Charlie Rangel Steps Down

March 3, 2010

MSNBC

Rep. Charles Rangel stepped aside as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday, saying he was temporarily giving up the gavel because he didn’t want his ethics controversy to jeopardize election prospects for fellow Democrats.

The 20-term Harlem congressman held a news conference on short notice, telling reporters, “My chairmanship is bringing so much attention to the press, and in order to avoid my colleagues having to defend me during their elections, I have this morning sent a letter” asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “to grant me a leave of absence until such time as the ethics committee completes its work.”

Rangel’s return is far from assured with the House ethics committee is still investigating serious allegations of wrongdoing.

The 79-year-old Rangel’s predicament was another jarring setback for President Barack Obama and majority Democrats in Congress, coming at a time when the party is scrambling to save sweeping health care overhaul legislation while still assessing a surging anti-incumbent fervor among the voters. Congress must also address billions of dollars in tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, an issue that could be greatly influenced by the chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

Pelosi issued a statement Wednesday acknowledging Rangel’s request for a leave. “I commend Chairman Rangel for his decades of leadership on jobs, health care, and the most significant economic issues of the day,” she said…

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U.S. Economy Is In Shambles

February 23, 2010

The Vancouver Sun

By Harvey Enchin

It has been one year since U.S. President Barack Obama signed the $787-billion stimulus bill, the Recovery Act, to lift the U.S. out of recession, and threw an additional $50-billion lifeline to American homeowners facing foreclosure. The package was subsequently enriched and is now estimated at $862 billion, while the pledge to stem foreclosures has risen to $275 billion.

“One year later, thanks to the Recovery Act, we can stand here again and say that a second depression is no longer a possibility,” Obama said in marking the anniversary last week.

Oh no? Take another look at the numbers.

After all that spending — actual and committed (Congress passed an additional $155 billion in aid in December) — claims of job creation and economic growth remain highly suspect. The U.S. economy has shed more than eight million jobs since the recession began, and losses continue with 20,000 fewer jobs in January alone. A White House advisory council forecast that the economy will create 95,000 jobs per month this year. For forecasters, the year is not off to a good start. Unless the job generator shifts into a higher gear, one analysis concluded, it will take more than seven years to replace the jobs lost since 2007.

The U.S. Labor Department recorded 473,000 new jobless claims last week, up from 442,000 a week earlier, while the number of people on extended benefits (those who have exhausted the regular 26 weeks of benefits) rose by 274,000 to six million. The official unemployment rate eased to 9.7 per cent in January from 10.1 per cent in October, but few believe the Obama administration’s boast that the stimulus has generated nearly two million jobs. According to a recent CBS News/ New York Times poll, only six per cent of Americans think the stimulus has created any jobs at all, and public support for the plan has dropped from 55 per cent in June to 38 per cent.

If the stimulus package has created jobs, they are in the public sector, displacing jobs that could have been created more efficiently in the private sector, costing taxpayers far more for each job than the sum of salary and benefits. That’s what happens when capital is diverted from productive endeavours that create wealth to government spending programs that dissipate it.

Beyond the jobs front, things are even worse. Loans in foreclosure now represent 4.6 per cent of all mortgages, and the number of mortgages more than 90 days overdue has climbed to 5.1 per cent.

A Congressional panel reported earlier this month that half of approximately $1.4 trillion in commercial loans coming due over the next four years are under water, and hundreds of small-and mid-sized banks face insolvency. It warned of an impending commercial real estate crisis with property values down 40 per cent since 2007 and 18 per cent of office space sitting vacant.

The move last week by the Federal Reserve to raise its emergency loan rate looked more like public relations than economic policy, an attempt to signal that GDP growth — seen at three per cent this year and four per cent in 2011 — is real and that inflation remains a threat. But strip out energy prices and consumer prices fell 0.1 per cent in January, the first month of deflation since 1982.

Underlying the economic gloom is a national debt of $12.4 trillion. Obama, apparently unfazed, signed a law this month that raised the limit on public debt to $14.3 trillion. Government debt now amounts to more than $40,000 for each American, $113,000 for each taxpayer. Given its ballooning budget deficit, which is seen at $1.6 trillion this year, or 10.6 per cent of GDP — a post-Second World War record — it’s difficult to see how the administration can put its fiscal house in order without massive spending cuts. But with soaring health care costs, an aging population, the environmental agenda, military commitments and more Obama-inspired social initiatives, spending cuts are unlikely.

