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With the front line of defense for unemployed Americans crumbling, the jobless are facing potentially reduced benefits and businesses possibly higher taxes. With the front line of defense for unemployed Americans crumbling, the jobless are facing potentially reduced benefits, and businesses -- possibly higher taxes. So far, 25 states, including California, New York, Texas and Michigan, have run out of unemployment insurance money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government -- loans that are interest free. By 2011, 15 more states will have exhausted their jobless trust funds and need $90 billion in loans to keep handing...

Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits last week declined to the lowest level since September 2008, signaling firings are easing as employers gain confidence in the economic recovery. Initial jobless claims fell by 28,000, more than forecast, to 452,000 in the week ended Dec. 19, from 480,000 the prior week, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people receiving unemployment insurance dropped in the prior week to 5.08 million, and those receiving extended benefits decreased. Improving sales combined with increases in production mean companies may not need to trim staff...

I'm not much for vanity posts, but I saw this while cruising around on Facebook today and found it very entertaining but simultaneously frustrating since it reflect the times in which we live. Kudos to Andrew Dunn for creating the rules, and have provided the Google cache page in case the Facebook page doesn't open. These are the rules for Obamanopoly, the overly complicated version of the free-market game Monopoly. 1. At any point in a classic unabridged Milton Bradley game of Monopoly, the Banker can say “Stimulus” and institute any or all of the additional rules so listed 2....

VANCOUVER - ski resort giant Intrawest ULC may default on a US $1.4 billion loan and is in talks with lenders about debt repayment options. Intrawest may be pushed closer to default if it fails to make a US$524 million payment due Wednesday. The Vancouver-based company which operates some 2010 Winter Olympics venues in British Columbia, is owned by private equity firm Fortress Investment Group LLC of New York. Fortress scrambled to refinance the loan after Intrawest, which holds the debt, was pushed to the brink of creditor protection. In November Intrawest said it agreed to sell one of its...

Arrow Trucking news is not good for employees, as the Arrow Trucking Company is closing its doors. The Arrow Trucking Company is rumored to be bankrupt now, but it seems that Arrow Trucking really didn't care about their employees in the end. It is being reported that some Arrow Trucking employees didn't find out they were out of a job until their gas cards were rejected while they were on the job across the country.

Nevada's stimulus-funded weatherization programs are living down to expectations of inefficiency and incompetence. What a surprise. Of all the debt-growing, make-work boondoggles crafted by Congress this year, the "green jobs" grants set aside to make low-income homes more energy-efficient left elected Democrats especially excited: "We're handing out welfare, creating jobs and saving the planet!" The state got $18.6 million in weatherization funds, with the condition that all the money be spent by June 30. About 1,850 homes with incomes at or below 200 percent of the poverty level were supposed to get new insulation, new caulking and the minor repairs...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The economy grew at a much slower pace than initially thought in the third quarter, restrained by weak business investment and a slightly more aggressive liquidation of inventories, according to data on Tuesday. Growth was boosted by government stimulus programs, including the popular cash for clunkers and tax credit for first-time home buyers, and debate continues to rage over the sustainability of the recovery once government support wanes. Business spending in the third quarter was weaker than the government had estimated last month. Business investment fell at a 5.9 percent rate instead of 4.1 percent, the department...

For the first quarter ever, the number of homes in foreclosure with mortgages serviced by U.S. national banks and savings and loans topped the 1-million mark, according to figures released Monday by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The percentage of prime borrowers whose loans were 60 or more days past due doubled from the July-to-September period a year earlier. And more than half of all homeowners whose payments had been lowered through modification plans defaulted again. The report, which covers about 34 million loans, or about 65% of all U.S. mortgages,...

Congress passed a two-month unemployment extension bill for those who were facing the possibility of losing their unemployment insurance benefits. The unemployment benefits extension program is set to go into February 2010, but there has been a great deal of confusion as to what the unemployment extension means and who qualifies. Originally, a six-month extension was wanted, however, the bill passed a two-month extension, which does the following: To begin, the extension will allow the continuation of Emergency Unemployment Continuation Program, which provides unemployment benefits in relation to a specific state’s unemployment rate. Secondly, the unemployment benefits extension continues the...

Heroes.....who are they? STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread!

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Seven U.S. banks were closed by regulators on Friday, bring the total this year to 140 as the effects of the credit crisis continued to be felt across the country. What's more, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. established temporary institutions to help close two of the failed banks.

