By MARY WILLIAMS WALSHPublished: January 20, 2011 Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers. Unlike cities, the states are barred from seeking protection in federal bankruptcy court. […]
Adam Taggart, www.Chrismartenson.com Jan. 21, 2011, 10:11 AM This week’s Straight Talk contributor is Paul Kedrosky. Paul is an investor, writer, entrepreneur and editor of the widely-followed econoblog Infectious Greed. He is a prolific engine of commentary on the economy, the markets, and society – often looking through the lens of how technology serves (and […]
By Mark Felsenthal; editing by Maureen BavdekDENVER | Sun Jan 9, 2011 12:32pm EST (Reuters) – To hear a number of prominent economists tell it, it doesn’t look good for the U.S. economy, not this year, not in 10 years. Leading thinkers in the dismal science speaking at an annual convention offered varying visions of […]
By Anthony Deutsch in CianjurJanuary 16 2011 20:44 Indonesian farmer Ujang Majudin pointed to rows of rotting chilli peppers, tomatoes and egg plants as clouds gathered again over his fields, already water-logged by incessant rain. With sharply declining yields and revenue, he faces the toughest season since taking over the family farm 15 years ago. […]
Al Jazeera and Agencies Last Modified: 05 Jan 2011 20:56 GMT A 26-year-old Tunisian man who set off a wave of protests after attempting to commit suicide by setting himself on fire last month has died of third-degree burns in hospital, his relatives and human rights groups have said. Mohamed Bouazizi died at 5:30 pm […]
By Shane Goldmacher, Los Angeles TimesJanuary 9, 2011 There will be little to like and something for just about everyone to hate. But it is in giving Californians a dose of painful budgetary truth that Brown hopes to succeed. To tame the state’s chronic budget shortfalls, the Democratic governor will request cuts in a broad […]
By Rudy RuitenbergJan 5, 2011 4:24 AM PT World food prices rose to a record in December on higher sugar, grain and oilseed costs, the United Nations said, exceeding levels reached in 2008 that sparked deadly riots from Haiti to Egypt. An index of 55 food commodities tracked by the Food and Agriculture Organization gained […]
By The Economist onlineNov 10th 2010, 12:25 GOVERNMENTS have been indebted for centuries, running ongoing Ponzi schemes involving tax-payers, investors and future generations. But data sets on debt levels over time are rare (the most comprehensive ones only begin in the 1970s). A new paper from the IMF seeks to resolve this. Data gathered from […]
By Kamrul Hasan Khan (AFP)24 December 2010 CHAR PALIAMARY, Bangladesh — Bangladesh’s rivers have provided for fisherman Rafiqul Islam’s family for generations but a few years ago the 27-year-old noticed his nets were coming up empty. This year, Islam was forced to leave his small fishing community in northern Mymensingh district to find work, an […]
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 […]