China has indicated its lack of confidence in the crumbling U.S. economy by unloading $34.2 billion in U.S. bonds in December, relinquishing its status as the largest holder of U.S. foreign debt to Japan. As U.S. debt grows, so too does pressure on the interest rate on bills and bonds used to finance it. Rising debt service costs, perhaps accompanied by a downgrade from global ratings agencies, would help expose the phantom recovery for the charade it is.

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Western Cities Ranks Higher In Well-Being Index

February 16th, 2010

USA Today

By Susan Page

Feeling down? You might consider a move to Boulder, Colo.

A massive new study of Americans’ attitudes concludes that the city at the foot of the Rocky Mountains is home to the happiest, healthiest people in the United States. At the bottom of 162 large and medium-sized cities: Huntington, W.Va.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, based on interviews with more than 353,000 Americans during 2009, asked individuals to assess their jobs, finances, physical health, emotional state of mind and communities.

“Most of our highest-scoring cities are found out West and most of our lowest-scoring cities are in the South,” says research director Dan Witters. Wealthier communities typically score higher.

Residents of large cities — those with a population of 1 million or more — generally report higher levels of well-being and more optimism about the future than those in small or medium-sized cities. In small cities, at 250,000 or less, people are more likely to feel safe walking alone at night and have enough money for housing.

The study provides a city-by-city portrait of the nation’s mood and a potential tool for policymakers.

Nine of the 10 cities that fare best on “life evaluation,” assessments of life now and expectations in five years, boast a major university, a big military installation or a state Capitol — institutions that presumably provide some insulation from recession.

Overall, the top 10 cities include four in California, two in Utah and one each in Colorado and Hawaii. Of them, only the Holland, Mich., and Washington, D.C., metro areas are located in the Eastern or Central time zones.

Many of the bottom 10 are in economically embattled regions. Three are in the Alleghenies and three in the Rust Belt. Only Shreveport, La., and Modesto, Calif., are west of the Mississippi.

Boulder’s setting, including a greenbelt of public lands around the city, may help explain its top ranking, Mayor Susan Osborne says. “We tend to have lots of opportunities for being outside,” she says. The jobless rate is 5.7%, below the nation’s 9.7%.

In his annual “state of the city” address Saturday, Huntington Mayor Kim Wolfe said budget cuts and layoffs were needed for his city to deal with the economic downturn. The city’s jobless rate is 7.8%.

There are some places where people seem naturally upbeat. Baton Rouge is 44th overall, but in “life evaluation,” the Mississippi River city is first.

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U.S. Jobs Bill Won’t Add Many Jobs

February 10th, 2010

Yahoo

By Stephen Ohlemacher

It’s a bipartisan jobs bill that would hand President Barack Obama a badly needed political victory and placate Republicans with tax cuts at the same time. But it has a problem: It won’t create many jobs.

Even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation’s centerpiece — a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers — would work only on the margins.

As for the bill’s effectiveness, tax experts and business leaders said companies are unlikely to hire workers just to receive a tax break. Before businesses start hiring, they need increased demand for their products, more work for their employees and more revenue to pay those workers.

“We’re skeptical that it’s going to be a big job creator,” said Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business. “There’s certainly nothing wrong with giving a tax break to a business that’s hired a new worker, especially in these tough times. But in terms of being an incentive to hire a lot of workers, we’re skeptical.”

Rick Klahsen, a tax expert at the accounting firm RSM McGladrey, said his clients need to see business pick up before they can hire more workers.

“If demand were increased, they are saying it will take care of itself because I will then have the motivation to go out and hire new employees,” Klahsen said.

The bipartisan Senate plan would exempt businesses from paying a 6.2 percent Social Security tax on the wages of new employees, as long as the workers have been unemployed at least 60 days. The tax break would run through the end of the year.

A company could save a maximum of $6,621 if it hired an unemployed worker after the bill is enacted and paid that worker at least $106,800 — the maximum amount of wages subject to Social Security taxes — by the end of the year. The company could get an additional $1,000 on its 2011 tax return if it kept the new worker for at least a full year.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that reducing Social Security taxes for companies that add workers would be among the most efficient ways for the government to create jobs. However, in showing how difficult it is to create jobs through tax policy, CBO estimates that such a tax break would generate only eight to 18 full-time jobs per $1 million in tax breaks.

The Senate proposal, which is more narrow than the one analyzed by CBO, is estimated to cost about $10 billion. That would add 80,000 to 180,000 jobs over the course of a year. The U.S. economy, meanwhile, has lost 8.4 million jobs since the start of the recession.

Nonetheless, supporters say it is cheaper, simpler and less vulnerable to abuse than Obama’s plan, which would give a $5,000 tax credit for each new worker that employers hire and cost $33 billion.

