Goldman: "Moving Beyond Full Employment"
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World View & Market Commentary.
Forest first; Trees second.
Focused on Real & Knowable facts that filter through the "experts" fluff and media hyperbole. Where we've been, what the future may hold and developing a better way forward.
HighlightsMeanwhile, the media continues to ignore the importance of the Japanese Fukushima situation. We are following and covering this situation thoroughly in our daily thread, so if you wish to know what’s going on there, please join the conversation there, where we have been miles ahead of the mainstream (which are nothing but a marketing/ shill arm for their corporate owners). The Japanese government has been hiding very elevated readings outside of their evacuation zone and it now looks like they are finally getting around to discussing moving it out further. Yet another crime against humanity that is going unchecked – those people’s health will suffer hugely, and their land will not be inhabitable for decades or even centuries.
Jobless filings are moving lower one step at a time with initial claims at 382,000 in the April 2 week vs 392,000 in the prior week (revised from 388,000). The four-week average of 389,500 is down more than 5,000 from a month ago. Continuing claims edged lower in the March 26 week, to a four-week average of 3.746 million with the month-ago comparison showing a 100,000 decline. Unadjusted data show 8.52 million making a filing during the March 19 week, down nearly 250,000 from the prior week.
Claims trends point to labor demand as businesses gear up to meet orders. A wildcard for future reports is Japanese supply disruptions and whether they will affect US jobs. Markets are showing little reaction to today's report.
Saudi Arabia’s Mortgage Law Advances Amid Mideast UnrestPretty easy to see from the outside looking in that it’s a blatant attempt to bribe the people into peace so that they are compliant.
April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Advisers to Saudi Arabia’s king approved a long-delayed overhaul of the country’s mortgage law after the monarch pledged more than $82 billion to fund homebuilding, at a time governments across the Middle East are offering concessions to quell political unrest.
The Shura Council agreed on its final amendments to the law and passed it to King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz for final approval, according to Saad Mariq, deputy chairman of the council’s finance committee.
“The law will propel the creation of private mortgage- finance companies and banks will infuse a lot of money into mortgages,” Mariq said in a telephone interview on April 5. “I expect to see the injection of tens of billions of riyals into the sector as a result.”
King Abdullah promised to increase spending on housing after popular protests led to the overthrow of governments in Egypt and Tunisia and targeted regimes from Syria to Bahrain. Saudi Arabia’s mortgage law will change the way home finance is regulated, from registering mortgages to prosecuting police officers who refuse to carry out eviction orders. The law, debated for a 10 years, will give rise to a private lending market that Capitas Group International estimates at $32 billion a year for the next decade.
CDC chief: Americans not at risk from radiationThey then go on to distract you with talk about potassium iodide tablets, which are completely worthless because your government will never inform you when there is a danger in a timely manner and those must be taken within two hours of exposure or it’s too late. Not that they protect against the heavier elements anyway – and thus it is a complete distraction. But to claim that it’s not present in the environment and that they are on top of testing for it is an outright LIE.
Minuscule amounts of radiation detected in the United States do not pose any risk to Americans' health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Thomas Frieden reiterated Tuesday.
"We do not expect radiation to reach problematic levels," he said on a conference call with reporters.
Despite a low-level of concern, Frieden said, agencies such as the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture were all actively monitoring the air, the food and the water supplies in the U.S. for any evidence of contamination.
Dr. William Jones, acting director for the FDA's division of food safety, echoed Frieden's sentiments.
"There is a great deal of monitoring going on for any product that comes into this country," said Jones. "Anything contaminated to level where it could pose a concern would be detected."
Freeze Dried Food Distributor: Six Month Wait Time Amid Extreme Shortages
If there was ever a sentiment indicator for economic uncertainty and fear, this would be it.
As of April 2011, major distributors of freeze dried food, namely the Mountain House brand, are indicating that shoppers should expect delays of nearly six months on any orders placed today:
I’d scream if my thyroid wasn’t so swollen!***CURRENT INVENTORY UPDATE AS OF 04/05/11***Other large distributors we contacted indicated similar shipping delays, with many simply marking their freeze dried food inventory as completely “out of stock.”
All Mountain House & Nitro-Pak food storage #10 cans are in EXTREMELY HIGH DEMAND due to national & world current economic uncertainty and inflation fears. With this increase in demand, our food order processing times have greatly increased also. As Mountain House’s leading distributor, we are receiving HUGE shipments WEEKLY to fill our customer orders, but demand exceeds the available supply. Most Mountain House dealers have been been cut off & receive no food, period. Supplies are VERY SCARCE. Like Disneyland, the line is long but still slowly moving. Please be patient. This is a line you do not want to get out of!
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All canned food orders and units may take up to 160 days to ship. Thank you for your business!
Source: Nitro-Pak
U.S. Sees Array of New Threats at Japan’s Nuclear PlantYeah, it’s serious and it’s being underplayed, big time. Don’t let the special interests lull you into a false sense of security, just like they do with what’s left of the markets. Pay attention and take the appropriate action.
- “Semimolten” fuel rods and salt are “impeding the flow of fresh water meant to cool the nuclear cores” in ALL THREE REACTORS
- The water flow in reactor No. 1 “is severely restricted and likely blocked“
- Similar problems exist in No. 2 and No. 3, although the blockage is probably less severe
- “There is likely no water level” inside the core of reactor No. 1
- There is a possibility of “explosions inside the containment structures”
- Highly radioactive pieces from the spent fuel pools were blown up to a mile away
- Nuclear Engineer: Confidential US report “paints a very different picture, and suggests that things are a lot worse” — Risk of more damage “in a big way”
- Japan concerned about more explosions — “Considering injecting nitrogen into containment vessels” -Kyodo
- Nuclear consultant doubts official temperature estimates — Reactor No. 3 probably much nearer to THOUSANDS of degrees
- Unexpected pressure buildup in No. 3 reactor — “We are not so optimistic” says Japan official
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
- Thomas Jefferson – attributed
McDonald's to hire 50,000 workers - in 1 day
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- McDonald's said Monday that it is planning a one-day hiring spree of 50,000 new workers on April 19 for its U.S. restaurants.
McDonald's (MCD, Fortune 500) said that these new "Mcjobs" will include crew and management positions, part-time and full-time.
McDonald's, which has 14,000 restaurants in the United States, said the hires will occur nationwide.
"We're excited to offer 50,000 new jobs, all across America, all in one day," said Jan Fields, president of McDonald's U.S.A.
Fields, who started working at a McDonald's restaurant as a crew member behind the counter in 1978, said the 50,000 new hires will increase the U.S. workforce to 700,000 from its current level of 650,000.
She said the average pay for the jobs is $8.30 an hour. That's compared to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, though in some states the minimum wage is higher. She said that restaurant managers can make $50,000 a year.