In May the number of people getting help buying food hit record levels, again. This time more than 45 million individuals are on Food Stamps.
49 out of the 50 U.S. states recorded increases in Food Stamp recipients. Alabama leads the country with 36% of the people in that state needing help getting food.
Some government loans for college graduate students covered, or forgave, the interest payments while the student was still in school. Not anymore: “They will be responsible for the interest while they’re going to school, beginning in the 2012/2013 academic year.”- James Martin, Idaho State University Associate Director of Financial Aid
You can thank the Debt Limit deal just signed into law by President Obama.
For some students who have to take the maximum loans, it could mean paying $207.00 per month in interest, while they’re in school. That would mean they would have much less of their loans to live on.
Many graduate students at Idaho State said they might not be able to continue their higher education: “So I think taking away the subsidized, which most of my loans are, I don’t think I would have attended this program if they had done that.”-Chris Thurston
“You know, I know they have to make cuts somewhere, but unfortunately it’s the one that will affect me. But you just gotta do what you gotta do.”-Zach Migel
“If we don’t have the ability to pay for it, we’ll go for not the top notch schools, we’ll go for cheaper schools, cheaper programs.”-Sheila Mitchell
On top of the ending of the interest subsidies, the Debt Limit deal also ends a credit for students who make 12 on time loan payments.
The Japanese government announced they will create a new nuclear agency, to better respond to future nuclear disasters. This after it’s painfully obvious that the current plethora of government agencies, tasked with dealing with the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, have failed.
The latest plan to revamp nuclear regulators involves creating an agency who’s sole job is to act as first responders to any future nuclear accident. It will be created out of the current Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, and placed under control of the Environment Ministry.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency would continue purely as a regulatory agency.
The new first responder agency would also be responsible for monitoring of radiation levels, and control of radioactive substances.
The current Nuclear Safety Commission would be placed under the Environment Ministry as well, and act as an adviser to the first responders.
Of course the Japanese government still has to vote on the plan, but seeing what’s happening in Japan right now, any politician who’d want things to stay the same is nuts.
The number of households getting welfare in Japan hit a record number of 1.46 million. That’s households, not individuals.
The Japanese Welfare Ministry say it’s a rising trend, no thanks to the never ending nuclear disaster.
To make matters worse, Japan’s only domestic television maker, Hitachi, announced they will close up shop and move their factory to Taiwan. Of course this means more Japanese out of work. Hitachi officials say they had to make the move in order to compete with South Korean companies.
Other big name Japanese electronics makers, like Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba, all reported big loses in the past quarter. And it can’t be blamed on the nuclear disaster. The Japanese companies are having a hard time competing with other Asian nations.
This brings us to an important, and over looked fact: Japan is the second largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt (after China). Japan’s main market is the United States, yet has been losing out to companies from China and South Korea.
If things get bad enough for Japan, they will be forced to off load their U.S. bonds in order to make some money for their struggling systems. This could be why the U.S. has given Japan so much help battling the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi.
Yet another prefectural government announced they will begin radiation checks of their cows, after they discovered their cattle feed is contaminated with cesium.
That prefecture is Shimane, and it’s 708 kilometers (440 miles) south west of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant!
Shimane officials say they will begin blanket tests of their cattle starting next week.
Tests of cattle feed, at the end of July, came back showing high levels of contamination. As a result prices for cows from Shimane crashed. Officials are hoping their cows are not contaminated, because cattle farming is an important business for them.
“If the unemployment rate continues to rise, it will further damage investor confidence and force them to move away from U.S. Treasury securities, leaving the U.S. government no choice but to print money and depreciate its currency.”-Lu Zhengwei, Industrial Bank Co Ltd
Chinese officials say the U.S. Debt Limit Deal is not enough, mainly because it will not stop job loses, and it doesn’t cut enough government spending.
Zhu Baoliang, chief economist at the State Information Center, says U.S. government debt is too large to be resolved through normal measures such as tax increases and deficit reductions. Also, it is highly unlikely the U.S. government will significantly reduce entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, or significantly draw down troops overseas. All that means is at the very least the U.S. dollar will continue to lose value.
The Chinese are blaming their runaway inflation on the falling U.S. dollar. In June inflation hit 6.4% in China. The increase in costs is causing a drop in factory orders, which hits China where it hurts.
