A recent economic report from the UN says western economies (Europe, North America, Japan) will not see any recovery of the tens of millions of job losses since 2008, for at least five more years.
UN economists point to low projected GDP numbers as proof: “This pace of growth will be far from sufficient to overcome the continued jobs crisis that many countries are still facing.”-World Economic Situation and Prospects 2013
21 December 2012, the government of Japan is hitting Mitsubishi Electric with hundreds of millions of dollars in fines, after an investigation revealed that the manufacturing giant ripped off taxpayers for at least ten years.
Japan’s Defense Ministry says Mitsubishi Electric overcharged taxpayers on military contracts, to the tune of $295 million USD.
Japan’s JAXA space agency announced that Mitsubishi Electric overcharged the taxpayers by around $74 million.
Mitsubishi must now pay back the overcharges, plus fines, but doesn’t have the money. But at least the executives of the Japanese company are more responsible than their U.S. unAmerican Corporate America counterparts; Mitsubishi execs will cut their pay in half for at least six months to try and help the company pay the piper (so they say).
Mitsubishi is already in trouble as their sales in China are crashing, and they expect only half of the profits they were forecasting at the beginning of the year.
21 December 2012, I wonder how many Dumb ‘mericans out there think the “fiscal cliff” is some kind-o-god sent law, like the ten commandments. Well, it’s a done deal but not because of any divine power, it was created by almost the very same ‘elected’ republicans and democrats who now act like they’re trying to stop it.
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner, cancelled 21 December’s vote on a proposal designed to draw concessions from President Barack Obama. But don’t blame Obama, that starts with President George W. Bush, and it was Congress who wrote the law!
The tax increases and government spending cuts can be traced back to the Bush tax cuts, aka Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. But it’s not that simple, as it involves successive Acts passed under the Bush and Obama administrations (Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, Tax Relief American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 [aka Stimulus] Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 and finally Budget Control Act of 2011).
All those ‘Acts’ were intended to save the economy through tax reductions and government spending increases. However, most of the tax reductions helped only the ultra-rich and the Too Big to Fails (it’s now clear they did not spend it on creating the millions of new jobs economists said were needed), and most spending increases (like the military) came with spending cuts elsewhere (like social programs).
So almost every elected official in the U.S. Congress, now, are the same people that created those Acts, and if not the same person it’s the very same political parties controlling the House and Senate, remember the recent ‘elections’?
In their wisdom they threw in massive ‘automatic’ austerity cuts if their previous efforts to save the U.S. economy failed. They claim they’re ‘automatic’ because they can through up their hands and say “Oh, we can’t do anything about it, it’s the law!” Yeah, the very law they created!
And then there’s the incompetent media, who’s giving us daily reports on the ‘progress’ being made to stop the fiscal cliff. Idiots! It’s a done deal! Think about it, what is(are) the plan(s) our elected officials are coming up with? Tax increases and spending cuts! In other words what we’re facing is either massive austerity measures or tax increases and government spending cuts. Austerity is austerity, but if you’ve been paying attention to what’s happening in many European countries then you should know this isn’t over. Most Euro countries (especially Greece) have been passing austerity measures, only to have to turn around and pass more tax increases and government spending cuts just a few months later.
No matter how you look at it, the Fiscal Cliff is a done deal!
“I’ve never seen anything like it!”-Hlynur Pétursson, Marine Research Institute of Iceland
15 December 2012, officials in Iceland reporting that tons of valuable herring committed mass suicide.
An estimated hundreds of tons of herring beached themselves over a one square kilometer area (0.62 square miles). Preliminary investigation found no signs of disease. A smaller mass suicide of herring, in Iceland, took place last December.
In Santa Cruz County, California, on 11 December 2012, hundreds of squid committed mass suicide. Even attempts to put them back in the ocean failed, they just beached themselves again. The dead squid were spread out over 19 kilometers (12 miles) of beach, from Aptos to Watsonville.
