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POPSEPA Formally Declares CO2 a Dangerous Pollutant major findings and conclusions from recent assessments of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change .” The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis study of the economic effects of carbon dioxide regulations found cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses of $7 trillion by 2029 single-year GDP losses exceeding $600 billion in some years, energy cost increases of 30 percent or more, and annual job losses exceeding 800,000 for several years. Hit particularly hard is manufacturing, which will see job losses in some industries that exceed 50 percent. And George Will writes that any emissions reduction target, whether they come from the EPA, cap and trade, or a Copenhagen treaty are simply unattainable: “Barack Obama, understanding the histrionics required in climate-change debates, promises that U.S. emissions in 2050 will be 83 percent below 2005 levels.
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POPSSmall Town To Liz Cheney: We Want Gitmo Detainees, Not Your Fearmongering But Standish’s City Manager tells us that local leaders and residents want the facility, and dismissed Cheney’s efforts as “fearmongering.” Cheney is “certainly not representing the views of our community,” the City Manager, Michael Moran, told our reporter, Amanda Erickson. While some local residents do appear to have expressed mixed feelings or opposition to the plan, Moran says that they’re an isolated minority that Ms. Cheney’s video elevates out of proportion in a way that’s “off base.” What’s more, the Standish city council recently passed a unanimous resolution expressing support for bringing Gitmo detainees, citing job losses in the wake of the closing of the facility. Seems that the good people of Standish just don’t have Liz Cheney’s understanding of the nature of the threat.
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POPS Washington and the Jobs Market The larger measure of joblessness that includes marginal and part-time workers jumped 0.5% to 17.5%. And the average hours worked in a week stayed the same at 33.0, which means that millions of Americans working part-time will have to become full-time before employers start hiring new workers. If Democrats really want to create jobs and save themselves from a debacle in 2010, their best policy option is to stop creating so much investment uncertainty and additional barriers to business hiring. Stop trying to raise business costs by making it easier to unionize via "card check." Stop trying to raise energy costs with a cap-and-tax bill. Stop adding to the deficit and future tax burden with a 12% increase in domestic spending for 2010. Above all, stop trying to ram through Congress on a partisan vote a health-care bill that imposes a 5.4-percentage-point income tax "surcharge" on anyone making more than $500,000 a year......
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POPSUNEMPLOYMENT TOPS 10 %
The jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent from 9.8 percent in September. The jump reflects a sharp increase in the tally of unemployed Americans, which rose to 15.7 million from 15.1 million. That was much larger than the net loss of jobs, which is based on a survey of businesses. Economists say it could climb as high as 10.5 percent next year because employers remain reluctant to hire. Friday's report is the first since the government said last week that the economy grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the strongest signal yet that the economy is rebounding. But that isn't fast enough to spur rapid hiring, raising the specter of a jobless recovery. "You need explosive growth to take the unemployment rate down," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for New York-based investment firm Miller Tabak & Co. Greenhaus said the economy soared by nearly 8 percent in 1983 after a steep recession, lowering the jobless rate by 2.5 percentage points that
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POPSJobless Rate Jumps to 10.2% How much of that Stimulus money has gone overseas to *create* US jobs over there? I guess Ms. Pelosi will say we need to extend the unemployment benefits even more and her health care bill will be needed now more than ever. The American people can not win with this crowd. This Administration is Carter on steroids.
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POPSPork Report - 28 Oct 09 Junket watch: Speaking at a beachfront spa and resort, Federal Reserve Chairman says Americans need to save more and the country must “substantially reduce federal deficits”
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POPSAmtrak Our government does such a "wonderful" job with the post office and Amtrak, just think what they will be able to do with health care. Write your congressman now.
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POPSPuerto Rico Unions Protest Job Cuts From the article: Several protesters, holding signs demanding work, directed their criticism at Gov. Luis G. Fortuño. He was elected to his first term last year as a Republican, promising to jumpstart the economy, but so far, job losses and negative growth have continued, punishing the island with its fourth year of recession. Governor Fortuño has said repeatedly that he did not want layoffs, but had no choice. In interviews on radio and television on Thursday, he said that it was the only way to avoid a government shutdown because of the territory’s $3.2 billion deficit. “There was no alternative,” Mr. Fortuño said. “And there is no turning back.” ----- Which I can tell you is an total lie.