Chen Kexin, chief analyst at the Distribution Productivity Promotion Center of China Commerce, says no matter what happens now, inflation will pick up speed. He predicts oil prices will go back up to more than $100.00 per barrel, and copper could hit $10,000 per ton.
According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt (the overall largest holder of U.S. debt is…the U.S. taxpayer via the U.S. Treasury). Many analysts in the United States think China has no choice but to keep buying U.S. debt, creating a false sense of security among U.S. leaders. But one analysts admits China is cutting back: “Beijing is probably not buying Treasuries as intensely as it did last year.”-Derek Scissors, The Heritage Foundation
Chinese analysts are pushing for their government to diversify their U.S. debt holdings, because the debt limit deal won’t help: “The debt crisis may have a negative impact on the fiscal spending of the U.S. government, which may drag down the U.S. economy for the rest of the year.”-Hou Zhenhai, Investment bank China International Capital Corp
It’s not just U.S. government bonds China has, but something called foreign exchange reserves. These bonds can come from corporations, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The problem for China is most of its foreign exchange reserves are in U.S. dollars. Chinese analysts are warning of the “all your eggs in one basket” scenario; they think China will be dragged down when the United States finally sinks.
In fact, one analysts thinks the situation is so bad that China should stop investing into all foreign operations: “Because of the lack of mature overseas investment projects, the scale of China’s overseas investment is not big enough to absorb massive foreign exchange reserves in the short term. Therefore, to invest overseas is not realistic.”-Zhang Yi, Institute of Foreign Economy, the National Development and Reform Commission
Another example of the lack of preparedness of the Japanese government; promised increases in radiation monitoring have not materialized, because the government can’t handle it logistically.
02 August 2011, the Japanese government announced that in order to increase radiation monitoring they will now rely on non governmental groups, many of which have already been conducting their own radiation monitoring.
Many of Japan’s citizens have complained about the lack of response from the national government. Official government reports concerning radiation levels have been contradicted, and even proven wrong, by local governments, as well as the NGOs.
Many of the national government reports relied on data from Tokyo Electric Power Company, and it’s obvious TEPCo is totally unreliable.
Agencies of the Japanese government are now going to work with the NGOs, and local governments, to set up a large network of 250 radiation monitoring sites, which will include schools and libraries. They will check air, ground, water, plants and food for radiation contamination. The government hopes to have a web site set up by mid August, so that everyone in Japan can see the results.
The Japanese government established radiation contamination guidelines for determining whether fertilizers, and livestock feed, contaminated with radiation are safe to use, or not.
The new safe limit for contaminated fertilizer is 400 becquerels of cesium per kilogram. Farmers are asked to use humus and compost that contains less than that.
The new standard for fertilizer comes after it’s become clear that many crops around Honshu are contaminated, internally, with radiation. Many of those crops are fed to cows, which in turn become internally contaminated.
Also, the government established, for the first time, safe limits on cattle and fish feed. 300 becquerels of cesium per kilogram in cattle feed is the max, and 100 becquerels for fish feed.
Government officials say they will start explaining, by next week, how farmers can check for such levels.
On 01 August 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company revealed that a venting pipe coming off Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactor 1, was emitting 10 sieverts per hour of radiation. According to government officials that can kill you in one to two weeks, after one hour of exposure!
Now TEPCo says they’ve conducted radiation checks inside Reactor 1 building, and bingo…5,000 millisieverts (5 sieverts) per hour, the highest indoor reading yet!
The readings were taken on the second floor of the reactor building. TEPCo has ordered the area blocked off. They say the high radiation readings in that area are because the venting pipe, that’s emitting 10 sieverts per hour, runs through that room.
Within 24 hours of banning cattle from two locations in Iwate Prefecture, the Japanese government is also banning cows from Tochigi Prefecture.
Just like Iwate, the ban affects two areas within Tochigi Prefecture, after cesium contamination was found in cows and plants. Tochigi has a much bigger cattle industry than Iwate. As many as 55,000 head of beef cattle are shipped from Tochigi, and they process (slaughter) another 30,000 per year.
The national government is asking Tochigi officials to step up voluntary cesium inspections with the farms that are not in the two cesium affected areas.
The prefectures that are now under beef bans are Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Tochigi.