Either way, Obama and lawmakers in both parties still could claim tangible accomplishments in addressing high joblessness and the inability of Republicans and Democrats to work together to solve problems, both top issues among voters early in 2010 midterm election season.

Democratic leaders had originally hoped to pass the bill this week, before record snowfalls effectively shut down Congress and much of the rest of the federal government in the nation’s capital. Final action now may not come until March.

In addition to a tax break for hiring workers, the Senate package would extend unemployment payments for people without jobs for more than six months as well as subsidies to help the jobless continue paying premiums for health insurance they had been getting through their former employers.

It also would extend through 2010 about $33 billion in popular tax breaks that expired at the end of 2009, including an income tax deduction for sales and property taxes and a business tax credit for research and development.

Those tax cuts make Republicans willing participants in the bill, despite skepticism in both parties that it will produce an abundance of jobs.

At a hearing last week, House Democrats peppered Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner with questions about whether a tax break for hiring workers will increase employment. Geithner defended the idea but acknowledged that businesses won’t start hiring until demand for their products and services increases.

“I think this will provide a little bit more of a boost, a little more spark to make sure as we grow, we’re creating more jobs than we otherwise would,” he told the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rys, of the National Federation of Independent Business, said the credit could speed hiring once employers need more workers. But, he said, NFIB members aren’t seeing many signs of improvement.

“Right now, business owners just don’t have customers,” Rys said. “Until you have work for the employee to do, there’s really less of a reason to hire a new worker.”

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WH Aides Split on Stimulus Stats

January 25, 2010

Politico

By Politico Staff

White House advisers appearing on the Sunday talk shows gave three different estimates of how many jobs could be credited to President Obama’s Recovery Act.

The discrepancy was pointed out by a Republican official in an email to reporters noting that “Three presidential advisers on three different programs [gave] three different descriptions of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill.”

Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more than 2 million jobs.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came in between them, saying the plan had “saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”

Their remarks in context:

Axelrod, on CNN’s State of the Union: “But understand that, in this recession that began at the beginning of 2007, we’ve lost 7 million jobs. Now, the Recovery Act the president passed has created more than — or saved more than 2 million jobs. But against 7 million, you know, that — that is — it is cold comfort to those who still are looking.”

Jarrett, on NBC’s Meet the Press: “The Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs. There are schoolteachers and firemen and— and— teachers all across our country, policemen, who have jobs today because of that recovery act. We’re investing in infrastructure. We’re investing in public education so that our kids can compete going forth into the next— generation.”

Gibbs, on “Fox News Sunday”: “Well, Chris, let’s take for instance the example you just used of the stimulus package. We had four quarters of economic regression in terms of growth, right? Just last quarter, we finally saw the first positive economic job growth in more than a year. Largely as a result of the recovery plan that’s put money back into our economy, that saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”

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Employers Cut More Jobs Than Expected in December

January 8, 2010

Yahoo News

By Christopher S. Rugaber

Lack of confidence in the economic recovery led employers to shed a more-than-expected 85,000 jobs in December even as the unemployment rate held at 10 percent. The rate would have been higher if more people had been looking for work instead of leaving the labor force because they can’t find jobs.

The sharp drop in the work force — 661,000 fewer people — showed that more of the jobless are giving up on their search for work. Once people stop looking for jobs, they are no longer counted among the unemployed.

When discouraged workers and part-time workers who would prefer full-time jobs are included, the so-called “underemployment” rate in December rose to 17.3 percent, from 17.2 percent in November. That’s just below a revised figure of 17.4 percent in October, the highest on records dating from 1994.

Many analysts had hoped Friday’s report would show the economy gained jobs for the first time in two years. While the revised figures found an increase in November, it was tiny.

“One word sums it up: Disappointment,” said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse.

Referring to the drop in the labor force, Basile said, “that tells me that Main Street doesn’t believe there’s a recovery yet, because they’re not out looking for jobs yet.”

Revisions to the previous two months’ data showed the economy actually generated 4,000 jobs in November, the first gain in nearly two years. But the revisions showed it also lost 16,000 more jobs than previously estimated in October.

The report caps a disastrous year for U.S. workers. Employers cut 4.2 million jobs in 2009, and the unemployment rate averaged 9.3 percent. That’s compared with an average of 5.8 percent in 2008 and 4.6 percent in 2007. Nearly 15.3 million people are unemployed, an increase of 3.9 million during 2009.

The economy has lost more than 8 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. And some companies are continuing to lay off workers. UPS said Friday it will cut 1,800 jobs. And defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. said this week it is cutting 1,200 workers.