You must remember this: In 2006, the last full year before this downturn, when the economy grew 2.7 percent and the unemployment rate was just 4.6 percent, 3.3 million people lost their jobs to the normal churning of a dynamic economy. This "creative destruction" has human costs but no longer is optional. America has an aging population and has chosen to have a welfare state that siphons increasing amounts of wealth from the economy to give to the elderly. Having willed this end, America must will the means to it -- sometimes severe economic efficiency to generate revenue to finance...

More on healthcare and global "warming". STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Join us won't you!

Why didn't our Founders include healthcare as a right? Hmmmm??? STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Join us won't you!

The U.S. government abruptly shelved plans to start trimming its 34% stake in Citigroup Inc., after investors demanded a price so low that the Treasury Department would have lost money on the deal. The embarrassing reversal came two days after the Treasury said it planned to sell as much as $5 billion of stock in the New York company, as part of Citigroup's plan to pay back $20 billion in taxpayer aid the troubled bank received last year.

Discover Financial Services Inc.'s (DFS) fiscal fourth quarter net earnings were down 14% from a year ago as losses stemming from card loans remain elevated. The company also said it expected losses from souring card accounts to remain at elevated levels the next quarter. The results, announced early Thursday, indicate that consumers remain stressed by high rates of joblessness. Delinquency rates, a key gauge of future losses, continue to rise. This suggests the U.S. is unlikely to experience a smooth economic turnaround. Discover, along with its peers, is also coping with sweeping legislation restricting certain fees and rate increases, which...

WASHINGTON Rushing to lock the nation into expensive health care and climate change commitments, Democrats are in an understandable frenzy because public enthusiasm for both crusades has been inversely proportional to the time the public has had to think about them. And the president pushing this agenda has, with his incontinent hunger for attention, seen his job approval vary inversely with his ubiquity. Consider his busy December – so far. His Dec. 1 Afghanistan speech to the nation was followed on Dec. 3 by his televised "jobs summit." His Dec. 8 televised economics speech at the Brookings Institution was followed...

Guess what? The healthcare bills are chock full of favors for special interests...I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya! STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Join us won't you!

The new ABC News/Washington Post poll has bad news and good news for the president, whose approval ratings have sunk to an all-time low of 50%. Majorities now for the first time disapprove of President Obama's work on health care (53%) and oppose the health care reform package making its way through Congress (51%). A majority -- also for the first time -- disapprove of the president's handling of the economy (52%). His worst score: handling the deficit; 56 percent disapprove. But 54 percent now approve of the president's performance as commander-in-chief. This was an area of real weakness for...

‘Welcome to Obamaville’ Sign Marks Colorado Homeless Tent City

Glenn discusses the real inconvenient truth behind climate change. STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread!

Job Market Worsens For Recent College Graduates Unemployment among young adults is worse than the U.S. average. Don Lee December 14, 2009 Reporting from Washington - The unemployment rate dropped last month for men and women, blacks and whites, lifting hopes that the long dry spell in the jobs market may be coming to an end. But for recent college graduates and other young adults, the labor situation didn't just remain dire -- it got worse. For 20- to 24-year-olds, the jobless rate rose four-tenths of a percent to 16% in November, even as unemployment nationally slipped to 10% from...

RASMUSSEN POLL: Obama Job Approval Falls to New Low at 44%... Developing...

In his 1981 inaugural address, former President Ronald Reagan said, "Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem." Nearly 29 years later, that still holds true according to CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Both Cramer and Greenspan were guests on NBC's Dec. 13 "Meet the Press" and although neither was making a vain effort to be nostalgic, but instead explained that Congress' deliberations over an "agenda" was creating uncertainty for business. "I think the priority ought to be get rid of the agenda," Cramer said. "I hear the...

A sign reading "Welcome to Obamaville Colorado's Fastest Growing Community" appeared at a homeless tent city in Colorado Springs this week. You probably didn't hear about it because outside of two Colorado television stations nobody found this newsworthy. By contrast, when word got out in March of a tent city in Sacramento, California, news media couldn't get enough of the story. Is it because that happened so soon after Inauguration Day that it could easily be blamed on George W. Bush, and that given the name given to this area that's no longer possible?

