March 2012

Saturday Reads Around the Internets - Give Us Your Password for a Job

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shocknews Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.

 

Employers Demand Your Facebook Password

Surely this should be illegal, but for now it isn't. Potential employers, during an interview, are demanding applicants private passwords to personal online accounts.

When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook user name and password.

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his log-in information.

The Wall Street Surcharge On Your Gas Tank

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gas signHow much are you paying to fuel Wall Street oil speculators? A new, very timely St. Louis Federal Reserve research paper, Speculation in the Oil Market finds 15% of oil price increases are due to speculation and is the second most powerful mover of prices beyond actual physical demand. Demand itself accounts for 40% of the total oil price increase.

Initial Unemployment Claims were 348,000, a Four Year Low

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Initial weekly unemployment claims for the week ending on March 17th, 2012 were 348,000. The DOL reports this as a decrease of 5,000 from last week. The previous week was revised, from 351,000 to 353,000, an increase of 2,000. This is the lowest number of people filing for unemployment reported in four years, March 2008.

 

As GOP Primaries Numb Your Brain, Congress is Up to More Tricks

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clockworkorganbraineyedropsWhile inane campaign rhetoric lulls you to sleep, forcing you to watch reruns of shipping wars until your brain melts and flows into that puddle of lost dreams and promises, Congress has been up to some things.

Remember those outrages du jour, such as using Stimulus funds to hire foreign guest workers? Remember your hard earned taxpayer dollars being used to bring in Chinese foreign workers and Chinese steel to build the Oakland Bay Bridge in California?

A very important amendment passed the Senate and was entered into Bill S.1813, MAP-21, alternatively known as the Transportation Bill. The amendment strengths the Buy America provision by closing a loophole.

Senator Sherrod Brown on the Senate Floor:

Industrial Production Another Zero for February 2012

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The Federal Reserve's Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization report, G.17, shows zero change in industrial production for February 2012, but January was revised up, from 0% to 0.4%. Autos has some bad news, the auto & parts index dropped, -1.1% for February, but this is after autos had a meteoric soar of +8.6% in January. This report is also known as output for factories and mines.

A Change to our System of Property Rights based on Political Power

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robosignforeclosureSo says Roosevelt Institute fellow Matt Stoller in the below interview. Stoller is talking about the 50 state mortgage fraud settlement and frankly he's right. It's beyond belief the government has literally shoved under the rug banks improperly seizing and foreclosing on properties owned by Americans.

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