Most economists worry that 2010 won’t be much better. Federal Reserve officials, in a meeting last month, anticipated that unemployment will decline “only gradually,” according to minutes of the meeting released earlier this week. The Fed and most private economists expect the unemployment rate will remain well above 9 percent through the end of this year.

There were more job cuts Friday. UPS, the world’s largest package delivery company, said it will cut 1,800 management and administrative positions to streamline its U.S. package segment. UPS has 408,000 employees worldwide. About 340,000 of those workers are in the U.S.

If jobs remain scarce, consumer confidence and spending could flag, potentially slowing the economic recovery. Many analysts estimate the economy grew by 4 percent or more at an annual rate in the October-December quarter, after 2.2 percent growth in the third quarter.

But the economy will need to grow faster than that to bring down the unemployment rate. And economists worry that much of the recovery stems from temporary factors, such as government stimulus efforts and businesses rebuilding inventories.

Debra Winchell has been seeking work since last January, when she lost her job as an administrative assistant at the health insurance company. Winchell, 50, of Latham, N.Y., said she’s seen an uptick in online job postings, giving her some hope. But they’re for jobs paying as little as $10. And she’s still not getting any callbacks when she does apply.

With her unemployment benefits set to run out this spring, Winchell, who is single, said she will reluctantly sign up for temporary work.

“I’ll be lucky if it pays the bills,” she said.

Still, some economists said a recent trend of improvement remains in place. The economy lost an average of nearly 700,000 jobs in the first three months of last year, a figure that dropped to 69,000 in the fourth quarter.

And the private service sector added jobs for the second straight month, said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at Global Insight, though the gains have been concentrated in temporary workers.

“Firms are still being very cautious, so the first thing they are turning to aren’t full-time employees, but temps,” he said. Companies have added about 166,000 temp workers since July.

The average work week remained unchanged at 33.2 hours, near October’s record low of 33. Most economists hoped that would increase, as employers are likely to add hours for their current employees before hiring new workers.

Job losses remained widespread: manufacturing lost 27,000 jobs and construction shed 53,000, while retailers, the leisure and hospitality industries and government also cut workers.

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Stimulus to Make Full Body Scanners at Airports a Reality

January 7, 2010

CNN News

By Aaron Smith

The U.S. government is using $25 million in stimulus money to buy and install full body scanners in airports this year, in an effort to ramp up security and create jobs.

The Transportation Security Administration is using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to purchase 150 of the full body scanners, according to TSA spokeswoman Sarah Horowitz.

These “backscatter” scanners, which use X-rays to provide detailed images of hidden objects in or under a person’s clothing, are manufactured by Rapiscan, a subsidiary of Hawthorn, Calif.-based OSI (OSIS). The scanners cost from $150,000 to $180,000 apiece, according to the company.

Peter Kant, vice president of global government affairs for Rapiscan, said his company received a $25 million contract from the TSA to produce the 150 backscatter scanners. The contract has helped create 25 jobs, mostly manufacturing positions in the company’s Ocean Springs, Miss. facility, as well as some engineering jobs, he said.

Kant said the U.S. government has given the TSA the green light to spend $173 million on scanners, which includes the initial $25 million contract.

“Should we get additional orders, we will have to hire additional manufacturing positions,” he said in an e-mail to CNNMoney.com.

Horowitz would not specify how much money had been earmarked for TSA spending on scanners, but she said the agency has enough funds that would come from the stimulus program and other federal sources to buy an additional 300 scanners.

The backscatter scanners will be used in airports around the country, but the TSA would not say where. One-third of the backscatter scanners have already been delivered, said Kant.

These scanners are used to detect “anything hidden on the body that is not the body” including metal, plastic, glass and liquids, said Kant, while using X-ray doses that are too low to harm the person being scanned.

“You would get more radiation from the first few minutes of your flight, just from the sun,” he said.

Kant said this technology could be effective in detecting explosives, such as those that were allegedly hidden in the underwear of a terrorism suspect on a Christmas Eve flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

If Rapiscan’s scanners had been in place, according to Kant, the incident could have been averted. “We do believe, from what we know from published reports, that we would have detected it,” he said.

The TSA has already implemented 40 scanners using a different type of technology called “millimeter wave advanced imaging” in 19 airports servicing Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, Dallas and other cities. These scanners were manufactured by Woburn, Mass.-based L-3 Communications Corp.

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Most Americans Unhappy At Work

January 5, 2010

Dallas Business Journal

Americans of all ages and at all pay levels are increasingly unhappy at their jobs, according to a new report by The Conference Board, an independent economic and business forecasting organization .

