Tag Archives: economy

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Moody’s joins S & P’s in downgrading the U.S.

“The U.S. economy needs to grow 2.5% to 3% per year to add jobs fast enough to keep the unemployment rate stable. This will not happen soon.”-Mark Zandi, Moody’s Analytics

Moody’s Analytics downgraded projected GDP for the Untied States. One month ago they projected GDP to be at a yearly average of 3.5%, for the rest of 2011.  Now they say the U.S. will be lucky if it can hit 2%.

Moody’s also says the chance of an official double dip recession is now 1 in 3.  They also said every 100 point drop in the Dow Jones increases the chances of a double dip recession.

They pointed out that the current job creation rate in the United States falls way short of employment goals for 2012: “Employers will have added about 1.25 million jobs between the fourth quarters of 2010 and 2011, and 2 million more by the fourth quarter of 2012. By then, U.S. employment will still total some 1 million less than expected.”–Mark Zandi  (keep in mind he’s talking about projected job creation, there could be more jobs created, or less)

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

Government Incompetence: Obama says he wants jobs for the U.S., but spends $1.1 million on a Canadian made bus

It’s called Ground Force One, a $1.1 million dollar bus made in Canada, and used by the Obama administration.

There’s also a Ground Force Two, because your government bought two of these behemoth buses.  And your taxes paid for them!

Ground Force Two is actually being called Stagecoach. But don’t blame Obama, the second bus will be used to transport the Republican candidate for the 2012 election campaigns.

Officially the public is being told the buses came from a Tennessee company, but ABC News found out they were built in Canada, and only modified in Tennessee.

 

 

Business/Economics, International

Government Incompetence: Spanish taxpayers forced to pay for Catholic Pope’s visit

“We criticize this scandalous show at a time of such a terribly distressing economic situation, with entire families unemployed.”-Evaristo Villar, Christian Networks

The Pope is visiting Spain, and the taxpayers are paying for it, to tune of U.S.$70 million to $150 million.  This comes at a time when 20% of Spaniards are unemployed.

One protestor called the Pope’s visit a “huge Christian circus”.

72% of Spaniards claim to be Catholic, but that’s not stopping younger Catholics from joining the protests.  However, Catholics have also joined riot police in attacking protestors: “I was at the protest with my father, and one of the Catholics punched me in the face.” 18 year-old protester

When you break down Spain’s unemployment by age, 45% of teenagers and young adults are jobless.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: China sells record number of Yuan bonds, pushing to dominate bond market and influence the Yuan as the New World Currency

A record amount of Chinese government bonds have been issued in Hong Kong.  And investors are buying them up.

Several types of yuan based bonds, which mature between 2 and 10 years, were sold, totaling U.S.$3.1 billion, a record.

This was the third Chinese yuan bond issue in Hong Kong.

Demand was so high for this latest issue of yuan bonds that orders had to be stopped.  There were 4.6 times more demands to buy the yuan bonds than there were yuan bonds to sell!

Analysts said China plans to issue more yuan bonds, with the goal to help promote the yuan as the next world currency, replacing the U.S. dollar.

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: TEPCo knew explosion could occur, but just didn’t want to believe that it would!

In a case of hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil, a Japanese government investigation into the corporate mind of Tokyo Electric Power Company revealed that officials just couldn’t believe the worse case scenario could happen at Fukushima Daiichi.

TEPCo officials admitted that they discussed the possibility of explosions inside the reactor buildings, but dismissed the possibility as unlikely.

Then, just one day after the 11 March 2011 quake/tsunami, Reactor 1 exploded.  TEPCo officials were focused so much on other concerns, that it took the second explosion, in Reactor 3 on 14 March, to wake them up.

Some government officials conclude that Tokyo Electric officials don’t realize just how dangerous a nuclear reactor can be.

Business/Economics, U.S.

Government Incompetence: Social Security lists 14,000 living people as dead, every year, can you check to see if your really dead?

The U.S. Social Security Administration has been listing as many as 14,000 people, who are alive, as being dead and cutting off payments.

Between 2007 and 2010, 36,657 living people were declared dead.  I wonder if that’s had any affect on consumer spending?

Living people who’re declared dead by the Social Security Administration not only lose benefits, but have to prove they’re still alive.  That can take months.  Until then you won’t be able to make any financial transactions with banks, etc.

Most people find out they’re dead when their checks start bouncing, then their Social Security payments don’t show up.

Some people discover that not only were they declared dead, but the Social Security Administration “lost” their file, forcing the “dead” person to literally start over with the SSA.

The “deaths ” are listed in a Death Master File.  Many genealogy web sites offer a Social Security Death Index search service, that lets you search a person’s history using their social security number.  Maybe you can search for yourself, if you show up you know you’re dead.

