The July jobs report was better than expected but unemployment remains high. Is it good news or bad news for Pres. Obama?
By STEPHEN KEPPEL and EMILY DERUY
We found out this morning that 163,000 jobs were created during the month of July. This was the highest rate of job creation since February but the unemployment rate ticked up very slightly to 8.3% (actually from 8.21% to 8.25%).
(Source: questionall)
“The American economy is not driven by suits in walnut clad offices alone. The worker has just a big of stake in ‘job creation’ as the CEO who collects 500% more in pay. Without the worker on the floor, at the machines, in the line, at the computer, the American economy would come to a halt. Every worker, every employee in this nation contributes to our prosperity, and we have sat back and let the Republicans twist reality yet again and convince the public that jobs come from the wealthy.”
This country has become a self-centered, consumer-oriented society…no-deposit, no-return. For the past 30 years the rich have been glorified and making money is a virtue…no matter how it’s made. If you made it off the backs of someone else…so be it…sucks to be them. We’ve applauded corporate greed as “progress” and allowed the corporates to frame the lexicon regarding the economy.
The term “job creators” is highly offensive in that 1%’ers probably made most of his/her money offshoring or “consolidating”…not creating jobs but eliminating them and having the US government pick up the tab. They shirk taxes and have beaten down the middle class to obsolescence.
(Source: democraticunderground.com)
View Larger This is every job ever.
The amount of notes this has is very telling.
Word.
THIS IS SO TRUE.
How many times have you heard someone discuss the need to maintain health insurance for themselves or their family as a factor in an important personal, job-change, or life choice? If the health-insurance exchanges that Obamacare promises work at all well, a new era of personal freedom beckons.
— Steve Coll on Obamacare and the future of work: http://nyr.kr/NZDCB0 (via newyorker)
Children’s television host Bill Nye, better known as “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” has formally endorsed President Barack Obama for reelection in 2012.
Appearing at a press conference this week with Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) at the Seacoast Science Center, Nye told a reporter for Foster’s Daily Democrat that the 2012 presidential election is “the most important election of my life,” and emphasized the president’s commitment to not cut public education budgets.
“I believe we’re at a crossroads, a turning point,” he said. “We can either move forward, especially in education, or backward. I think voters have a clear choice, so I’m supporting the president.”
That’s opposed to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), who supports the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). An analysis by The National Education Association predicted the Ryan budget would trigger tens of thousands of job losses and push over 200,000 kids out of the Head Start program, a community welfare initiative that helps young students living in poverty — vital to keeping the dropout rate down in poor communities.
“If you fund public education, your society will innovate better and faster,” Nye said. “Scientific discoveries will create technologies that will improve the quality of life. People want those technologies, so money will come in to the U.S. rather than out.”
Senate Republicans on Thursday killed a bill to encourage American companies to bring overseas jobs back to the United States. The bill would have stopped companies from deducting the expenses of moving workers or operations overseas from the U.S. It also would have offered a 20 percent credit for the costs of shifting workers back home. “I am extremely disappointed that almost every Republican voted against a bill that would have ended tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and at the same time would have helped U.S. companies that bring jobs home to the United States,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said after the vote. “At a time when American companies have eliminated millions of good-paying jobs in our country, the last thing we should be doing is providing tax breaks to large multi-national corporations that ship jobs to China and other low-wage countries.”
“President Barack Obama is launching a push to extend tax cuts for the middle class, as he seeks to shift the election-year economic debate away from the dismal jobs market and toward the issue of tax fairness.
Obama, in an address from the White House Monday, will call on Congress to pass a one-year extension of tax cuts for households making less than $250,000 a year, said senior campaign aide Robert Gibbs.
The president’s appeal to middle-class voters is aimed at drawing a contrast with Republican rival Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans. The House GOP is expected to make its own push this month for an extension of all the Bush-era tax cuts due to expire at the end of the year, including reductions on wealthier income earners. Obama opposes extending the tax cuts for higher income earners….
The Bush-era tax cuts are due to expire at the end of the year unless Congress votes to extend them. Economists worry that across-the-board tax increases, along with automatic spending cuts also scheduled to take hold at year’s end, could be a blow to the shaky U.S. economy.” - Julie Pace
(Source: Yahoo!)
Appalachia is engaged in a civil war of sorts over coal, with miners and their families pitted against environmental activists. The central issue is mountaintop removal, a radical form of strip mining that has left over 2,000 miles of streams buried and over 500 mountains destroyed. According to several recent studies, people living near surface mining sites have a 50 percent greater risk of fatal cancer and a 42 percent greater risk of birth defects than the general population. Despite the evidence, the coal industry and its allies in Washington have persuaded the majority of their constituents to ignore such environmental consequences, recasting mountaintop removal as an economic boon for the region, a powerful job creator in a time of national employment distress. Of course, since mountaintop removal is heavily mechanized, the coal industry is the real job killer — and, until recently, miners would have been suspicious of any claim to the contrary.
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Appalachia Turns on Itself - NYTimes.com (via apsies)
