The grim news is coming fast these days.
Unemployment numbers aren’t improving and we’ve got more signs of what may be shaping up to be rampant inflation, the worst possible event for jobless folks already barely scraping by.
Meanwhile, though, the banksters are getting their billions in bonuses.
But don’t feel too glum. At least there’s an amusing video at the end.
Britain fears a new ‘lost generation’
The reason? Youth unemployment is heading toward a record, and long-term prospects for meaningful employment are looking bleak.
From Graeme Wearden of The Guardian:
Youth unemployment has hit a record high, fanning fears that Britain’s young people could become a “lost generation” who cannot find work despite the recession ending a year ago.
The total number of adults under 25 who are out of work moved close to the 1 million mark in the three months to November, rising by 32,000 to 951,000. This pushed the youth unemployment rate up to 20.3%, which is also the highest level since records began in 1992.
There was a particularly sharp rise in the number of 16 and 17-year-olds classed as unemployed, rather than in employment or education, up to 204,000 from 177,000 in the previous quarter.
With the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) being abolished, and the Future Jobs Fund closing in March, analysts fear the youth unemployment crisis will deepen further in the months ahead.
“Britain is now perilously close to seeing 1 million young people struggling to find work,” warned Martina Milburn, chief executive of youth charity The Prince’s Trust.
New York plans to cut more state workers
State government, the last bastion on union jobs with decent pay and benefits, are under sharp attack by the neocons, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is getting ready to pare thousands of jobs from the state payroll.
Nicholas Confessore reports for the New York Times:
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is considering reducing the state workforce by up to 15,000 workers in his budget, the largest cut to the government payroll in recent years, two people briefed on the plan said Wednesday night.
The prospective cuts are likely to accompany large reductions in Medicaid and state education spending, those people said, as Mr. Cuomo and his administration seek to close a projected budget gap of more than $9 billion.
But the cuts would represent a substantial downsizing of the state’s workforce, including clerical workers, state troopers and park rangers. And that belt-tightening would almost certainly be accompanied by noticeable reductions in government services, though it is hard to predict where and how much until Mr. Cuomo releases his proposed budget in early February.
Southern Cal loses last major aircraft factory
Two West Coast cities, Los Angeles and Seattle, once housed a thriving American aircraft industry.
Now the Los Angeles region is about to lose it’s last major plant, reports W.J. Hennigan for the Los Angeles Times:
Time is running out at Southern California’s last major conventional aircraft factory.
Citing declining orders for its C-17 cargo planes, Boeing Co. said it was cutting 900 of the 3,700 jobs at its sprawling Long Beach plant. Barring congressional intervention or a spate of foreign orders — which analysts say is unlikely — the factory is expected to shut down completely by the end of next year.
“There’s just not that much of a market for this aircraft,” said
Scott Hamilton, an aviation industry consultant in Issaquah, Wash.
The layoffs, which the company announced late Wednesday, continue the decline in local aerospace jobs. The industry, which employed more than 160,000 people in Southern California in 1990, had an estimated workforce of about 47,650 last year.
The C-17 Globemaster III, a massive, four-engine jet that hauls 60-ton tanks, troops and medical gear across continents and yet lands on short runways, has been in production since the early 1990s. The plant, next to Long Beach Airport, is a symbol of a bygone era in Southern California when factories ran around the clock building colossal aircraft.
>snip<
Newly laid-off workers will also face a tough hiring environment. Unemployment in California stands at 12.4%. In Los Angeles County, it is 12.9%. Workers were told about the layoffs Wednesday, and termination notices will begin to be issued Friday, the company said.
Ah, but the banksters are doing well. Very well.
From Susanne Craig of the New York Times DealBook blog:
Morgan Stanley swung into a profit in the fourth quarter, with earnings rising almost 60% to $600 million — good news for the Wall Street bank, which has struggled this year to turn around its operations.
It had a rough third quarter as low client client activity and ho hum markets took a bite out of profit. Morgan Stanley posted a loss of $91 million.
In all, Morgan Stanley posted yearly profits of $3.6 billion, on sales of $31.6 billion. That’s up from a loss of $907 million in 2009 on revenues of $23 billion. The fourth quarter results were a surprise at 42 cents a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected the company to earn to 35 cents.