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: Nuclear Plant workers say Reactor 1 was already melting down even before the Tsunami hit, decreasing radiation levels due to fuel rods being washed away

Many workers who were at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant the day of the 11 March 2011 quake and tsunami, say reactor 1 was already in trouble and possibly melting down, immediately after the 9.0 quake.

“There’s certainly a great deal of evidence that appears to suggest that the first reactor, reactor number one, was melting down by the time the tsunami hit. So, if that’s the case that the reactor was melting down as a result of the earthquake, and not as a result of the tsunami, a nine-point earthquake is something that has the potential to happen throughout Japan, and that would put the reliability and the design safety of all of these reactors in question.”-Robert Jacobs, Hiroshima Peace Institute

Also, Tokyo Electric Power Company has been reporting decreasing radiation levels coming from Pacific Ocean water inlets and outlets.  It’s not a sign they have things under control, because they certainly don’t.  Rather, after 5 months of ongoing nuclear disaster, what’s happened is that the remains of nuclear fuel rods have been washed out into the Pacific Ocean by TEPCo’s continued water injection.

“When you have a fragile structure that’s already suffered a great deal of damage and when you have continual aftershocks at the level of six-point, or there’s been some even higher, what we have now is we have the radioactive core that has melted down into the basement, into the bottom of the containment vessel of these reactors, and if the radiation level is going down, where it’s been monitored inside the buildings, and if the water pressure is going down, and the temperature is going down, it’s not that the radiation is just suddenly going away, it means that the radioactive material, the melted core, is simply moving further away from where it’s been measured.”-Robert Jacobs

 

Business/Economics, International

Government Incompetence: Plastic Recycling actually destroying environment in China, government shut it down, now as many as 70,000 people in one city are unemployed

So much for saving the environment by recycling plastic bottles.  One city, Wen’an, serves as the plastic recycling center for Beijing.  The problem is that the process of recycling plastic was actually destroying the local environment.

The recycling is done by very small businesses, or even families, and their processes of recycling plastics has destroyed their air and water.  It got so bad the Chinese government shut down the whole city.

To make sure the locals didn’t restart their recycling operations, the Chinese government cut off electricity to most of the city.  Also, Chinese police patrol the roads leading to the city, to stop any vehicles that look like their carrying plastic to be recycled.

You can see more in the Chinadaily video report.

Business/Economics, U.S.

Dumb Americans, like Frogs in a Boiling Pot: New study shows economic inequality in the U.S. as bad as some African countries, yet most U.S. citizens think everything is fine

Psychologist Dan Ariely designed a test, a test to see how much the average Joe in the United States knows about their own country’s income equality, or lack of.

Not surprisingly, to me anyway, the overwhelming majority (in the 90% range) of U.S. citizens still think the U.S. is equal when it comes to income distribution.  The reality is that income distribution is so unequal it’s as bad as many African countries: “…if we were to compare us with African countries, dictators in different places, you know, taking a lot of the wealth from normal people, we would be among the top half of the African countries of inequality.  So, the U.S. really has reached an extraordinary level of income inequality.”-Richard Freeman, Harvard economist

Here’s some facts about who holds the most income, and who doesn’t: “People don’t understand how much wealth the top 20% have.  They actually have 84% of the wealth.  And they think they have much less.  And more disturbingly, people don’t understand how little wealth the bottom of the distribution have.  The bottom 40% of the U.S. have about 0.3% of the wealth, basically zero.  And people think they have much more than that.”-Dan Ariely

This is what I call frogs in a economic boiling pot; by the time they realize they’re being screwed it could be too late to do anything about it!

But here’s a really interesting fact: “In the last 30 years or so, the share of national, of income that has gone to the upper 0.1%, not to the upper 1.0%, 0.1%, rose by 10 percentage points. That is one of the most astounding patterns I have ever seen in data.”-Richard Freeman

That’s right, the segment of society in the United States, that’s seen the most growth to their wealth, makes up only 0.1% of the population!

To see more on this important study, and WAKE UP AMERICA, go to PBS News Hour.

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? Germany & France pushing for tax on stock market deals, taking steps to turn the EU into a single economic & political entity

August 16, France and Germany decided against creating and selling Euro Bonds, and came up with another way to help raise money for EU governments; a stock market transaction tax.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Euro Bonds would come later, when the economic situation was more stable.  Instead he, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, are pushing for a new tax (as if Europeans didn’t have to deal with enough taxes).

The new financial transaction tax would affect the purchases made on stock markets.

Merkel and Sarkozy are also calling for more economic and political unity for the EU.  They want EU members to modify their constitutions to reflect commitment to building a strong, more united European Union, and, they want to create a new EU council to oversea efforts to create a more unified EU.  That council will meet twice a year, and have a president who serves a two year term.