut 10 percent of their “high risk” or non-competitive contracts this fiscal year.
UT-Battelle was cited in 2005 for serious nuclear safety violations at the former Cold War site. And last year, the inspector general cited the company for using $600,000 in federal money for unapproved expenditures on cigars, wine and gifts, including a pen with a built-in USB flash drive, given to guests at a scientific conference. Officials said the firm has resolved past problems and believes the Recovery Act awards were appropriate.
“UT-Battelle has worked with the Department to address any previous concerns that have been raised about the company,” Michael Bradley, a UT-Battelle spokesman, said in a statement.
The Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group, compiled data on Honeywell, Battelle and other contractors that have had legal or regulatory issues with federal agencies. For its analysis, The Post compared a list of companies receiving stimulus grants with POGO’s data and examined reports from the Government Accountability Office, court records from the Justice Department and other public documents.
In an attempt to curtail contract awards to companies with prior problems, Maloney last year authored a law that requires creation of a government database to track past performance.
The database would include civil and criminal actions in which the contractor lost. None of this information, however, would be made publicly available, and government officials would have to only log and check information. Nothing in the law compels them to use it when awarding contracts.
UBS Tax Probe Sends Man to Prison on Conviction
October 30, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 30, 2009
Breitbart
By Curt Anderson
A New York businessman who admitted hiding assets worth $8 million with Swiss bank UBS AG was sentenced to three months in prison for a Florida tax conviction.
Jeffrey Chernick’s attorneys had asked for only probation because his extensive cooperation led to charges against others involved with UBS. But U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn said Friday that the nature of the crimes warrant some jail time. Prosecutors had asked for a 9-month sentence.
Chernick, a 70-year-old toy salesman, is among seven former UBS clients charged in a broad U.S. investigation of Swiss bank secrecy. Prosecutors say more people will be charged. The bank has agreed to disclose the names of 4,450 wealthy Americans suspected of hiding assets.
U.S. Army – $13 Million Contract to General Dynamics for Grenade Machine Guns
October 30, 2009
Breitbart
General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products has been awarded a $13 million order by U.S. Army TACOM-ARDEC for the production of MK19 grenade machine guns. Deliveries are expected to begin in June 2010 and will be completed by late 2011. The order was made under a contract initially awarded in September 2008, and brings the total contract value to date to approximately $81 million. General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products is a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD).
According to General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products gun systems program manager, Jeffrey Gramse, “The MK19 has been in service for over 20 years, providing lethal fire against a variety of targets. The weapon’s accuracy and versatility provides the U.S. Armed Forces options for use in both offensive and defensive operations.”
Production work will be performed at General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products’ Saco, Maine, facility using its existing workforce. Program management will be performed in Saco with support from the company’s Burlington, Vt.-based Technology Center.
The General Dynamics facility in Saco is the company’s production site for single- and multi-barrel aircraft and crew-served weapon systems. The site provides complete production capabilities, from design and development to manufacturing, testing and integration.
General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Va., employs approximately 92,300 people worldwide. The company is a market leader in business aviation; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and information systems and technologies.
Record U.S. Fine for BP Over Safety Violations
October 30, 2009
Breitbart
British oil giant BP has been hit with a record 87-million-dollar fine for safety violations at a Texas refinery where 15 people were killed in a 2005 explosion, officials said Friday.
“This administration will not tolerate disregard for lives,” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told reporters in announcing the proposed fine to punish BP for both repeated and new violations.
“Unfortunately we have found the company still has not addressed many critical issues the company agreed to address” following the 2005 explosion, she said.
Inspectors found 270 cases in which BP failed to comply with agreed changes to its safety systems. They also found 439 new safety violations which “if unaddressed could lead to another catastrophe,” Solis said.
Several Congressmen Being Investigated by Ethics Comittee
October 30, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 30, 2009
The Raw Story
By Associated Press
Internal investigations into the conduct of several House members have been exposed in an extraordinary, Internet-era breach of security involving the secretive process by which Congress polices lawmaker ethics.
Revelations of the mostly preliminary inquiries by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — also known as the Ethics committee — shook the chamber as lawmakers were immersed in a series of scheduled votes Thursday.
The panel announced that it was probing two California Democrats — Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson — even as its embarrassed leaders took pains to explain that several other lawmakers also identified in the leaked confidential committee memo may have committed no wrongdoing.
