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Several experts point to a dangerous change in the nature of unemployment in this downturn. Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, says people are more likely to get stuck with unemployment now than at any time in the post war period. Andrew Stettner, deputy Director of the National Employment Law Project, says a larger share of the unemployed are not going to be able to go to the same line of work. They will need new skills, just like an auto worker in a permanently downsized industry would have to find new skills to make a product in the renewable energy field or health care. And the law as it currently stands does not help either. Because if an unmeployed worker looks for training or goes back to school he loses his unemployment benefits, something the Obama administration proposes to change. What this means is that many of the unemployed will end up as permanent job losers. Rob Valetta, an economist at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank says that throughout the the last 3 decades including good times, the unemployment pool is shifting towards permanent job losers. Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University economist, points out that once workers exhaust their unemployment benefits and don't get new training, they become disconnected to the labor market, and bascially end up on disability or become permanently unemployed. The statistics bear this out. In April 2009, 47.1% of the people collecting state unemployment insurance exhausted the usual 26 weeks of benefits without finding work, according to the Bureau of Laor Statistics, that is the highest rate on record. In December 2007, there were about 2 unemployed workers for every job opening, according to Labor Department data. In March 2009 there were five unemployed workers for every opening. Mark Beaupre, 49, of Providence, R.I. lost his $8 an hour manufacturing job an year ago, one of many manufacturing jobs he has held since the 1980's. His wife Cathy lost her customer service job a year ago. This couple who together made $50,000 a year, are now behind on their mortgage payments and have applied for food assistance. At a recent job fair in Providence he says three thousand people turned up and he could not even get into the parking lot. ...

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This editorial from the Times after the New Hampshire Republican primary- in which rival candidates attacked Bain Capital- says that leveraged buyouts by private equity firms like Bain Capital were only one of the causes of the growing income inequality, and by no means the principal cause. And they had little to do with the subprime mortgage crisis that led to the financial crisis and recession in 2008, which aggravated the income inequality. A serious factor was the lowering of wages in manufacturing in competition with lower wage countries in a globalized economy and the decline of good manufacturing jobs over three decades. The increase in low wage jobs in the retail and service sector with the decline in manufacturing did little to arrest the growing gap in wages.

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Francesco Gurrerera, Money and Investing Editor for the WSJ points to the risks in the U.S. and global economy in April 2012- overdependence on the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, not enough "de-leveraging" of financial institutions after the 2008 global crisis, and the increasing risk associated with individual investors and businesses investing in risky securities in search of yield in a low-interest rate environment.

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This NY Times editorial cites Defense Secretary Aston Carter's comments after the fall of Ramadi to Islamic State, that the Iraqi army units at Ramadi outnumbered the Islamic State militants but "lacked the will to fight." It points out the problem of the Iraqi government using Shiite militias which further aggravates sectarian tensions.

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Dana Milbank describes comments by Dick Cheney, former vice president, on the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, and what he sees as the lack of credibility Cheney brings based on his handling of the WMD issue in Iraq.

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Tom Donilon, is national security advisor to President Obama. His experience includes working as chief of staff for Warren Christopher in the Clinton administration, and 8 years as an executive at Fannie Mae before being brought into the Obama circle by Rahm Emmanuel as deputy to national security advisor Gen. Jones. Robert Gates view was that Donilon would be "a disaster." His early experience as a political operative for the Carter campaign to his work for the 1988 Biden presidential campaign, and work at Fannie Mae as a business executive, suggests lack of experience in foreign affairs needed for this role. A focus on efficiency and being able to sync with Obama's thinking on foreign affairs may not be the qualities needed in this critical role.

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How Martin Feldstein weighs the risks of inflation and of moral hazards in helping those who fueled the subprime crisis with their mistakes with the risks of a sharp downturn, and what thoughts he has on the issue of lowering rates just as the Bernbanke Fed prepares for its policy meeting September 18, 2007. He looks for a cut starting from the current 5.25% to 4.25% or even less depending on the situation as it evolves. Feldstein gives a measure for household wealth that will be lost and what will be lost in consumer spending as a result. His measure is for a 20% cumulative fall in house prices that would reduce household wealth by $4 trillion which would impact consumer spending by about $200 billion, thats about 5% consumers would spend more if they had that $4 trillion. This works out to about 1.5% of GDP which he suggests would tip the US economy into a recession. This is not counting the loss of access to spendable cash that the consumer has used for the last decade in terms of mortgage equity withdrawals which totaled $9 trillion this last decade and financed a lot of the sustained consumer spending, these mortgage equity withdrawals to finance spending would decline significantly in the new conditions. In addition with more defaults and falling prices in a vicious circle the process could accelerate quickly, further impairing the portfolios of banks and financial institutions causing some to collapse. ...

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Another significant development in this crisis, is how small businesses got addicted to credit card debt as a way to operate for ongoing expenses of the small business, from a small nursery, to abed and breakfast or a solo law practice. There are an estimated 27.2 million small businesses who are supposed to be one of the growth engines of the economy. Credit card debt when banks are tightening up credit and businesses are unable to meet expenses, is extremely costly because of the underlying usurious nature of the industry in the US and lax regulation. It will only push more businesses, that have acquired the bad habit of credit cards to finance operations, into bankruptcy. There were 5 million business credit cards in 2000. By 2009 after Visa Inc, American Express Co, and MasterCard Inc. and Discover Financial Services Inc. pushed these cards aggressively, using a new credit scoring system that looked less at the business and more at personal credit scores, the number jumped six fold to what Nilsen Reports estimates as 29 million business credit cards. The spending on these cards jumped for this period four fold, from $70 billion to $296 billion. As the average debt on each credit card jumped so did the likelihood of some of these card holders difficulties. Missed payments could lead to interest rates for some card holders jumping to 30+% from initial rates of 7-8%, all in the last 12 months. This makes small businesses less likely to create the jobs they created in the past, and one more troublespot in this economy....