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POPSGlobal Warming Legislation Effect on States The preceding is a list of the 50 state-by-state breakouts of the impact the bill would have on jobs and the economy. Lieberman-Warner (S.2191) relies heavily on an unproven technology, capturing carbon and sequestering it. Even with the most generous assumptions " presuming that carbon capture and sequestration is commercially developed in 10 years " the economic costs for the average American are staggering. Under a more realistic scenario, the economic impacts in terms of losses in the job market, losses in household budgets, and higher energy prices will be drastically higher. To make matters worse, there will be inconsequential effects on the environment to show for it, if any. The Senate's leading climate-change bill, while aiming to combat global warming by reducing carbon dioxide in the air, actually poses "extraordinary perils" for Americans and the economy, according to a new study from The Heritage Foundation.
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POPSFinally a Consumer Fights Back.
Although, I don’t relate to this woman's belief system, I DO relate to her as a consumer. All of us who have struggled with credit card debt and job losses know the frustrations of climbing a greased pole. The banks have been putting the screws to us for a long time. As a child, I would hear adults talking about LOAN SHARKS. On TV there were stories of bones being broken for non-payment by such LOAN SHARKS who charged exorbitant interest fees. I was glad to find out, this technique was illegal and US banks could never resort to such tactics to coerce payment. In adulthood, I learned quickly, that there were legal procedures of torture, no physical bone breaking but just as vexing. In Capitalism, the torture is mental and longer lasting. Today’s banks use teaser loans to lure us, once we’re captured by their come-ons they pounce and raise the APR's so high, that there is no escape from debt. I salute this lady who didn't take it lying down! She threw a few punches back!
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POPSJobless Rate Reaches 9.8 Percent in September
"If they're struggling, they're not consuming. That just takes some of the legs out of recovery." The Labor Department said Friday that the U.S. economy lost a net total of 263,000 jobs last month, from a downwardly revised 201,000 in August. That's worse than Wall Street economists' expectations of 180,000 job losses, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters. The unemployment rate rose from 9.7 percent in August, matching expectations. If laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the unemployment rate rose to 17 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994. All told, 15.1 million Americans are now out of work, the department said. And 7.2 million jobs have been eliminated since the recession began in December 2007. The department said 571,000 of the unemployed dropped out of the work force last month, presumably out of frustration over the lack of jobs. That sent the participation rate,
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POPSIllinois Public Opinion Turns Against President Obama's Health Care and Economic Policies his individual policies have far less support. Recent non-tribune polling has shown that a majority of Illinoisans do not support the the current Democrat Health Care reform. The Tribune poll reflects this sentiment as only 42% approve of the President's handling of Health Care. On the contrary, 43% of Illinoisans disapprove of the President Obama's handling of health care reform. In addition, Illinois residents who have experienced an unemployment rate that has risen from 6.7% to to more than 10.5% in July are increasingly losing confidence in the President's economic policies. 49% of respondents indicated that the President Obama's economic policies have had a negative or no impact on job creation, as opposed to only 45% that believe his policies have had a positive impact. Tribune polling also indicated that the President's support among Independents in Illinois has all but disappeared. 58% of independents believe that his economic policies have had no impact or a
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POPS Why It’s Not Working Uncle Sam has borrowed $388 billion in the second quarter and is scheduled to borrow $406 billion in the third quarter and nearly $500 billion in the fourth. In order to provide $152 billion in so-called fiscal stimulus, the government is draining close to $800 billion from the private-sector savings supply " $800 billion that will not be invested in new-business enterprises, including small businesses. To be honest, it’s hard to know what Biden is talking about at any given moment he opens his mouth. But on the economy and the “stimulus” plan he’s even more incoherent than usual. (Actually, I suspect Biden was brought on board the ticket to provide Obama with a comic side-kick. Buddy movie politics.) The economy is a shambles directly because of the policies of the Obama administration. Kudlow predicts a minimum 500 point Wall Street rally if ObamaCare fails. (I’d bet on a lot higher, frankly).
