Tag Archives: Rhode Island

The U-6 Unemployment Number

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The U-6 unemployment number was up to 15 percent in July. The overall unemployment number is currently at 8.3 percent.

The DRUDGE REPORT posted the following links today:

THEY BOTH CANT BE RIGHT:

Reuters: Labor market slowed sharply after strong gains in winter, spelling trouble for Obama…

AP: Stronger job creation could help Obama’s re-election hopes…

The unemployment number announced today is 8.3 percent, but that number only includes those people who are currently looking for work. If every unemployed worker stopped looking for work, the number would drop to 0 percent–which logically makes absolutely no sense.

CNBC posted a story today about the U-6 number, which includes discouraged potential employees who have quit looking, and those who are underemployed — wanting to work full-time but forced to work part-time. The U-6 numbers in various states are alarming.

The article at CNBC reports:

Consider: Nevada‘s U-6 rate is 22.1 percent, up from just 7.6 percent in 2007. Economically troubled California has a 20.3 percent real rate, while Rhode Island is at 18.3 percent, more than double its 8.3 percent rate in 2007.

Those numbers compare especially unfavorably to the national rate, high in itself at 14.9 percent though off its record peak of 17.2 percent in October 2009.

Only three states — Nebraska (9.1 percent), South Dakota (8.6 percent) and North Dakota (6.1 percent) — have U-6 rates under 10 percent, according to research from RBC Capital Markets.

Note that the states with the low U-6 rates are the states involved in developing America’s energy resources contained in the Bakken Shale Oil Formation. That might be a clue as to what we need to do to turn around America’s economy.

Meanwhile, the bottom line is simple–the current recovery is as bad, if not worse, than the recession. It’s time to change the people in charge.

Investors.com reports today:

Looked at another way, the labor force participation rate fell to 63.7% in July. That’s down from 65.7% in June 2009, and it’s just above the lowest since January 1982. Back then the economy was in the midst of a deep 16-month recession and the share of women in the work force was still significantly lower.

This continues a trend set since the economic recovery officially started in June 2009. Sluggish job growth has failed to keep pace with population growth, creating an ever larger pool of people who either don’t have jobs or have given up looking for one.

In fact, since June 2009, the number of people in the labor force has climbed just 283,000, while the number of people not in the labor force has exploded by 7.5 million.

This is not a recovery.

So why is the stock market going up today? I suspect it is factoring in the fact that these numbers will make it more difficult for President Obama to be re-elected. Governor Romney is an experienced businessman. If anyone can turn this mess around, he can.

 

 

 

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How I Spent My Weekend

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My husband and and I went house-hunting this weekend–in Delaware. Sometime in the next two years, he will retire. Massachusetts is not a good place to retire (for us, anyway)–it is too expensive and too cold. So we looked at Delaware.

This is a picture of what the southern end of the New Jersey Turnpike looked like at 11:45 this morning–note that there are people walking on the roadway–the traffic is at a dead standstill.

This is another picture–we stayed at the rest stop for about an hour and a half while the traffic cleared.

There were also some interesting signs along the way–these are taken from two restaurants–one in Delaware and one in Rhode Island.

The first picture seems a little bit confusing–if there is a $6 menu, why is it $8 every day? I loved the second picture because the British are so polite in reminding us to mind our manners.

More to follow at a later date…

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Running The White House By Chicago Rules

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At the risk of sounding totally disrespectful, I fully believe that in 2008 we elected a Chicago thug to the White House. The list of reasons why I believe this is long–it includes disregard for the Constitution (attacking the Supreme Court), trying to undermine the right to bear arms (Fast and Furious), and just general tackiness (which I guess is not a serious crime, but sometimes it ought to be!).

As we approach the 2012 election, the press, possibly in an effort to regain some semblance of credibility before they begin to act as Obama campaign workers, are beginning to report things that we all knew, but they weren’t reporting.

The Weekly Standard posted an article today citing a rather lengthy New York Times article (is there any other kind?) entitled, “White House Opens Door to Big Donors, and Lobbyists Slip In.” Are we supposed to be surprised?

The article at the Weekly Standard reports:

Patrick J. Kennedy, the former representative from Rhode Island, who donated $35,800 to an Obama re-election fund last fall while seeking administration support for a nonprofit venture, said contributions were simply a part of “how this business works.”

“If you want to call it ‘quid pro quo,’ fine,” he said. “At the end of the day, I want to make sure I do my part.”

It seems to me that that shouldn’t be “simply a part of how this business works.” It really is time to clean house in Washington–and the house cleaning has to be the President, the Congress, and the bureaucrats who continue to spend taxpayer money recklessly–whether they are staffers or government employees. The taxpayers of America need to take our country back.

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Does Anyone Actually Believe This ?

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Shamrock Texas Tornado

Shamrock Texas Tornado (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Real Clear Politics reported yesterday on a statement made by Senator Dick Durbin earlier this week.

The Senator stated:

“It’s your money or your life. We are either going to dedicate ourselves to a cleaner, more livable planet and accept the initial investment necessary or we’re going to pay a heavier price in terms of loss of human life, damage and costs associated with it.”

This statement was made in response to the recent tornadoes in Texas. There are a few problems with the statement. I don’t think any American politician supports pollution–I just don’t.

I might be a good idea to remember that hurricanes and tornadoes have been with us for a long time. Out of curiosity I looked up the Rhode Island hurricane of 1938 (I couldn’t remember the year). In reading the article, I found a reference to the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635. In 1939, Hollywood produced “The Wizard of Oz.” Obviously, someone familiar with tornadoes wrote the script. In the 1930’s America did not have the highways and power generating plants that it has now, and weather was still happening. Imagine. Again, I support clean air, but I don’t like being threatened.

This is simply another attempt to convince the American people that the government needs to take more of their money.

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Do Politics Influence Where People Choose To Live ?

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Map of USA showing states with no state income...

Image via Wikipedia

Yahoo Finance posted an article yesterday entitled, “States Where No One Wants To Buy A New Home.” Since I live in one of the states on the list (Massachusetts is listed as number 7 of 10), I read the article.

The map above shows all the states with no state income tax in red and the states that tax only interest and dividend income in yellow. I am not sure how much of a factor this is in the number of housing starts. It is interesting, though, that none of the states with no state income tax are on the list of states with the lowest number of housing starts.

The article reports:

Surprisingly, our list of states where few permits have been issued recently is different from the typical list of the worst housing markets. California, Nevada and Florida are always on those lists because homes are vacant and home values continue to drop. But the three are not on this list. It may be that prices have dropped so low in these markets that home inventory has begun to move, even if only tentatively. Instead, markets where housing permits are very small in relation to total homes are markets in which builders have abandoned any hope of near-term sales.

In case all you really wanted to do was see the list, here it is:

  1. Rhode Island
  2. West Virginia
  3. Illinois
  4. Michigan
  5. Connecticut
  6. Ohio
  7. Massachusetts
  8. New York
  9. Maine
  10. Pennsylvania

What in the world do these states have in common? I suspect there are a lot of reasons for the number of building permits to decrease in these states. Michigan for instance has lost a lot of businesses due to the tax policies of recent state administrations. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island all have state income taxes and business environments that do not necessarily encourage businesses to migrate there. New York is a very expensive place to live, although I believe the current governor is trying to ease the burden on the state’s taxpayers. It is interesting to me that these are all states in the northern areas of the country. Could it be that as the baby boomers age, they are simply looking for warmer places to live?

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