This is why they tell you to stay in school, kids. Seriously, look at that discrepancy! Of course, the usual causation-correlation disclaimer is in effect here; maybe the kids who graduated college were the ones naturally more predisposed to keeping a job anyway? Nevertheless, this should give pause to any high schoolers considering dropping out. (source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) source
» Oh yeah: The next temporary deal could include restrictions that limit how and when the budget can be used – such as, for example, no money spent on the new health care law. Hrm.
» Not all is rosy in Bailoutville: One of the biggest issues we still face are the dual sinkholes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have reportedly cost taxpayers $150 billion and we like to think of as dual sinkholes. And some legislators feel that the effect has set us up for having to bail out unsuccessful companies in the future.
» But don’t get too excited. While lower taxes may sound nice on paper, the real reason for this drop isn’t as much due to policy changes as it is the recession. See, people (and corporations) are making a whole lot less money than they were a few years ago; hence, they’re paying less in taxes. And that sucks for just about everybody involved. However, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota places a lot of the blame on our nation’s tax code itself, calling it a “simply indefensible” policy that’s “hemorrhaging revenue.” Still, our primary focus should probably be on pulling our economy out of the toilet. Then we can fix the tax code.
» Explaining exactly what happened: We’ve seen three perfectly valid arguments for why this disparity between slow job growth and deep unemployment decline took place. The first is pointed out by a Gallup chart that shows that non-seasonally-adjusted unemployment is actually at 9.8 percent – suggesting seasonal adjustment is skewing the numbers. The second suggested reason is much more sinister-sounding: Unemployment benefits for so-called 99ers are starting to run out, and they aren’t looking for jobs, meaning that they are no longer covered as part of the total amount. Finally, the weather sucked in January, with snow covering most of the country, so that could be a possible explanation too. So, which one is the case, anyway?
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable.Report by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission • The panel’s report, charged with investigation and review of America’s cataclysmic economic crisis, was obtained by Reuters on Tuesday. It cites human error, action, and inaction as being to blame for the collapse. The report will be widely released on Thursday. source (via • follow)
whyarethegoodurlsalreadytaken answered: If you were delivering the State of the Union, what would you say in it and why?
» We say: We think Obama’s right on the money with this one. We’d talk about doing more to build jobs and improving that anemic employment rate. He’s had two years for major initiatives. He needs to focus squarely on the economy tomorrow night. Fact of matter, now’s the time to get people back into the workforce. (It’s our Office Hours! Ask us a question!)
“Dear residents of Rockford, Illinois: This is The New York Times. We’re doing a photo feature on why your town is so depressed and lacking in jobs. (16 percent unemployment?! We need to do this story, stat!) We need to take photos of your citizens. None of you are allowed to smile. If you smile, we’re going to find someone else who looks plainer than you. OK? Thanks. We’ll send a photog from Manhattan to the Rust Belt on a private jet sometime next week. Remember. Plain. No smiles. Optimism is dead. Thanks.” source
My number one focus is going to be making sure that we are competitive, that we are growing, and we are creating jobs not just now but well into the future.President Barack Obama • Revealing to supporters through his Organizing for America grassroots thingy that he would be focusing on jobs during the State of the Union this time around. “We’re up to it, as long as we come together as a people - Republicans, Democrats, Independents - as long as we focus on what binds us together as a people,” he said. Odds are that Tea Partier Michele Bachmann will pop a hole in that optimism for bipartisanship by the second minute of her response-to-the-response SOTU response, which, based on her long track record, will most assuredly be loaded with lies. So much for that hope, Obama. source (via • follow)
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