By NPR StaffDecember 19, 2010 In 1968, Simon & Garfunkel released the bittersweet song “America” — a tune about a couple leaving Saginaw, Mich., to seek their fortunes elsewhere. This past week, a reporter at The Saginaw News noticed lyrics from that song spray-painted on vacant buildings all over town. Some of the paint on […]
By Gus Lubin Jul. 1, 2010 Legendary investor Jeff Gundlach gave one of the most depressing presentations you’ll ever hear at last week’s Morningstar Investor Conference (via Prag Cap). The bond guru and founder of Doubleline Capital combines debt apocalypse with negative indicators in the current recession, like the looming mortgage crisis, to say America […]
The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate […]
By lancefreeman76 April 5, 2010 Americans, I have some bad news for you: You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin. If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in […]
Pest infestations are on the rise as cash-strapped councils phase out free extermination services By Emily DuganSunday, 21 November 2010 They spread disease, feast on our blood and destroy our clothes. And their numbers are soaring. Britain’s populations of rats, mice, cockroaches, bedbugs, wasps and moths are growing, in some cases unchecked, as more local […]
By Jacob GoldsteinOctober 8, 2010 The recession ended more than a year ago, but the jobs picture is still very bleak. There are about 130 million non-farm jobs in this country, according to the employment numbers out this morning. That’s down from nearly 138 million in December of ’07, when the recession began. Those job […]
This graph shows bank failures by week in 2008, 2009 and 2010.At this time last year, there were 106 bank failures – on the way to 140 total failures in 2009. This year there are 139 failures so far, and, at this pace, it looks like there will be around 175 total failures in 2010. […]
By Patrick Hennessy and Rebecca LefortPublished: 8:30PM BST 23 Oct 2010 Ministers are planning a massive sell-off of Britain’s Government-owned forests as they seek to save billions of pounds to help cut the deficit, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, is expected to announce plans within days to dispose of about […]
[Desdemona remembers when only “developing nations” had austerity measures clamped onto them.] By Daniel Pimlott and Chris Giles in London and Robin Harding in WashingtonOctober 20 2010 23:30 | Last updated: October 20 2010 23:30 The UK’s Conservative-led coalition has announced the most drastic budget cuts in living memory, outstripping measures taken by other advanced […]
By MARTIN FACKLERPublished: October 16, 2010 OSAKA, Japan — Like many members of Japan’s middle class, Masato Y. enjoyed a level of affluence two decades ago that was the envy of the world. Masato, a small-business owner, bought a $500,000 condominium, vacationed in Hawaii and drove a late-model Mercedes. But his living standards slowly crumbled […]