Scientists said the squid were not full grown, and had just finished feeding (they had full stomachs). Speculation is that anything from climate change to the accidental eating of poisonous algae is the cause. Perhaps it was some kind of early warning of the 6.4 and 6.1 magnitude offshore earthquakes that occurred just a few days later?
For many people around the world, squid and herring are important food sources.
14 December 2012, Japan’s struggling Mitsubishi Aircraft just announced it has received its largest order ever, from a U.S. company.
Utah based Skywest is buying 100 Mitsubishi Regional Jets (MRJs), with an option to buy another 100 later.
The 100 MRJs will cost Skywest $4.2 billion USD. The planes will be delivered at least one year late, as Mitsubishi says they’re having manufacturing problems.
“As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation.”-phrase usually associated with government regulations originating in California, but it also refers to the economy
13 December 2012, California Correctional Health Care Services issued layoff warnings to 2,200 employees! Officials want to layoff 829 people by March, 2013.
The U.S. Department of Labor reporting that unemployment compensation claims in California jumped by 24,411, for the week ending 08 December.
NASA reported that due to the approaching austerity measures (fiscal cliff) California will lose 4,586 NASA related jobs.
Reports say that Barclays could be laying off 2,000 people, some in California.
In Texas, The Greater Houston Partnership admitted the job growth they’ve created in Texas is at the expense of states like California: “Houston has been able to import workers — meaning we pull people out of California, we pull people out of Michigan, we pull people out of New York….”-Patrick Jankowski, vice president of research
12 December: A report says California’s biggest newspaper, the Los Angels Times, is up for sale. Layoffs are expected.
11 December: The County of San Bernardino (the largest in the country) will layoff at least 44 court employees, and close courts. Courts affected are in Chino, Barstow, Needles and Big Bear Lake. Even after the cuts, the county court system is expected to be short $13 million, so officials say it’s likely more cuts will be made.
California based electric car maker, CODA, announced it will layoff 50 people.
Career Education Corporation, owner of private universities like Brooks Institution, announced they will begin laying off hundreds of employees at their Ventura and Santa Barbara campuses. They blame declining student enrollment.
08 December: In the County of San Bernardino, Community Hospital of San Bernardino and St. Bernardine Medical Center announced they will be laying of employees: “Currently, we are in communication with two unions that represent employees at the hospitals. Impacted employees have not been notified yet, since the details are not clearly defined at this time.”-Dignity Health spokesperson
According to California Manufactures & Technology Association (CMTA), California lost 33% of its manufacturing base from 2001 to 2011. That’s 607,500 people unemployed.
According to the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, California lost 23,000 teachers between 2008 and 2011, due to layoffs. More teachers were forced out through early retirement. This despite the fact that the number of students goes up every year.
13 December 2012, the governor of Michigan has signed into law their Right to Work act. Recently there were claims that between 2001 and 2011 states with Right to Work laws saw an increase in pay, however that’s misleading.
Take for example Idaho. The Gem State passed its Right to Work laws back in 1985. The result was a crash in employee pay and benefits, not an increase. But, since 2001 overall starting pay has gone up slightly, mainly because mandated minimum wage went up, not because of any Right to Work law!
I’ve talked to southeast Idahoans who began their adult lives working at jobs that started out between $11.00 to $15.00 per hour, plus benefits, and this was in the 1970s! Now the average starting pay, in the same area of Idaho, is minimum wage ($7.50 per hour in Idaho) with no benefits!
According to researchers Stephen C. Cooke and Barathkumar A. Kulandaisamy, Idaho’s average wages, for 2009, were $10,700 below the national average! Also, contrary to what supporters of Right to Work laws say, Idaho’s employment growth is being driven purely by its population growth, not any Right to Work law! In fact, when you look at government data, it’s the population growth that’s saving Idaho from a full blown depression (one driver of the population growth are people retiring in other states and moving into Idaho)!
The researchers used data from the U.S. Census Bureau/Labor Statistics, data collected from 1971 to 2007. The official government data backs up what the native Idahoans, now in their 50s, 60s and 70s, have told me: The economic situation for the working class has stagnated or gotten worse!