Even as signs of deflation linger, some investors are moving to protect themselves against any surge in inflation. To defend—and profit—from a big rise in inflation, investors have piled into gold or inflation-protected bonds. In November, investors put $2 billion into inflation-protected mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, according to Morningstar Inc. Another $3.9 billion into went into commodity funds and commodity exchange-traded funds, primarily gold funds. So far this year, those categories of funds have raked in $59 billion. "Investors have a year or two to build a bomb shelter against inflation," says Milton Stern, a principal at Bridgewater Advisors....

Washington (CNN) - Unemployment will go down in the coming year, but that doesn't mean U.S. economic woes are over, two leading economic figures said Sunday. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and Christina Romer, chairman of the White House Council on Economic Advisers, both made qualified predictions for economic growth and decreasing unemployment. Unemployment "is going to be lower," Greenspan said, mostly due to people returning to the labor force. Greenspan noted upcoming boosts to employment, such as more than 700,000 people working in 2010 to conduct the federal census.

CARSON CITY — MGM Mirage has laid off 9,000 employees during the past 18 months. General Motors has cut 13,000 hourly workers during the past year. Nevada government, in contrast, has laid off just 60 employees over the past 18 months. The state government workforce has been largely immune from pink slips since the recession began in 2007, despite Nevada having one of the largest budget shortfalls in the country.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's top economic aide Christina Romer said Sunday that the improving US economy is not yet out of recession, and will not turn the corner until the unemployment picture improves. "The president has always said, and what I firmly believe, is you're not recovered until all of those people that want to work are back to work," said Romer, who heads up the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

WASHINGTON — The top White House economic adviser says "everybody agrees the recession is over" even though many experts predict unemployment could climb higher. Larry Summers says key indicators have shown that the economy is beginning to expand again and that job creation probably will follow. The jobless rate stands at 10 percent. He acknowledges it will take "substantial time" before the economy recovers entirely. But he says that "what we can take satisfaction from is we've walked back from the brink."

For an obscene price tag, this year's $787 billion federal stimulus has delivered precious little to Jackson County, Michigan or the nation. The public should be skeptical whether the federal government can be trusted to implement a second, smaller stimulus to create jobs. President Obama last week called on Congress to spend more — as much as $200 billion, by some estimates — to put people to work. The nation's unemployment stands at 10 percent (in Michigan, it's 14.2 percent), and surveys suggest that large companies will continue to shrink their work forces in the coming months. Of course, wasn't...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19. Today is the second straight day that Obama’s Approval Index rating has fallen to a new low. Prior to the past two days, the Approval Index had never fallen below -15 during Obama’s time in office (see trends).

Regulators have shut down banks in Florida, Arizona and Kansas, bringing to 133 the number of U.S. banks that have failed to hold up this year against the struggling economy and a cascade of loan defaults. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday it took over Miami-based Republic Federal Bank, with $433 million in assets and $352.7 million in deposits. A bank based in Boca Raton, Fla., 1st United Bank, agreed to assume all the deposits and $267.1 million of the assets of the failed bank. The FDIC will retain the rest for eventual sale. In addition, the FDIC and...

What happens when China decides to stop funding our loans? We are soooooooooooooooooooo screwed. STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Join us won't you!

Robert Creamer....join us to hear what he has to say! STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread!

WASHINGTON — A growing number of Americans have lost confidence in President Barack Obama's handling of the economy, despite the apparent beginnings of a recovery, according to a poll out Wednesday. A Quinnipiac University survey found that 54 percent of respondents disapproved of Obama's handling of the economy, compared to 41 percent who approved. The finding was Obama's "worst score ever on this issue," the pollsters said in a statement. They said it also showed erosion of support even from just a month ago, when public opinion on his handling of the economy earned a 52-43 percent approval rating. For...

Stuart Varney was just on Fox and said Moody's will lower the United States bond rating for the first time ever in 2013 with current spending plans.

Where was the blueprint for healthcare written you ask?? Join us and find out.......STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread!

Hot Scandals Sarah Carlsruh, December 7, 2009 More than 1,000 emails and 3,000 data files from University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) recently exposed a global warming deception. CRU research is at the center of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports “upon which the UN and the Kyoto process base everything they do,” claimed Myron Ebell at the Heritage Foundation’s conservative Blogger’s Briefing on December 1st. Ebell is the director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). He called the CRU scientists “con men,” saying that these emails confirm that “a...