And China’s economic growth rate nears ten percent
It’s no secret that American manufacturers have been fleeing the country in droves and setting up operations in China, where labor is comparatively cheap and regulations looser.
Thanks in part to transported plants, the Chinese economy has boomed while the economies of the West have tanked.
Here’s the latest from Ian Johnson and Bettina Wassener of the New York Times:
China’s economy grew at a rate of 9.8 percent in the fourth quarter from the same period a year earlier and inflation eased only slightly last month, showing that a series of cooling measures by Beijing over the past year have had only a limited effect.
Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday put the pace of growth at 10.3 percent for the full year, up from 9.2 percent in 2009.
The pace of growth in the last three months of 2010 also accelerated from the 9.6 percent recorded for July-September quarter. Both the quarterly and annual figures were significantly above what analysts had expected.
Buoyed by ample lending and significant state investment projects, the Chinese economy powered ahead last year, overtaking Japan to become the world’s second-largest, after the United States.
Inflation, which has become a major concern for the authorities in recent months, came in at 3.3 percent for the full year, above the official target of 3 percent, while the data for December showed consumer prices were up 4.8 percent from a year earlier.
This was lower than the 5.1 percent inflation seen in November, but still a worrying one in the eyes of ordinary Chinese, who have been complaining of rising food prices, with some staples increasing 25 percent in the last few months.
Meanwhile the privateers demand lower taxes
Now that they’re reaping billions in profits from their offshore factories, American corporateers are demanding that their shills in Congress end taxes on profits earned abroad
From Reuters:
The top executive of Procter & Gamble will take corporate America’s case for a lower tax rate to U.S. lawmakers on Thursday, and also call for an end to taxation of foreign-earned profits.
Multinational companies say the top 35 percent corporate tax rate hamstrings them competitively against foreign-based rivals, most of whom are subject to far lower rates.
The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee hearing, the first in a series expected in Congress this year on simplifying the U.S. tax code, gives them a chance to press their case.
“If we are handicapped by an uncompetitive corporate tax system, we will slow the growth of the U.S. economy to the benefit of our competitors,” Procter & Gamble Chief Executive Robert McDonald will tell the tax-writing lawmakers, according to prepared remarks for the panel.
McDonald is speaking on behalf of the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group composed of big corporations. The Chamber of Commerce has also submitted testimony calling for similar tax changes.
Also appearing is U.S. Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, a watchdog within the Internal Revenue Service. Olson earlier this month said the single biggest challenge facing taxpayers is the code’s complexity.
In prepared testimony, Olson said a “dirty little secret” is that the tax breaks that must be trimmed to simplify the code “generally benefit the masses,” not just special interests.
Algeria lays in massive stores of wheat
After seeing food riots lead to the overthrow of the Tunisian government, the Algerian government has been buying up massive amounts of wheat in the event of similar disturbances there.
Algeria has already seen food riots two weeks ago, and events in Tunisia, another former French colony, moved the government to act.
Lamine Chikhi reports for Reuters:
Algeria’s state grains agency has purchased around 1 million tonnes of wheat in the past two weeks to avoid shortages in case of unrest, a source from the ministry of agriculture told Reuters.
The OAIC’s director, Nouredine Kahel, refused to make any comment, but a source at the ministry said that there are three main reasons behind Algeria’s decision to buy big quantities in a short period of time.
“One is that we want to make sure that we do have enough wheat in case of unrest,” the source, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Several Algerian towns including the capital experienced days of rioting earlier this month, triggered by a sharp rise in food prices. Two people were killed and hundreds were injured during clashes between rioters and police, officials said.
To calm the situation, Algeria has decided to cut the cost of some foodstuffs and to increase by 18 percent the amount of soft wheat it supplies to the local market each month.
Beef prices set all-time record
From Global Macro Monitor:
After reaching a high of $112.375 – the highest for a closest-to-expiration contract since CME launched cattle futures in 1964 – February live cattle futures fell today to the equivalent of $108.80 per hundred points. The price hit a previous record of $107.05 in September 2008 during the commodity bubble that sent crude oil up to $150 a barrel.
So what could make things even worse?
How about Cows with Guns?
Here’s a delightful animation of the Dana Lyons song.
eats shoots 'n leaves 