Street clashes broke out between rioting youths and police in central Athens today as tens of thousands demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government.
Hundreds of masked and hooded youths punched and kicked motorcycle police, knocking several off their bikes, as police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades.
The violence spread after the end of the march to a nearby square, where police faced off with stone-throwing anarchists and suffocating clouds of tear gas sent patrons scurrying from open-air cafes.
Loudoun ranks as the richest county in the United States, immediately followed by Fairfax and Howard counties, while Montgomery, traditionally one of the wealthiest, is now 10th.
Forbes magazine ranked eight other Washington-area counties in its list of the nation’s 25 wealthiest counties, far more than any other area in the country. The rankings are based on 2008 median household income data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Millions of Americans have been forced to rely on unemployment payments for extended periods as the nation struggles through its longest period of high joblessness in a generation, and critics are taking aim, saying that the Depression-era program created as a temporary bridge for laid-off workers is turning into an expensive entitlement.
About 11.4 million out-of-work people now collect unemployment compensation, at a cost of $10 billion a month. Half of them have been receiving payments for more than six months, the usual insurance limit. But under multiple extensions enacted by the federal government in response to the downturn, workers can collect the payments for as long as 99 weeks in states with the highest unemployment rates — the longest period since the program’s inception.
That’s not some apocalyptic bumper sticker. It’s the learned opinion of numerous financial experts when describing the budget crises facing a number of U.S. states, notably Illinois, California and New Jersey.
“This is an unprecedented crisis,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, an influential Illinois-based tax and fiscal policy research group.
– On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported that January new-home sales dropped 11.2 percent from December, plunging to their lowest level in nearly 50 years.
– On Tuesday, the Conference Board reported that February consumer confidence fell sharply from January, driven down by the survey’s “present situation index” — how confident consumers feel right now — which hit its lowest mark since the 1983 recession. On Friday, the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey also showed a falloff from January to February.
– On Thursday, the government’s report on new jobless claims filed during the previous week shot up 22,000, which was exactly opposite of what economists predicted. Forecasters expected new jobless claims to drop by about 20,000.
The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance surged to just below the 500,000 level last week, and have climbed more than 12% over the past two weeks, the government said Thursday.
There were 496,000 initial job claims filed in the week ended Feb. 20, up 22,000 from a revised 474,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report. The prior week, there were 442,000 claims filed.
Sales of new homes plunged to a record low in January, underscoring the formidable challenges facing the housing industry as it tries to recover from the worst slump in decades.
The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that new home sales dropped 11.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 309,000 units, the lowest level on records going back nearly a half century. The big drop was a surprise to economists who were expecting a 5 percent increase over December’s pace.
Walmart has suffered its first fall in quarterly sales at its US discount stores, underlining the challenges facing future growth in its home market as the economy recovers.
In the important holiday quarter ending on January 31, net sales at Walmart’s 3,400-plus US stores fell 0.5 per cent year-on-year to $71bn (€52bn). Comparable store sales declined 2 per cent. Customer traffic also fell.
Republicans sparred with President Barack Obama over proposals to create jobs in dueling radio addresses Saturday, highlighting the difficulty of reaching bipartisan solutions in a political climate marked by partisan bickering.
The Dow returned to four-digit territory on Friday as persisting worries about the debt of slow-growing European countries and a mixed jobs report prevented Wall Street from rebounding from its worst day in more than nine months.
U.S. employers unexpectedly cut 20,000 in January, but the unemployment rate surprisingly fell to a five-month low of 9.7 percent, according to a government report on Friday that hinted at some labor market improvement starting to take root.
The US transportation chief’s public rebukes of Toyota’s handling of a massive safety recall have raised eyebrows, given the US government’s major stake in rivals General Motors and Chrysler.
“The optics are terrible because — and this is what happens when a government owns a company - the two companies that are going to gain the most out of this are General Motors and Chrysler,” said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s business school.
Growing fears over the health of Europe’s weakest economies rocked global markets on Thursday, sparking sharp falls in shares on the continent and a worldwide flight to the safety of the US dollar and Treasuries.
The impact of declining sentiment in Europe was compounded in the US by poor employment data, with the number of American workers claiming jobless benefits rising unexpectedly last week.
The US debt is on track to hit a congressionally proposed debt ceiling of 14.3 trillion dollars by the end of February, the Treasury said Wednesday, a day ahead of a key vote to raise it to that level.
If an employer can’t afford to add a human resource/liability which would probably cost a minimum $30K, what the hell is a $5K Tax Credit gonna do for that.
Today the President that it might be a good idea to tax banks. If this is the best he’s got, we are in for a world hurt.
The White House pushed hard against opposition to the tax. The president spoke of “obscene bonuses” and the “twisted logic” of bank executives who oppose the tax. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs suggested the banks were trying to pass the tab for their woes to taxpayers.