The committee said it was investigating whether Waters used her influence to help a bank in which her husband owned stock, and whether the couple benefited as a result. Separately, the panel is looking into whether Richardson failed to disclose required information on her financial disclosure forms and received special treatment from a lender.
In the midst of a busy legislative day, ethics chairwoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., went to the House floor to announce that a confidential weekly report of the committee from July had leaked out in a case of “cyber-hacking.”
A committee statement said that its security was breached through “peer to peer file sharing software” by a junior employee who was working from home. The staff member was fired.
The July report contains a summary of the committee’s work at the time, but Lofgren said no inferences should be made about anyone whose name is mentioned.
Fox News – Mostly Not All News
October 30, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 30, 2009
The Raw Story
By David Edwards
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart tore into Fox News Channel Thursday, highlighting the extent to which he believes it serves as a communications arm for the Republican Party, and alleging that the line between Fox’s “opinion” programming and “news” programming aren’t as disparate as the channel claims.
“According to Fox, the weekday news programming — and this is according to Fox — runs from 9:00 to 4:00 p.m. and from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. for a total of nine newsy hours a day,” Stewart notes. “Let me, for the audience here, help you out.
“The three hours you spend in the morning with Fox and Friends, not news,” Stewart continues. “Your 4:00 to 5:00 post tea Neil Cavuto break, not news. The 5:00 and 6:00 emotional whirlwind and therapy session that is Glenn Beck, not even close to news. O’Reilly, Hannity and then van Social Security tern, not news.
“This is according to Fox News,” Stewart adds. “Those people, the ones featured in promos about how fair and balanced Fox News is are not news. These people, otherwise known as the only people you ever think of when you think about Fox News, are not news. They are Fox opinutainment.”
Politicians Debate: What’s a ‘Saved’ Job
October 30, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 30, 2009
USA Today
By David Jackson
Get ready for another debate over the meaning of a “saved job.”
Seeking to stay ahead of the unemployment story, the White House reports today that its $787 billion stimulus bill has created or saved 650,000 jobs; it also claims that when you count all the effects of the stimulus, particularly tax cuts, the bill has actually created or saved 1 million jobs.
According to a White House statement, “tens of thousands of state and local governments, private companies, colleges and universities and community organizations across the country submitted reports on how they have put Recovery Act funds to work through September 30th. ”
The Republican National Committee sent out a memo noting there is no way to define a “saved job,” but notes that since February the economy has lost more then 2.6 million actual jobs; the unemployment rate is now 9.8% and could crack double digits when new figures come out late next week.
“It is clear the Obama Administration is trying to cover up economic reality by manufacturing job numbers out of thin air,” said an RNC memo.
Behind these numbers, a political argument. The Obama administration says it inherited a bad economy, and that without acting, things would be even worse and those same jobs wouldn’t be there; they tout the recent spike in the economic growth rate, 3.5% between July and September.
Republicans say things aren’t getting any better and that the only thing the stimulus bill has contributed to the economy is a higher federal deficit.
White House Paints Better Picture on Stimulus Jobs Than Reality Proves
October 30, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
October 30, 2009
Google News
By Brett J. Blackledge & Matt Apuzzo
An early progress report on President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials promise will be corrected in future reports.
The government’s first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by least 5,000 jobs, or one in six, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts.
The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.
For example:
_ A company working with the Federal Communications Commission reported that stimulus money paid for 4,231 jobs, when about 1,000 were produced.
_ A Georgia community college reported creating 280 jobs with recovery money, but none was created from stimulus spending.
_ A Florida child care center said its stimulus money saved 129 jobs but used the money on raises for existing employees.
There’s no evidence the White House sought to inflate job numbers in the report. But administration officials seized on the 30,000 figure as evidence that the stimulus program was on its way toward fulfilling the president’s promise of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.
The reporting problem could be magnified Friday when a much larger round of reports is expected to show hundreds of thousands of jobs repairing public housing, building schools, repaving highways and keeping teachers on local payrolls.
But the White House promises many problems will be corrected in Friday’s report.
“I think you’ll see a pretty good degree of accuracy,” said Ed DeSeve, an Obama adviser helping to oversee the stimulus program.
DeSeve said the administration is aware of problems with the early data. Agencies have been working with businesses that received the money to correct mistakes. Other errors discovered by the public also will be corrected, he said.
