Gallup Poll: Nearly 20 Percent of U.S. Workers Underemployed
February 23rd, 2010Via: Reuters:
Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. workforce lacked adequate employment in January and struggled to make ends meet with reduced resources and bleak job prospects, according to a Gallup poll released on Tuesday.
In findings that appear to paint a darker employment picture than official U.S. data, Gallup estimated that about 30 million Americans are underemployed, meaning either jobless or able to find only part-time work.
Underemployed people spent 36 percent less on household purchases than their fully employed neighbors in January, while six out of 10 were not hopeful about their chances of finding adequate work in the coming month, the poll said.
Gallup surveyed more than 20,000 U.S. adults from January 2 to 31. The results have a 1 percentage point margin of error.
Recovery: Bad Economies in States to Worsen
February 22nd, 2010Via: Reuters:
The already gloomy conditions of states’ economies are set to worsen, according to preliminary survey findings from the National Governors Association released on Saturday.
“The situation is fairly poor for a lot of states around the country. In fact, most states,” Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, who is chairman of the association, said at a press conference at its annual meeting.
“What we’re finding out from a fiscal standpoint is that the worst is yet to come,” Douglas said.
In a survey conducted last week of 45 of the 50 states, the group found that states have $18.8 billion of budget gaps yet to be closed in fiscal 2010. This comes after they have already imposed measures to eliminate budget imbalances totaling $87 billion in the fiscal year, which for most started last summer.
In the budgets they are drafting for fiscal 2011, states foresee shortfalls of $53.6 billion and for fiscal 2012 $61.6 billion.
“Economists have declared the national recession over. But for those who are still unemployed, for those who have lost their homes, it’s clear that as a nation we have a long way to go,” said Douglas, who added that states’ revenues have plummeted for four quarters in a row.
States’ economic recoveries usually lag national recoveries because of state governments’ increased spending on help for the unemployed and declines in tax payments.
All states except for one, Vermont, are required to balance their budgets, so during the recession they have drastically cut spending on basic programs, laid off workers and boosted revenue through raising taxes and fees.
The $787 billion stimulus plan the U.S. Congress passed a year ago included the largest transfer of money from the federal government to states in the nation’s history. But for many states, most of its funding will run out by December.
Americans Terrorists Are Now as Big a Concern as International Terrorists
February 22nd, 2010Via: Washington Post / AP:
Americans who turn to terrorism and plot against the U.S. are now as big a concern as international terrorists, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday.
The Digital Dictatorship
February 22nd, 2010If you pretend that the author is referring to the U.S. when he mentions countries like Iran and the former East Germany, this is much more informative.
Via: Wall Street Journal:
Since the publication of John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” in 1996, they have been led to believe that cyberspace is conducive to democracy and liberty, and no government would be able to crush that libertarian spirit (why, then, Mr. Barlow felt the need to write such a declaration remains unknown to this day). The belief that free and unfettered access to information, combined with new tools of mobilization afforded by blogs and social networks, leads to the opening up of authoritarian societies and their eventual democratization now forms one of the pillars of “techno-utopianism.”
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Will Twitter and Facebook come to the rescue and fill in the void left by more conventional tools of diplomacy? Will the oppressed masses in authoritarian states join the barricades once they get unfettered access to Wikipedia and Twitter?
This seems quite unlikely. In fact, our debate about the Internet’s role in democratization—increasingly dominated by techno-utopianism—is in dire need of moderation, for there are at least as many reasons to be skeptical. Ironically, the role that the Internet played in the recent events in Iran shows us why: Revolutionary change that can topple strong authoritarian regimes requires a high degree of centralization among their opponents. The Internet does not always help here. One can have “organizing without organizations”—the phrase is in the subtitle of “Here Comes Everybody,” Clay Shirky’s best-selling 2008 book about the power of social media—but one can’t have revolutions without revolutionaries.
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In an environment like this—where it’s impossible to distinguish whether your online interlocutors are your next-door neighbors, some hyperactive Iranians in the diaspora, or a government agent masquerading as a member of the Green Movement—who could blame ordinary Iranians for not taking the risks of flooding the streets only to find themselves arrested?