So, central bankers are beginning to wonder if the US can pull off "another Volcker." Even Paul Volcker himself, who is still alive, doubts it. Today, too many people owe too much money and too many political favors. Put up rates to 18% today? Unthinkable. Cut 10% off government spending? Impossible. But don't worry about it. Now, we're not threatened by inflation...but by depression! It's fighting the depression that makes people worry. Smart investors and shrewd central bankers are afraid the depression-fighters will go too far...that they don't really know what they're doing. Ben Bernanke is up for re-appointment. "Bernanke...

UNDATED (AP) -- The person who wraps up your holiday gift purchase at the mall could be someone who's highly qualified -- in a field other than retail. With double-digit unemployment, lots of people who've been laid off from jobs for which they've been highly trained and well paid are taking full-time or part-time hourly-wage jobs waiting on holiday shoppers. The manager of a clothing boutique in Detroit says mortgage brokers are among those who've been looking for work. He says, "They just want a job," and that they don't care what it is. Scott Beebe, an engineer with two...

When Obama’s economic experts (if I may abuse the phrase) said last spring that His stimulus plan was targeted, I saw it for what it was – political payoff to election supporters, people who suckle on Uncle Sam’s sagging nipples (if that mental image did not horrify you to the point of setting your PC on fire, then you may be strong enough to stand the rest of this missive). ... While the U.S. economy dumped 11,000 non-farm jobs, 7,000 of those people became wards of the state (i.e., your non-resident and non-tax deductable dependants). This does not bode well...

GDP vs National Debt - The Raw TruthI am still mulling over the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ recent, erroneous, GDP projection after my last post Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Mumbo Jumbo. One aspect that was not addressed previously was the pace at which our National Debt is catching up to annual GDP.The question for today is what will Gross Domestic Product need to be in 2019 in order to keep pace with the Federal Government’s ruinous spending? And based on the answer to that, at what pace must the economy grow annually? If we add the CBO’s 2010 to 2019...

GDP vs National Debt - The Raw TruthI am still mulling over the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ recent, erroneous, GDP projection after my last post Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Mumbo Jumbo. One aspect that was not addressed previously was the pace at which our National Debt is catching up to annual GDP.The question for today is what will Gross Domestic Product need to be in 2019 in order to keep pace with the Federal Government’s ruinous spending? And based on the answer to that, at what pace must the economy grow annually? If we add the CBO’s 2010 to 2019...

Glenn hosts a job summit - get real solutions from those who were not invited to obama's photo op summit yesterday! STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread. Join us won't you!

Obama asked about legalizing prostitution, gambling, drugs to create jobs By Sam Youngman - 12/04/09 01:08 PM ET Even though President Barack Obama has repeatedly said that he welcomes all good suggestions about how to spur job growth in the U.S., he made it clear Friday that there are some lengths to which he is not willing to go. At a townhall meeting at Lehigh Carbon Community College in Allentown, Pa., the president was asked by a student whether Obama what he thinks about legalizing prostitution, gambling or drugs to spur job creation. After the auditorium erupted in laughter, the...

Join us for Ron Paul's view on Ben Bernanke's second term......STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread!

Friday's unemployment report offered no comfort to economists, government officials and the 27.4 million Americans now unable to find full-time employment. In recent months unemployment numbers have produced growing economic concerns over the likelihood of an economic recovery that fails to produce job growth; and this month's unemployment report, coupled with recent GDP estimates point support those concerns. Despite billions of dollars in stimulus spending that continues to flow out of Washington, the Department of Labor report pointed to job loss numbers that have failed to improve amid the spending. The Department of Labor reported a rise in the adjusted...

Does obama understand that we are in a fight to the death against radical islam? Hmmmm, does he have a clue? STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread

Monetary Policy and Structural Reform of the Japanese Economy --Speech given by Eiko Shinotsuka, Member of the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan, at the Meeting on Economic and Financial Matters in Nagano on February 4, 2000 April 25, 2000 Bank of Japan [Contents] I. Introduction II. The Zero Interest Rate Policy A. What Is a Zero Interest Rate Policy? B. What Does the Phrase "Until Deflationary Concern Has Been Dispelled" Mean? C. Personal View on the Zero Interest Rate Policy III. Structural Reform of the Japanese Economy A. Information Technology Revolution B. Employment Problems I. Introduction1 It is...