Few job gains in US

US reports slow Economic Growth

Now that’s still an increase in jobless numbers!

Spin spin!

Granny says there’s gonna be long lines at the soup kitchens...
:eek:
33 states out of money to fund jobless benefits
April 8, 2010 — With unemployment still at a severe high, a majority of states have drained their jobless benefit funds, forcing them to borrow billions from the federal government to help out-of-work Americans.

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A total of 33 states and the Virgin Islands have depleted their funds and borrowed more than $38.7 billion to provide a safety net, according to a report released Thursday by the National Employment Law Project. Four others are at the brink of insolvency. Debt-challenged California has borrowed the most, totaling more than $8.4 billion, followed by Michigan and New York, which have loans worth more than $3 billion. Nine other states have borrowed at least $1 billion from the federal government.

“The nation’s financing system for jobless benefits is under unprecedented stress," said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the New York-based advocacy group for the unemployed. “While the recession has certainly made things worse, this funding crisis has been developing for years." At the onset of the recession, only 19 states met the recommended funding level, which is one year of reserves equal to the highest amount of unemployment insurance paid out during prior recessions. Financing experts suggest that states build up their jobless benefit coffers during strong economic times so that they can draw from them during downturns.

Federal and state governments collect money for unemployment benefits by taxing employers on a small portion of their employee wages. While total wages and weekly jobless benefit levels have been rising, governments haven’t increased the taxable base wages at the same pace. Instead, they adopted a “pay as you go” approach, keeping taxes and fund levels low during good times and raising taxes and cutting benefits when strapped for cash. That left many states with insufficient jobless funds to weather the recession.

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Jobless claims soar[/url]

Don’t count yer chickens a-fore dey hatch...
:confused:
Don’t Rule Out a Double Dip Recession
MAY 24, 2010 - In addition to Europe’s woes, we have slower growth in China and a decline in bank lending and the velocity of money in the U.S.

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World financial markets reacted bearishly to Germany’s surprise announcement last week banning “naked” short-selling of euro-zone government debt, derivatives and some financial stocks. Short selling is considered naked when it involves the sale of an asset that isn’t owned by the seller and isn’t borrowed to cover the position while it’s held. The news disturbed investors because of the unilateral nature of Germany’s action. It’s also seen as a potential prelude to other antimarket actions from Germany, or for that matter the U.S. and other Western nations, where the political backlash against free markets continues.

Also causing anxiety is the ominous rise in recent weeks in the three-month London interbank offered rate (Libor), the rate the most creditworthy banks charge each other for loans. This could result in yet another European credit crisis with banks becoming increasingly unwilling to lend to each other because of the interconnected holdings of “junk” European government debt. Bank for International Settlements (BIS) data shows that European bank exposure to sovereign debt in Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain totalled $2.8 trillion at the end of last year, accounting for 89% of international banks' total exposure to those countries.

Moving beyond Europe, a further negative for investors to contend with has been China’s current tightening cycle; most particularly a machine-gun burst of antispeculation measures in the past two months aimed at its booming residential property market. China’s leadership, worried by growing social concerns about unaffordable apartment prices, will want to see official confirmation that both residential property transactions and residential property prices are falling, as indeed is now the case. Transaction volumes are down more than 50% from the levels reached in the first half of April. Prices will soon follow.

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