Our earlier, unfounded expectations that the Internet would make it easy for the average citizens to see who else is opposing the regime and then act collectively based on that shared knowledge may have been inaccurate. In the age of the Spinternet, when cheap online propaganda can easily be bought with the help of pro-government bloggers, elucidating what fellow citizens think about the regime may be harder than we thought. Add to that the growing surveillance capacity of modern authoritarian states—also greatly boosted by information collected through social media and analyzed with new and advanced forms of data-mining—and you may begin to understand why the Green Movement faltered.
And Now… Walmart, Champion of the Local* Food Movement?
February 22nd, 2010* In terms of WalMart, local means, “Within a day’s drive of one of its warehouses.” Does that mean two people driving for 24 hours in shifts?
I apologize for being so cynical, but this is [expletive deleted] WALMART we’re talking about!
What’s happening here? Is “Local” becoming the new “Organic”? Another term ripe for co-opting by the likes of… uh, Walmart?
Have farmers markets become a threat to Walmart?
Via: The Atlantic:
Buy my food at Walmart? No thanks. Until recently, I had been to exactly one Walmart in my life, at the insistence of a friend I was visiting in Natchez, Mississippi, about 10 years ago. It was one of the sights, she said. Up and down the aisles we went, properly impressed by the endless rows and endless abundance. Not the produce section. I saw rows of prepackaged, plastic-trapped fruits and vegetables. I would never think of shopping there.
Not even if I could get environmentally correct food. Walmart’s move into organics was then getting under way, but it just seemed cynical—a way to grab market share while driving small stores and farmers out of business. Then, last year, the market for organic milk started to go down along with the economy, and dairy farmers in Vermont and other states, who had made big investments in organic certification, began losing contracts and selling their farms. A guaranteed large buyer of organic milk began to look more attractive. And friends started telling me I needed to look seriously at Walmart’s efforts to sell sustainably raised food.
Really? Wasn’t this greenwashing? I called Charles Fishman, the author of The Wal-Mart Effect, which entertainingly documents the market-changing (and company-destroying) effects of Walmart’s decisions. He reiterated that whatever Walmart decides to do has large repercussions—and told me that what it had decided to do since my Natchez foray was to compete with high-end supermarkets. “You won’t recognize the grocery section of a supercenter,” he said. He ordered me to get in my car and find one.
He was right. In the grocery section of the Raynham supercenter, 45 minutes south of Boston, I had trouble believing I was in a Walmart. The very reasonable-looking produce, most of it loose and nicely organized, was in black plastic bins (as in British supermarkets, where the look is common; the idea is to make the colors pop). The first thing I saw, McIntosh apples, came from the same local orchard whose apples I’d just seen in the same bags at Whole Foods. The bunched beets were from Muranaka Farm, whose beets I often buy at other markets—but these looked much fresher. The service people I could find (it wasn’t hard) were unfailingly enthusiastic, though I did wonder whether they got let out at night.
Ousted GM CEO Fritz Henderson Rehired As Consultant, Earns $60K A Month
February 22nd, 2010Via: Car Connection:
After having been very publicly ejected from the company late last year, former GM CEO Fritz Henderson has been reinstated with a cushy consulting role less than three months on. In early December, 2009 Henderson was asked by the then Chairman of the Board, Ed Whitacre, to resign just days before he was to make a keynote address at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
In a regulatory filing submitted by GM this past week, the company has confirmed that Whitacre will now remain as CEO with an annual salary of $1.7 million plus more than $7 million worth of stock payable over the next couple of years.
Interestingly, this figure is significantly higher than the $1.3 million Henderson would have received as CEO, even after GM’s executive pay came under the scrutiny of U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.
As for Henderson, his new consulting job will see him work just 20 hours per month and require him to meet with GM’s international president, Tim Lee, to discuss matters on international operations. For his efforts Henderson will receive $59,090 per month, which equates to almost $3,000 per hour.
Kerik Is Sentenced in Corruption Case
February 22nd, 2010Fugettaboutit.
Via: New York Times:
Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who rose to national prominence, was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to eight felony charges, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials.