Researchers interviewed 5,000 households across the United States and found that only 45 percent of those surveyed are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent back in 1987 when the annual survey was launched.

The Conference Board says the numbers are overwhelming negative and could spell trouble for the nation’s overall productivity.

Younger workers — those under the age of 25 — are the most dissatisfied. Older workers also are hurting, which may cost the nation valuable training of future generations, the report suggested.

“These numbers do not bode well given the multigenerational dynamics of the labor force,” says Linda Barrington, managing director of human capital for The Conference Board. “The newest federal statistics show that baby boomers will compose a quarter of the U.S. workforce in eight years, and since 1987 we’ve watched them increasingly losing faith in the workplace. Twenty years ago, some 60 percent of that generation was satisfied with their jobs. Today, that figure is roughly 46 percent.

Barrington adds: “The growing dissatisfaction across and between generations is important to address because it can directly impact the quality of multigenerational knowledge transfer, which is increasingly critical to effective workplace functioning.”

Michele Wahlde, a career and life coach with Dallas-based Life Possibilities, says she is not surprised by the results.

Wahlder said the economic situation that Americans find themselves in today is only exacerbating their job fears and dissatisfaction.

“Because of the economic downturn … and with so many people getting laid off … no one is finding work-life balance,” she said. “They are having three jobs put on (their) shoulders. They are working nights and weekends.”

Wahlder said the stress is impacting many workers lives, but employees also are afraid to move from their current positions because they see many laid-off workers who are still unemployed.

In some cases, the dissatisfaction can spark a positive result, Wahlder says.

“One (client) left a large company and became an entrepreneur opening her own design firm,” she said. Another left a financial institution to write a book and eventually landed a job in communications that better fits his interests and talents, Wahlder added.

Matching talents with jobs is a task employers may need to focus on more, according to the The Conference Board survey, which shows job satisfaction down 18.9 percentage points when measuring the employees’ level of engagement in the jobs that they are currently doing.

“(Companies) are not identifying people’s strengths and carving out work that helps that person succeeds at what they’re naturally good at,” Wahlder says.

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House Approves $155 Billion for ‘Jobs’

December 18, 2009

Reuters

By Eric Walsh

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a $155 billion measure that seeks to create jobs and blunt the impact of the worst recession since the 1930s.

By a vote of 217 to 212, the House approved additional spending for “shovel-ready” construction projects and money to avoid layoffs of teachers, police and other public employees.

The Senate is expected to consider the measure early next year.

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Jobs to Come This Spring

December 15, 2009

Inforwars.com

By Kurt Nimmo

On ABC’s This Week over the weekend, bankster minion Larry Summers told his former coworker George Stephanopoulos there will be jobs come spring. Stephanopoulos pressed Summers on how much will be added to the federal debt in order to create jobs but the former economist for the globalist loan sharking operation at the World Bank did not provide an answer. He merely said Obama will “work with Congress” on a job creation proposal.

“I believe that, as do most professional forecasters, that by spring, employment growth will start to be turning positive,” said Summers.

Government does not create jobs. It is a wealth and job destruction machine. Obama’s job creation boondoggle is a political maneuver designed to placate the masses increasingly worried about high unemployment now over 20% and closing in on Great Depression levels.

Stephanopoulos threw around the figure of $100 billion dollars. This will be money borrowed from the bankers and added to the national debt. It may create a few temporary government jobs and make Obama look good — something he desperately needs now that his approval rating is around 45% — but ultimately it will impoverish a new generation of tax payers.

Only economic growth in the private sector can create employment opportunities.

“When government uses transferred wealth to hire people, it is essentially transferring jobs from the private sector, not adding to the net number of jobs in the economy,” Thomas Sowell writes today. “Destroying some jobs while creating other jobs does not get you very far, except politically. But politically is what matters to politicians, even if their policies needlessly prolong a recession or depression.”

featured stories Former World Bank Economist Promises Jobs Come Spring

Obama’s 2.5 million Jobs Program is a government jobs scheme. It is also a way for Congress critters to save their skins. A facade of recovery and jobs needs to be erected before the election coming up.

Instead of private sector jobs, employment will continue to be shipped to China, India, and other slave labor gulags ruled by totalitarian thugs.

“Facing the prospect of joining the army of the unemployed if unemployment stays high, politicians, or at least the liberal Democrats among them, want to develop direct job creation schemes of the sort that Franklin Roosevelt introduced during the Great Depression. Economists know that another deficit-increasing spending package is no long-run answer to sustainable recovery,” writes Irwin Stelzer.

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