The U.S. Air Force has a motto: "Second to None". It's a shame that the U.S. economy can't make the same claim. After already over-taking Japan has the world's 2nd largest economy, the Chinese economy has just passed the U.S.’s to become the largest economy in the world.
ADP's proprietary private payrolls jobs report shows yet another solid month of strong private sector job gains. For November, ADP reports a monthly gain of 208,000 private sector jobs. October's ADP private payroll gains were a revised 203,000. Small businesses drove the payroll gains.
We all know the story of how the Grinch stole Christmas, but that wasn't good enough. Now Grinch retailers are stealing Thanksgiving too. The holiday is now officially co-opted so folk can stand in line at stores, out in the cold, all in hopes of saving $100 on some big screen TV.
The Census released the monthly construction spending report today. Spending was $971 billion in October, up +1.1% from September and an increase of +3.3% from October 2013. This is a rebound from last month with the largest gain in five months. September was revised upward from -0.4% to -0.,1%. For just 2014, spending has increased 5.8%.
In the 2014 elections, the Democrats' only "Hail Mary" hope in Hell had been, not just keeping the Senate, but winning back the House as well. Now (maybe for an entire generation) the Democrats have lost almost any chance at all of getting back any meaningful political power in Washington for a very long time to come — because their messaging during the 2014 elections was such an utter and dismal failure.
The word is Obama at all costs is going to grant work permits along with amnesty to millions here illegally in the United States. This is when the jobs market still has not recovered. The latest leak shows Obama plans on giving amnesty and work permits to another 4.5 million illegals and U.S. permanent resident status to over half a million imported workers currently on guest worker Visas.
As most Americans, if not the financial media, are aware, Quantitative Easing (a euphemism for printing money) has failed to bring back the US economy. So why has Japan adopted the policy?
Since the heavy duty money printing began in 2013, the Japanese yen has fallen 35% against the US dollar, a big cost for a country dependent on energy imports. Moreover, the Japanese economy has shown no growth in response to the QE stimulus to justify the rising price of imports.
Third quarter 2014 real GDP was revised upward to 3.9% from the original 3.5%. The reason was investment, as changes in private inventories were revised sharply upward. Consumer spending was also stronger by over a quarter of a percentage point and also bumped up the revision. Imports were revised upward and exports downward which subtracted from economic growth. Overall Q3 GDP was surprisingly strong in this Turkey surprise.
Just before the annual gathering of the global elites last January (at the Swiss mountain resort of Davos), the anti-poverty charity Oxfam released an eye-opening report that showed the world’s 85 richest billionaires hold as much wealth as 3.5 billion of humanity’s poorest half. That shocking statistic quickly went globally viral. Now there's a new report.
The October state employment statistics shows the unemployment rate has evened out and become more similar across states. The national unemployment rate was 5.8% and 22 states show similar unemployment rates, 12 plus the D.C. area were above the national average and 16 were below.
It never ceases to disgust, horrify and amaze how people are hoodwinked by marketing, media and advertizing. A textbook case is election 2014. States have measures on the ballot, and Oregon has one that big business in particular doesn't like. As a result the campaign to defeat it has become the costliest in Oregon history as big business pounds the airwaves with their deep pocket funded misleading and manipulative ads.
The Federal Reserve Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization report shows a -1.0% decline in industrial production for October and September was revised down to 0.8% growth. Manufacturing alone grew by 0.2%, but utilities dropped by -0.7% after last month's large gain. Mining also decreased by almost a percentage point, -0.9%.
Everybody is picking on the multi-billionaires. The beggars (aka "the takers") are always holding out their hand and constantly demanding more — a living wage or a minimum wage, healthcare insurance, paid sick days, vacation days, safety regulations, equal pay for women, pension contributions ... the list goes on and on. When will it ever stop? And can multi-billionaires even afford these unreasonable demands without tanking the entire economy?
The BLS employment report shows total nonfarm payroll jobs gained were 214,000 for Cctober 2014, with private payrolls adding 209,000 jobs and government jobs gaining 5,000. This article graphs the jobs gained since the recession.
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