From 1971 to 2007 the median wage in Idaho has dropped by $6,445! Median year over year wage growth rate in Idaho is negative 0.3%! The number of college educated workers in Idaho is a negative 3.4%! Right to Work has done nothing to create high skilled/high paying jobs, getting a big fat 0% in that category!
Cooke and Kulandaisamy added that Idaho’s “…cost of living only exacerbates wage differences.”
To contrast; Colorado is not a Right to Work state, here’s what the researchers had to say: “…Colorado appears to have made the transition from a low-skill to a high-skill equilibrium economy; Idaho…..have not. In particular, we posit that Idaho has a low-skill, low-wage problem.”
Even when you look at high skill/high wage jobs in Idaho, they still pay as much as $19,000 per year less than the national average!
Cooke and Kulandaisamy concluded that the reason why states, specifically Idaho, get stuck with low paying jobs is because state leaders refuse to invest in creating high skill industries. And, the decline in college educated workers is because state leaders refuse to invest in higher education.
The christian leadership of Idaho pushed Right to Work laws as a way of attracting lots of companies to do business in Idaho, including high skill jobs. Well, after 27 years it’s obvious that right wing christian theory is a failure.
Most of those Idahoans I talked to, in their 50s, 60s and 70s, are still working (at places like Walmart), because they experienced such a huge decline in their pay and benefits, and there’s been such an increase in the cost of living here, that they can not afford to retire!
What about the claims that prosperity has increased in Right to Work states? Of course it has, but not for the working class, the prosperity is being hoarded by a tiny minority who’re the ones truly benefiting from the Right to Work laws.
13 December 2012, German officials announced they are investigating employees and executives of Deutsche Bank, for tax evasion and money laundering. 500 investigators descended upon the bank’s Frankfurt headquarters. At least 25 employees are under investigation and five have already been arrested. Some of the tax evasion claims involve the bogus carbon tax.
12 December 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that the Japanese bank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, will pay a fine of $8.6 million USD for violating U.S. sanctions against Myanmar, Sudan and Iran.
11 December 2012, HSBC was fined a record $1.9 billion for money laundering, sanctions violations and several people were arrested for the ongoing LIBOR scandal. U.S. Department of Justice said the British bank laundered money for drug dealers and violated sanctions against Burma, Cuba and Libya.
It’s reported that other banks involved in the LIBOR scandal, such as The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Swiss bank UBS, are about to make a settlement.
The failed British bank, Northern Rock, cost taxpayers dearly: “This is £270m straight out of the taxpayers’ pocket. I’ve been repeatedly assured in parliament that there was no black hole in Northern Rock. U.K. Financial Investments and the Treasury didn’t know what they were talking about.”-Lord Oakeshott, Liberal Democrat
And let’s not forget the Queen of England’s own bank, Coutts (a division of RBS), which is also involved in money laundering for drug dealers. Just think, the medical care being provided for Kate Middleton and her unborn baby is possibly being paid for with drug money (as well as taxpayer money) for all we know.
13 December 2012, after months of trying to create a true central bank of Europe, European Union (EU) members agreed to give the job to the already existent European Central Bank (ECB).
The move is meant to standardize banking policies for EU members. The ECB will be considered the “supervisor” of EU banks. It also allows the ECB to have full access to information from all EU member banks.
Even the United Kingdom, who is usually opposed to approving anything that would make the European Union stronger, agreed to the deal: “It shows that when you go in with a clear and principled argument and you make your case, then you can succeed and that’s what Britain has done tonight.”-George Osborne, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer
07 December 2012, Apple CEO, Tim Cook, revealed that some computer manufacturing will be brought back to the United States.
However, the actual assembly of a specific line of Macs will still be contracted out. Cook says they’re still figuring out where in the U.S. to assemble the computers.
Analysts say the move amounts to about a $100 million USD investment into the U.S. economy, which is tiny when you realize Apple has at least $1 billion in cash and other investments. So, don’t expect this insourcing of a new Mac to be the cure all for the U.S. unemployment blues.