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POPSThe French Revolution Is Just Getting Started “The bosses caused the crisis, let them pay for it!” said another, while a third declared: “Hands off our public services!” Protesters marched peacefully from the Place de la Bastille in the east of the city to the Place de l’Opera in the west, where skirmishes erupted between dozens of bottle-throwing youths and police in riot gear. Officers repeatedly baton-charged a group of young men who tried to peel away from the demonstration and march towards Sarkozy’s official residence, the Elysee Palace, burning dustbins and smashing street furniture. The demonstrators were tear-gassed and pushed back into streets lined with cinemas and restaurants, where they attempted to set up a road-block of burning bins and overturned at least one car and set it alight.
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POPSJobless rate at 9.7 pct.; 216K jobs lost in Aug. If laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the so-called underemployment rate reached 16.8 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994. That rate rose because the number of workers settling for part-time hours, either because their employer cut their work week or because that's all they could find, increased by about 300,000.
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POPSReid Dispatches Aide to Follow/Film Tea Party Express TEA PARTY EXPRESS CONDEMNS HARRY REID’S ATTACK ON LAS VEGAS NEWSPAPER Reid Expresses Hope for Job Losses of Hundreds at Las Vegas Paper As the Tea Party Express (website: http://www.TeaPartyExpress.org) crosses through Nevada (holding 5 tea party rallies in the state), the Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper is reporting that Senator Harry Reid launched a broadside against the newspaper, telling advertising director Bob Brown: “I hope you go out of business.” At a time when Nevada is suffering an unemployment rate of over 12%, Harry Reid has revealed he hopes hundreds more will become unemployed at the Las Vegas newspaper. Reid’s verbal attack against Nevada’s largest newspaper comes at the same time he has criticized tea party supporters, deriding them as “evil-mongers.”
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POPSRearranging the Deck Chairs Meanwhile, Tax Revenues Have Plummeted: "Tax revenue for the first three quarters of 2009 has fallen by approximately $350 billion, or 17 percent compared to the same period last year... Unemployment benefits have more than doubled, Medicaid spending has grown by a quarter and Medicare spending has increased by 11 percent." The S&P 500 is wildly overvalued using any conventional measure: The S&P 500's price-to-earnings (PE) is over 140 today. It was over 100 during the first quarter of 2009, "a level never before reached in the index's history". 'Cash for Clunkers' is a Disaster: While the sycophants of stimulus are crowing about an 11.5 million unit annualized sales rate for (for July and August), 80% of the top-selling models are foreign. Typical of Politburo-style, centralized planning efforts, the unintended consequences of the program have yet to be felt; "..what of the lower-income Americans who depended on those cars - the clunkers - to be able to afford any . . .
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POPSUS deficit climbs to 1.3 Trillion dollars The only thing he is stimulating is a mass depression. How is it *good* for our Country to have this monumental debt while on a personal level it's not? These people really, really think we're this dumb?
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POPSPBS Frontline: "Sick Around America"
"Every doctor I meet says he's underpaid. I've yet to meet a hospital executive who thinks he or she can operate on less. I have yet to meet a patient who is willing to sacrifice care. So we have this $2.2 trillion system, and I haven't met anybody in any of the stakeholders that's willing to take less. And until we're willing to have that conversation, we're just sort of nibbling around the edges." People who think that Americans don't wait on lines, don't get denied coverage after paying their premiums, don't get their coverage rescinded right when they're about to incur huge costs, don't go bankrupt from medical bills, don't DIE because some corporate bean-counter denied their claim... You're either unaware of the facts, or lying. We spend more than any other country on the planet for healthcare, and are ranked somewhere around 50th in health outcomes. That's an undisputed fact. Corporate healthcare is a failure. Social insurance I can't be any worse.
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POPSHow California Could Turn its IOUs into Dollars
The problem was that most banks declined to honor the IOUs, at least after July 24. "They said something about not wanting to enable the dysfunctional state legislature," observed a San Diego Union-Tribune staff writer, "which is kind of funny as the federal government has been enabling the dysfunctional financial sector for almost a year." On July 21, California legislators were strong-armed into a tentative agreement on budget cuts, a forced move that was called "painful" by the Speaker of the Assembly and "devastating" by the executive director of the California State Association of Counties. The cuts involve more job losses, more bleeding of school funds, more closing of facilities. Worse, they will not solve the budget crisis long-term. The state's economy is expected to continue to deteriorate along with its revenues. But without banks to honor the state's IOUs, California has no time to negotiate or explore alternatives. There is no "quick fix," says UCLA Professor Daniel Mit
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