On Friday, the US Chamber of Commerce released a report, apparently timed for the weekend before the election when a number of fracking initiatives are on the ballot nationally, which alleged that "14.8 million jobs could be lost, gasoline prices and electricity prices could almost double, and each American family could see their cost of living increase by almost $4,000" if fracking were banned in the US.
Last Friday’s payroll jobs report is another government fairy tale or, to avoid polite euphemisms, another packet of lies. Lies just like the House of Representatives Resolution against Russia and every other statement that comes out of Washington.
Washington is averse to truth. Washington can only lie.
The Dow Jones stock average closed early September Friday at 17,137, despite the fact that the payroll jobs report was a measly 125,000 new jobs for August, an insufficient amount to keep up with the growth in the working age population.
The amount of cash multinational corporations are stashing is at an all time high and economists are wondering why. A recent Federal Reserve research paper examined some of the reasons. A big one is multinationals pay no taxes on profits if they park them offshore. A stash of cash is building and the miser pile is now a mountain.
The Federal Open Market Committee is not going to stop quantitative easing just yet. This is no surprise considering the weak economic conditions and as we pointed out, an inflation rate below expectations. The risk of deflation is real.
One of my most popular columns was about escaping from the Matrix existence in which Americans live. It is a world of disinformation and misinformation in which facts are fiction, and abstract theories are substituted for empirical reality.
Official government statistics are make-believe. The government makes inflation and unemployment disappear by how it defines inflation and unemployment, and it makes the economy grow by how it defines Gross Domestic Product. The definitional basis determines the statistical result.
The House of Representatives is out to destroy the American Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Professional. Republicans passed H.R. 6429 with the oxymoron title, STEM Jobs Act of 2012. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and this bill gives 55,000 foreigners a year who graduate from an American university with a Masters or PhD in these fields an employment sponsored green card. Democrats didn't like it, not because it will labor arbitrage American Technical Professionals and lock out some Americans from even being accepted into Masters and PhD university programs. No, Democrats don't like the idea of separating the agenda of giving those here illegally legal status from the corporate lobbyist never ending demand for more foreign guest worker Visas and turning the American higher education system into a glorified green card ATM. Democrats believe they will never get their unlimited migration agenda through Congress without sacrificing the American Science and Technology professional to the globalization wolves.
Superstorm Sandy's economic effects are popping up like the dark clouds of a hurricane. In The Perfect Storm we predicted Sandy would negatively impact Q4 GDP by 0.5 percentage points. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's survey of professional forecasters recently downgraded their Q4 GDP estimates by 0.4 percentage points to 1.8% annualized Q4 GDP growth. There are some estimates which are as low as 0.5% Q4 GDP, much of the downgrades due to superstorm Sandy.
Now the data is rolling in, like the storm surge itself. Sandy hit the New Jersey coast on October 29th. Even while the damage, loss of power, business closings and economic activity would seem to go negative after that date, October industrial production was hit with a full percentage point of Hurricane Sandy related contraction.
The never ending stream of bad news for the U.S. work force cascades upon us like a tidal wave of despair. A host of studies have come out which put into numbers what most of us know, the American worker is being taken to the brink of financial ruin and even death.
Suicide has replaced motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death by injury and has increased 15% since 2000. While most people who commit suicide has psychiatric disorders, the fact is higher incidents of suicide do happen during bad economic times. Even more amusing is the government response, as if the best cure for feelings of despair, low self worth is not a damn job along with a healthy dose of respect for working people.
Homeless rates have actually not changed between 2009-2011, but that's only due to a large grant by the Federal government to keep more people sheltered. Now that funds have run dry and under attack by deficit hawks, expect homeless numbers to rise.
Despite the fact that the number of homeless people was essentially unchanged between 2009 and 2011, there is much reason for concern. As this report points out, economic and demographic indicators linked to homelessness continue to be troubling. Homelessness is a lagging indicator, and the effects of the poor economy on the problem are escalating and are expected to continue to do so over the next few years.
Imagine returning to your office to see a note taped to your chair which reads:
Just leave, you are not wanted here, hope your journey brings you death.
Imagine coming into work and turning on your computer. The screen lights up with an open Word document, which says:
Burn in your hell and death to you and the family. Infosys rules the world.
That has been the life of Jay Palmer and today an Alabama judge ruled the above threats are not unreasonable in the workplace. Literally the Judge ruled that death threats are not out of bounds in Alabama employment law. The judge claims the threats were notso severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it.. So, under employment law is murder now perfectly legal? What does it take here to get justice for U.S. workers?
ComputerWorld has been covering the case and sums up what happened.
In his lawsuit, Palmer claimed he was harassed at work, sidelined and even received death threats for refusing to participate in an alleged Infosys scheme to use workers on business visitor, or B-1 visas, for tasks that required an H-1B work visa.
The House of Representatives is out to destroy the American Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Professional. Republicans passed H.R. 6429 with the oxymoron title, STEM Jobs Act of 2012. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and this bill gives 55,000 foreigners a year who graduate from an American university with a Masters or PhD in these fields an employment sponsored green card. Democrats didn't like it, not because it will labor arbitrage American Technical Professionals and lock out some Americans from even being accepted into Masters and PhD university programs. No, Democrats don't like the idea of separating the agenda of giving those here illegally legal status from the corporate lobbyist never ending demand for more foreign guest worker Visas and turning the American higher education system into a glorified green card ATM. Democrats believe they will never get their unlimited migration agenda through Congress without sacrificing the American Science and Technology professional to the globalization wolves. 
The never ending stream of bad news for the U.S. work force cascades upon us like a tidal wave of despair. A host of studies have come out which put into numbers what most of us know, the American worker is being taken to the brink of financial ruin and even death.
Imagine returning to your office to see a note taped to your chair which reads:
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