Operation Homefront winter Clothes Drive in the Chicago Region

POLITICS - President Clinton's Very Good Advice
: Because of the nature of this Recession, primarily, and because of the way it played out in people's lives. Let me just give you a couple of examples. We lost about $3 Trillion in immediate economic activity. We actually have done a better job coming out of it in the last year than other countries have. We've recovered 70 percent of our GDP growth, Germany: 60 (percent), Japan: 50 (percent), the U.K.: 30 (percent). But that's not enough to get people back to work and everybody is still...

News from EPI: EPI Briefing Paper critiques argument that U.S. unemployment is structural
For Immediate Release : Thursday, September 23, 2010 Contact: Phoebe Silag or Karen Conner, [email protected] 202-775-8810   Unemployment in the United States is not structural, a new Economic Policy Institute report explains. The paper, Reasons for Skepticism about Structural Unemployment: Examining the Demand-Side Evidence , by EPI researchers Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz, critiques a narrative that has emerged among some Economists and Economic Journalists—that...

The Fed's Failure
To understand the scope of the failure of Monetary Policy right now, this is the paragraph you need to read: Measures of underlying Inflation are currently at levels somewhat below those the Committee judges most consistent, over the longer run, with its mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability. With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and longer-term Inflation expectations stable, Inflation is likely to remain subdued for some time before rising...

Recession Is Over, but Unemployment Drags On
In order to just keep Unemployment where it is now — at a rather unacceptable 9.6 percent — the experts say The Economy needs to grow at an annual rate of about 2.5 percent. The rate for the second quarter was only 1.6 percent, and the predictions for the third quarter aren't much better. What that seems to mean is that Unemployment may actually go up, and it's certainly not going way down anytime soon. The fact that we're in a recovery means that the Obama Administration can't...

For love or money? Census reports sharp rise this year in unmarried couples living together
WASHINGTON — For love or money? The number of unmarried couples living together is rising sharply as many young adults who are having a hard time finding Jobs are now "doubling up" with significant others. The number of opposite-sex unmarried couples who shared living arrangements jumped 13 percent this year to 7.5 million, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. That's compared to a 2 percent decrease between 2008 and 2009. There were about 620,000 Same-Sex couples living together, a...

US jobless claims rise unexpectedly
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The number of Americans asking for Unemployment payments rose more than expected last week the government said, ending a four-week decline and cementing doubts about the health of the Job Market. "It is a sign that the Labor Market remains weak and is not improving at a steady pace," said Andrew Gledhill of Moody's Analytics. Claims for the week to September 18 rose to 465,000, up 12,000 from the previous week's revised level, the Labor Department...

Rep. Akin: Just Plain Wrong On Stimulus, Job Creation
Job Growth In February And March The Economy Created 53,000 More Jobs In February Than Originally Thought.  According to the BLS report for April: " The change in total Nonfarm Payroll Employment for February was revised from -14,000 to +39,000 , and the change for March was revised from 162,000 to 230,000."  [BLS.Gov,  5/7/10 , emphasis added] The Economy Created 68,000 More Jobs In March Than Originally Thought.  According to the BLS report for April: "The...

Arkansas' unemployment rate increases to 7.5 percent in August; jobs decrease by 3,400
Little Rock, ARK. — Arkansas' Unemployment Rate rose by one-tenth of a percentage point last month to 7.5 percent, the first increase since March. The State Department of Workforce Services says the State's Nonfarm Payroll jobs decreased by 3,400 in August. The biggest drop came in educational and health services, which lost 2,300 jobs. Manufacturing also lost 1,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality lost 1,100 jobs, and the State attributed that to both The Economy and the end of the summer...

NY Times: Recession May Be Over, but Joblessness Remains
Yes, you read that correctly. The downturn officially ended, and the recovery officially began, in June 2009, according to an announcement Monday by the official arbiter of economic turning points . Since that point, total output — the amount of goods and services produced by the United States — has increased, as have many other measures of economic activity. But Nonfarm Payrolls are still down 329,000 from their level at the Recession ’s official end 15 months ago,...

NYT: Just a Reminder That the Obama Recovery Has Lost More Jobs Than It Created
The New York Times via Hot Air:   The United States economy has lost more jobs than it has added since the Recovery began over a year ago. Yes, you read that correctly. The downturn officially ended, and the Recovery officially began, in June 2009, according to an announcement Monday by the official arbiter of economic turning points. Since that point, total output — the amount of goods and services produced by the United States — has increased, as have many other measures...

Un-Stimulating Bureaucracy
In short, its impossible for government experts to aggregate the vast amount of knowledge that is dispersed throughout The Economy in order to optimally direct economic activity. And as Kling notes, concentrating power over The Economy in the hands of experts leads to ever more undesirable government interventions: As we have seen, the expectations placed on government experts tend to be unrealistically high. This selects for experts with unusual hubris. The authority of the state gives...

A Misleading Report
Arnold Kling is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute and a member of the Financial Markets Working Group of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is the author of "Unchecked and Unbalanced: How the Discrepancy Between Knowledge and Power Caused the Financial Crisis and Threatens Democracy." He writes for Econlog . I disagree with the Recession-dating decision. Employment declined by nearly one million workers in the four months after the supposed end of the Recession. ...