Under the terms of a plea agreement, the prosecution and the defense recommended that Judge Stephen C. Robinson sentence Mr. Kerik to 27 to 33 months in prison. But the judge departed from the sentencing recommendations, giving Mr. Kerik a longer sentence because he said he had betrayed the public’s trust.
“I think it’s fair to say that with great power comes great responsibility and great consequences,” Judge Robinson said. “I think the damage caused by Mr. Kerik is in some ways immeasurable.”
Federal prosecutors had denounced Mr. Kerik, a former police detective who rose to the upper echelons of power, as a corrupt official who sought to trade his authority for lavish benefits. He pleaded guilty on the eve of his trial in November.
Wearing a pinstriped navy-blue suit, Mr. Kerik was thinner and clean-shaven — without the mustache he was long identified with — as he entered the courtroom in United States District Court here. He surveyed the gallery, packed with friends and supporters, embracing some, nodding to others.
When Judge Robinson offered him a chance to speak before sentencing, Mr. Kerik rose from the defense table and spoke in a low and gravelly voice.
“I make no excuses,” he said. “I take full responsibility for the grave mistakes I’ve made. Believe me when I say I have learned from this and I have become and will continue to become a better person. I know I must be punished. I only ask that you allow me to return to my wife and two little girls as soon as possible.”
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The case against Mr. Kerik centered on charges that a New Jersey construction company, the Interstate Industrial Corporation, which was suspected of ties to organized crime, had paid for renovations at his home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Prosecutors said company officials had hoped Mr. Kerik would help them obtain a city license.
In June 2006, Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty in State Supreme Court in the Bronx to two misdemeanors tied to the renovation of his apartment. He paid $221,000 in fines and penalties but avoided any jail time.
In the more recent federal case, Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty to two counts of tax fraud, one count of making a false statement on a loan application and five counts of making false statements to the federal government while being vetted for senior posts. Judge Robinson ordered him to pay restitution of $187,931 to the Internal Revenue Service.
Low-Cost, More Efficient Solar Cells Made Mostly of Plastic
February 22nd, 2010Via: EETimes:
By growing arrays of silicon wires in a polymer substrate, researchers have demonstrated what they say are flexible solar cells that absorb up to 96 percent of incident light.
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researchers said the wires are made up of 98 percent plastic, potentially lowering the cost of photovoltaics by using just 1/50th the amount of semiconductor material used today. In tests, the experimental solar cells demonstrated over 90 percent quantum efficiency, compared with 25 percent for the best silicon solar cells.
“By developing light-trapping techniques for relatively sparse wire arrays, not only did we achieve suitable absorption, but we also demonstrated effective optical concentration,” claimed Harry Atwater, director of Caltech’s Resnick Institute.
The silicon wires measure just 1 micron in diameter, but can be as long as 100 microns and can be embedded in a transparent polymer. Light is converted into electricity only inside the wires, but light not immediately absorbed bounces around inside the matrix until it enters another wire. The result, researchers said, is both high concentration and high efficiency in the material.
Solar cells based on the technique could potentially be very inexpensive to manufacture since only 2 percent of the materials are expensive semiconductors while the remainder is made from inexpensive plastic.
The new material is about the same overall thickness as a conventional solar cells–about 100 microns–but contain as much silicon as a solar cell measuring just 2 microns in thickness.
Atwater said he is now working to increase the operating voltage and size of the solar cells so that they can eventually be manufactured in flexible sheets using inexpensive roll-to-roll fabrication equipment.
Funding for the Caltech research was provided by BP, the U.S. Energy Department, the National Science Foundation and the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech.
The New Poor: Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs
February 22nd, 2010Economic Recovery, New York Times style: “You basically don’t want workers. You hire less, and you try to find capital equipment to replace them.”
Via: New York Times:
Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.
Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.
Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.
California City to Charge $300 to Call 911
February 21st, 2010Via: CBS13:
Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 9-1-1 for a medical emergency.
But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year which allows them to call 9-1-1 as many times as necessary.
Or, there’s the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead, they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.
“A $300 fee and you don’t even want to be thinking about that when somebody is in need of assistance,” said Tracy resident Greg Bidlack.
Residents will soon receive the form in the mail where they’ll be able to make their selection. No date has been set for when the charges will go into effect.