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Difficult conditions for public sector unions as state governors work to reduce deficits. A weak economy leads to concessions by private sector unions in 2010-2013. This is one of the most difficult periods in union history following the financial crisis of 2008 and large job losses in many industries, especially the auto industry. Maher describes conditions in different industries including telecom, auto, airlines oil, retail,and rail.

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The Census Bureau reports that 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010. This is an increase of 2.6 million over 2009. This is the highest number of Americans living in poverty since 1958, when this statistic was first measured. Poverty is defined for 2010 as income at or below $22,314 for family of four. Also relevant is the median household income which went down to $49,445 in 2010, a decline of 2.3% from 2009. The typical household earned less in 2010 than in 1997, in inflation adjusted terms. The Census Bureau reports 16.3% of Americans had no health insurance coverage in 2010, the same as 2009.

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The effects of China's slowing economy on food exports of Argentina and Uruguay is likely to be small because of China's continuing need for imports and the food contamination from widespread pollution. Commodity producers of iron ore in Australia and Brazil see the rising wages in China and pollution controls reducing the gap between locally produced iron ore and imported iron ore.

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China's Producer prices declined by 3%, Consumer prices flatlined, and imports and exports are both down 6.2% in September 2023. Growth is expected not to exceed 5% in forecasts by IMF and others.

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A professor from Harvard's Kennedy school describes the Hungarians failure to remember the 1956 Hungarian uprising crushed by the Soviet Union as migrants suffering enormous hardship make their way to Keleti train station in Budapest, Hungary. The Orban government in Hungary refused to let migrants take trains to Austria and Germany. Chancellor Merkel said the Schengen Agreement allowing free movement itself was being called into question. The Orban government later relented and put migrants on buses to Vienna. Throughout this crisis as media showed pictures of the hardships suffered by migrants, and chancellor Merkel assured asylum for hundreds of thousands of migrants, Obama and Harper were silent on the issue. The appalling numbers tell the story, says Ignatieff- with about 1500 for the U.S. and 166 for the UK, according to news reports. He is very critical of Obama, Cameron and Harper, representing the U.S., UK, and Canada, for doing so little.

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This report says fewer jobs alone is not going to reduce inflation, US inflation is propelled by factors beyond economic theory. The Phillip's Curve is a inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation that was a convenient tool for the 1960's to get the economy to do well with low unemployment at 4% with moderate inflation. It was torn apart by high inflationary expectations in the 70's. In today's world Robert Gordon of Northwestern University suggests central banks consider inflationary embedded expectations, supply shocks and cost push as in the pandemic 2021-2022, and demand changes. The job that Mr. Powell at the Fed has is lowering inflationary expectations by reducing private sector investment and job creation by raising the cost of capital through interest rate increases. Yet today the government is a huge partner in capital investment for America in clean energy and infrastructure building which means job creation remains strong as it has in America. President Biden's effort to reduce pharmaceutical costs and for inflation reduction by fighting price increases through stealth fees, has at the same time cut into inflation. So as lower demand and increased supply in 2022 as the government better manages the supplies of energy, including release of oil stocks from the national reserves. Explained- The Phillips curve is an inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation observed by a New Zealand economist William Phillips in a paper in 1958 based on British unemployment and inflation data1861-1957. Economist Robert Samuelson turned it into a textbook concept as a simple tradeoff in 1960 more inflation gets you less unemployment- which fit the period of the 60's- but warned that it could change over time. Milton Friedman and others during the 1970's period of high inflationary expectations setting rejected it. In reality Mr. Phillips never meant for economists like Samuelson to generalize from his statistical observation of data on the British economy before 1958 and apply it to the US for the closing decades of the 20th much less the 21st century. ...

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With U.S. exports to China related to about 1% of U.S. GDP, and the direct foreign investment by China in the U.S. being less than 1% of all foreign investment in the U.S., the slowdown in China is likely to have a small effect on the U.S. economy, say experts. China's slowdown will help service industries in the U.S., internet companies, software and entertainment companies. Positive factors include slower growth in manufactured imports from China, low commodity prices including oil for an extended period of time, access to more Chinese investment in the U.S. with higher returns, and more talented students from China staying in the U.S.

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The youth wing of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, the Young Socialists, have collected 100,000 signatures for getting a referendum to limit executive salaries to 12 times the pay of the lowest paid company employee. The initiative is based on the idea that the highest paid person should not earn more in one month than an employee at the lowest level earns in 12 months. The initiative is called the "1:12 Initiative for Fair Pay." At the large Swiss companies top salaries are at 93 times that of the lowest paid workers for 2011, according to the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions. This ratio has gone up from 14 times in 1998, showing the sharp increase in the last 15 years leading to greater inequality in society. By comparison the situation has been stable in smaller and midsize companies, where the ratio of the median wages of highest earning employees to lowest paid increased slightly from 7.6 times to 8.5 times between 1996 and 2010. A poll in early March 2013 showed 49.5% of those polled in favor of the 1:12 iniitiative, 40.5% opposed, and 10% undecided....