Recession Over " Obama Agrees (Video)
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Great Recession is over! The NBER claims that the Recession began in December of 2007 and ended in June, 2009, some eighteen months. The NBER also claims that even with the Recession ending in June of 2009, the 18 months made the ‘Great Recession’ the longest since the end of World War 2. Barack Obama agreed with the NBER’s assessment yesterday during his townhall on CNBC. President Obama said that while the...

The economy, inflation: Fed says it's ready to take action to avert deflation
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — The Federal Reserve for the first time raised direct concern that the nation's economy may be headed into a Deflation trap and expressed new readiness to take more action to avert a serious turn for the worse. In a statement issued Tuesday after its seventh Policy-setting meeting of the year, the Central Bank noted once more that the pace of Economic Recovery and employment Growth have slowed in recent months. But this time the Fed made clear...

The Fed Speaks: September FOMC Report
If you had asked me when I was a lowly College Student if I ever thought that some day I would be reading a crystal ball for a living I would have switched majors to art or engineering. Yet here I am forced to read between the lines of the minutes of the Fed Open Market Committee's meeting today which is a bit like gazing into a crystal ball. Here is today's big news from the Fed (with my emphasis added). Notice the murky language: Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee...

Obama, facing tough questions, says times still hard
Washington (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Monday said times were still tough for many Americans, as he defended his policies during aggressive questioning after the worst U.S. Recession since the 1930s was declared over. As audience members at a townhall-style meeting voiced exasperation and disappointment at his Administration, and one woman said she was "exhausted" from defending him, Obama stressed he understood that people were frustrated. "Even though Economists...

5 Bad Economic Indicators for the Criminally Insane
We keep hearing the same words over and over again: The Economy is improving. But to a lot of us, those words just don't ring true -- to those still upside down on their home loans, to those still struggling to find a job, to the ones that lost their Retirement fund in the Stock Market -- they wonder how that could possibly be the case. Now me, personally, I always thought 'economy' was a virtually windowless van manufactured by the Ford Company. Turns out that was Econoline. Words are such ...

Longest recession since 1930s ended in June 2009, group says
The longest U.S. Recession since the Great Depression ended in June 2009, lasting 18 months, the National Bureau of Economic Research said. "The committee decided that any future downturn of The Economy would be a new Recession and not a continuation of the Recession that began in December 2007," the Cambridge , Mass.-based bureau's business cycle dating group said Monday. "The basis for this decision was the length and strength of the recovery to date." The committee is the accepted arbiter...

Obama, facing tough questions, says times still hard
Washington (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday said times were still tough for many Americans, as he defended his policies during aggressive questioning after the worst U.S. Recession since the 1930s was declared over. As audience members at a townhall-style meeting voiced exasperation and disappointment at his Administration, and one woman said she was "exhausted" from defending him, Obama stressed he understood that people were frustrated. "Even though Economists may say the Recession...

Blockbuster files for bankruptcy
DVD and games rental company Blockbuster has filed for Bankruptcy protection in the US. The Dallas, Texas-based company said it had made the decision as part of attempts to cut its debts and restructure the Business. Agreements with its creditors will allow it to cut its debts from nearly $1bn to about $100m, Blockbuster said. Blockbuster's non-US operations are not included in the Bankruptcy, as they are legally separate entities. That includes its 4,000-strong network of stores in the...

TheGrill: TheWrap's Media Conference, Session by Session
Description At a time of unprecedented change and shifting Business Models, the entertainment industry is hungry for thought leadership. TheWrap believes that the conversation about where and how entertainment will meet the challenge of the digital age needs to be centered in Hollywood. Conceived in an effort to create a high level forum for discussing the transformational forces in our changing entertainment industry,  TheGrill  has brought together a community of leaders from across...

News Corp will charge for newspaper websites, says Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch says having free newspaper websites is a 'flawed' Business Model Photograph: Saul Loeb/Getty Images Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation 's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a "malfunctioning" Business Model. Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the Billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge. "That it is...

Blockbuster files for bankruptcy protection
A Blockbuster store is seen, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010, in Dallas. The video-rental chain Blockbuster Inc. could file for Bankruptcy protection as early as Wednesday, according to a Wall Street Journal article. (AP Photo/LM Otero) A Blockbuster store sign is seen, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010, in Dallas. Troubled video-rental chain Blockbuster Inc. could file for Bankruptcy protection, according to a Wall Street Journal article. (AP Photo/LM Otero) Related Articles NEW YORK (AP) Troubled...

For some dog owners, when pets are left off the guest list, the party’s over
It was a sunny Friday afternoon, and Emery Robinson, 23, and her black lab puppy, Moakley, were enjoying themselves in a South End dog park: Moakley tussling with peers, Robinson talking dog minutia with other owners. But a dark cloud loomed: a weekend barbecue at her boyfriend’s parents’ house, a party to which Moakley, 80 pounds of goofiness, was specifically not invited. “It kind of hurts my feelings,’’ said Robinson, the Communications Director at a Mental...

Links 9/22/2010
- With earnings season only a few weeks away, Josh Brown notes a pattern that’s developed in last six quarters. “A run up in stocks at the beginning of earnings season’s opening month followed by the almost inevitable denouement as hearts are broken and focus is diverted elsewhere,” he says. “The Ghosts of Earnings Past are haunting the nascent rally even as you read this.” - Now that the Recession is technically over, Yves Smith wonders if this is what a...