The January State and Regional Unemployment statistics were released today:
Thirty states and the District of Columbia recorded over-the-month unemployment rate increases, 9 states registered rate decreases, and 11 states had no rate change
Click on Map to Enlarge
Here is the monthly percent change map. Remember, this data is from January 2010, it's now March.
It's amazing that interest rates aren't much higher when we see news like this.
Even as government receipts posted a rare increase in February, soaring outlays pushed the country's year-to-date deficit up to a record $651.60 billion.
The government's fiscal 2010 year-to-date deficit is up 10.5% from fiscal year 2009.
The government in February alone ran its largest ever monthly deficit—$221 billion, the U.S. Treasury said in releasing its monthly budget statement Wednesday. The government in February 2009 ran a budget deficit of nearly $194 billion.
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An increase in corporate tax collections coupled with lower refunds to individual taxpayers drove receipts up 23% to $107.52 billion in February 2010 from $87.31 billion in February 2009.
(March 10) Wall Streets is headed toward international pariah status thanks to two recent actions by the European Union (EU).
On Tuesday, the EU announced that it was banning Wall Street banks from the lucrative government bond business in Europe. They didn't express official concern or fire off a warning shot. They simply banned Wall Street from financing government bond deals like the one Goldman Sachs sold to Greece. The Guardian pointed out that Wall Street bond business from European governments has gone down over the last two years. Now the business is gone period. In effect, the EU has labeled Wall Streets business tactics as too dangerous for their governments to handle.
This is from the News Hub. It's a video with Anirvan Banerji, director of research at Economic Cycle Research, describing in layman's terms, how overall U.S. economic growth trend lines are in decline, implying the U.S. will have more frequent recessions. He confirms what is implied in this post, Let's Chat Labor Productivity.
JOLTS is a new survey, around for a decade, and it tracks on Job Openings and Labor Turnover. The MSM is all abuzz with the news that job openings increased 7.6% to 2.7 million in January 2010, an 11 month high. So let's dig a little deeper, beyond the feel good buzz. Here is the full report.
There were 2.7 million job openings on the last business day of January 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The job openings rate rose over the month to 2.1 percent, the highest the rate has been since February 2009. The hires rate (3.1 percent) and the separations rate (3.2 percent) were unchanged in January.
The number of U.S. households with a net worth of at least $1 million jumped 16 percent last year after dipping sharply during the financial crisis, an industry consulting group said on Tuesday.
Households with a net worth of $1 million or more, excluding their primary residence, totaled 7.8 million in 2009, up from 6.7 million in 2008, according to Spectrem Group....
The study also found ultra high net worth families -- those with at least $5 million -- grew 17 percent last year to 980,000, Spectrem said.
So in a year that saw unemployment go higher and higher, while home prices dropped lower and lower, the rich made out like bandits.
One might notice the comment, Woe to the U.S. worker when productivity metrics are reported. Over and over again, I note that offshore outsourcing is the taboo word among mainstream economists, regardless of the numbers.
Well, it seems I am not alone in that assessment. A New York Times op-ed drives home the point:
There’s a problem: labor productivity figures, which are calculated by the Labor Department, count only worker hours in America, even though American-owned factories and labs have been steadily transplanted overseas, and foreign workers have contributed significantly to the final products counted in productivity measures.
A growing expectation of a double-dip recession is evident in a new poll of financial executives...the poll found more than half of financial executives predicting another downturn, and most expecting jobs recovery to lag into 2011.
The predictions don't end with just this poll. Nouriel Roubini is also warning of a second leg down, and even more disturbing is this report.
It's a sure sign that something is seriously wrong with the Federal Reserve monetary policy.
Nevada Federal Credit Union has a deal for big savers: Withdraw your money and you'll get a bonus...
The financial institution typically uses member deposits, including certificates of deposit and money market accounts, to make loans, which typically bear higher rates than deposits.
Beal figures those interest-bearing accounts are a money-losing proposition in Nevada's current depressed economy.
"We don't have any loan demand right now," Beal said.
The credit union is investing in short-term Treasurys and earns about one-quarter of 1 percent on those government securities on average, but it was paying 0.4 percent to customers with savings.
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