Industry officials warned that the new tax could constrain bankers’ ability to make new loans, which could hurt the economy. In addition, some analysts cautioned that the plan could encourage banks, to reduce their exposure to the fee, to shift more assets and liabilities into the types of off-balance-sheet vehicles that helped sow the seeds of the financial crisis.
My thinking this is all a smoke screen to divert attention from the failing health care legislation.
Only the legislature could write such crap into law that would destroy perfectly good vehicles.
Now instead of this vehicle being passed down the market food chain it has been aborted prematurely and precious environmental resources will have to be expended to replace it with a brand new vehicle.
These are the same idiots that are supposedly reforming health care. I hope they fail miserably.
I saw a stupid poll on CNN.com again the other day. It was asking the dumb masses if the US economy was in a recession. Over 80% of the sheep that responded agreed.
The media has been doing their best in perpetrating this fallacy and doing nothing to right the wrong information.
If the media cannot report the facts, then what are they good for.
Update: Fixed the misspelling in “Recession” in the title.
Yes job growth was twice what the expert analysts were predicting. I am beginning to wonder if these expert analysts are just making it up and phoning it in.
This is on the heels of better than expected GDP news for the month of October.
Surging exports and business spending propelled U.S. growth to the fastest pace in more than a year before turmoil in the credit markets forced the Federal Reserve to warn of a bleaker outlook.
Gross domestic product rose at a 4 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said in Washington, up from an initial estimate of 3.4 percent. The median forecast of economists polled by Bloomberg News was 4.1 percent.
The figures may be the peak of the expansion for this year as the cost of borrowing increased in August and the Fed said that risks to growth “increased appreciably.” In a sign the job market is weakening, the Labor Department said today claims for unemployment benefits climbed to the highest level since April. A further report showed house prices in the second quarter rose at the slowest pace in a decade.
These guys are about as good as weather forecasters here in Indiana. Not good, until the day of. But hell I could even tell you the day of, so what good are they.
The economic reality I’m talking about, and about which I’ve written on numerous occasions, is how well our country is doing economically thanks to the hard work of the American people, the innovation and competition our free market encourages, as well as the Bush tax cuts that helped spur 5½ years of economic growth.
Lower tax rates have increased economic growth to such a degree that we have been breaking tax-revenue records.
These are facts that liberals will flat out refuse to believe.
The economy snapped out of a lethargic spell and grew at a 3.4 percent pace in the second quarter, the strongest showing in more than a year. A revival in business spending was a main force behind the energized performance.
Economy: The mantra among critics of President Bush is that he’s been “incompetent” as chief executive. To which we respond: Looked at the U.S. economy lately?
In his “State of the Economy” speech Wednesday, Bush expressed justifiable pride in his economic accomplishments. Our good friend Larry Kudlow keeps calling it “the greatest story never told.” And indeed it is.
The Bush-is-a-failure mantra is, quite simply, out of touch with reality. What the economy’s done in the past six years, especially in view of what Bush faced on entering office, has been nothing short of remarkable.
Reference the article for some great actual facts and figures. Facts and figures, the MSM has failed to report on honestly.
“Economists are hastily upgrading their forecasts for the US economy after a series
of surprisingly strong reports suggesting the so-called “soft landing” may be over
and growth is accelerating.
Over the past week, surprises have come in stronger-than-expected reports on US
job creation, the trade balance and retail sales — all key contributors to economic
activity.
Lehman Brothers chief US economist Ethan Harris on Friday boosted his forecast
for fourth quarter 2006 growth to an annualized rate of 3.3 percent, a leap from the
firm’s prior call for just 2.0 percent growth.”
Now I realize I get this from the MSM but, I am not expecting to see this played up big
time in the MSM. They are just covering their bases.
The economy has been strong for years now and evil corporations and small businesses
have been adding new employees to the payroll for much of that same time. Thankfully
I pay attention to more than the MSM and so I have been up on this for sometime now.
WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled House voted Wednesday to increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, bringing America’s lowest-paid workers a crucial step closer to their first raise in a decade.
The vote was 315-116, with more than 80 Republicans joining Democrats to pass it.
“You should not be relegated to poverty if you work hard and play by the rules,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
Steny Hoyer must be an idiot if he believes the crap that is coming out of his pie hole. I suspect he does not and it is just politics of the lowest common denominator.
There are few main reasons workers make a minimum wage; (1) if you are making the minimum wage it probably means that you are not qualified to make that, but the only reason you are is because the Feds or the State mandate. (2) if you are making the minimum wage, you are probably a teenager working at a fast food joint. (3) you are retired, looking to supplement your paltry social security check and probably just to get out of the house and have something to do. Those probably cover just about 90% of those making minimum wage.
The simple fact as I see it, if they raise the minimum wage this will in turn raise the cost of goods and services, in turn putting these poor saps back in exactly the same place they started if not worse off.
