$1 USD, that's like $1 CAD?

[Wolf]

A few things: just because you're Eichmann doesn't mean you should be hanged. You can be a part of the problem and not be so integral a part of it that it is necessary to remove you. There are people who, but-for their actions, there would have been no problem without them, and there are those who help them. The former will do bad things anyway with or without the latter. That being said, this doesn't mean that the latter is absolved of all responsibility: she is still culpable, but just for what she did.

That being said, I don't get this "sufficiently separated from the locus of power" bit. So, you're saying you're a very low-level banker, who, as of fall, 2008, wasn't trusted to work on any project that tanked or helped to tank the economy? I mean, when put in that position--plead incompetent or fess up--I tend to fess up, but that's just me. You can admit that you might have had a little to do with it, and I won't blame you for it. I really don't think that's the solution to our problem. I don't think that the world of finance has become so irredeemably twisted that it was actively working towards collapsing the global economy.

[athanasios]

Think or not this is exactly what they are doing. Short minded people with lack of education. What else could you expect from them? They think that they can be unaffected and loot the remains but they wont.

[chatfsh]

I have no doubt that there exists an upper echelon or privileged sphere of executive level investment bankers who knew exactly what they were doing when they crafted the financial instruments that  brought the unwitting world to its collective knees.  However, I can assure you that this cabal rather adeptly kept the vast majority of the employees in the dark concerning their nefarious dealings.

Consider this analogy:

Suppose that the CEO of a popular candy manufacturer called his executive management team into the office and announced that they were going to start introducing small doses chemicals into their products causing children to become addicted to the candy and thereby creating a strong and steady customer base.  

Now suppose the secret remains just that while orders are handed down to the manufacturing floor to start mass producing this line of candy.  It

[Andrew]

US money supply plunges at 1930s pace as Obama eyes fresh stimulus

If true, this is quite serious. I didn't realize money supply still shrinking, I figured with all the stimulus and recession over things would be back to normal. The fact that $2 trillion in stimulus wasn't enough to fix it is a bad sign.

Oddly M3 supply figures were stopped in 2006 (so people wouldn't see upcoming problems). The only money supply I see at stlouisfed.org is here shows money supply is contracting. But so far it is just going back down to pre-recession numbers. I guess what they are worried about is if it continues to drop.

[chatfsh]

It

[Andrew]

Bank of Canada raises benchmark interest rate

Bank of Canada increased interest rates by 0.25%. Our dollar has been going up/down, even though in theory it should have increased our value. Euro fears are sending everyone to USD. So basically everyone will flock to USD, then USA will go in crapper and everyone will flock somewhere else.

Canada is first G8 country to increase interest rates.

EDIT:

Minimum wage increased here from $8.40 to $8.70. Going to $9 October 1.

Great a ~7% increase in min wages in one year. Will be awesome to see inflation. For example: Someone May 31 2010 who was making $9 an hour, what should they be making October 1 2010? $9.60 (60 cent increase)?

Basically everytime this happens, it in theory would force everyone elses wages upwards. Even someone making $30 an hour would want their wages increased, because their purchasing power has been decreased.

Awesome seeing the usual uneducated trolls at local newspaper website talk about how it should be increased even more and that businesses are evil.

Some basic math:

Employer has 10 full time employees that work 40 hours a week.

May 31, 2010 or earlier wages were 10people x 40 hours a week x $8.40 an hour = $3360

October 1, 2010 10people x 40 hours a week x $9 an hour = $3600

Thart's $240 more a week in wage expenses (6.7%). Who is going to pay for this increase? Most likely consumers. So up goes prices of goods.

[Tatar Khan]

Bank of Canada raises benchmark interest rate

Bank of Canada increased interest rates by 0.25%. Our dollar has been going up/down, even though in theory it should have increased our value. Euro fears are sending everyone to USD. So basically everyone will flock to USD, then USA will go in crapper and everyone will flock somewhere else.

Well not necesserely that theoretically the candian dollar should go up with the bank rate increases. Bank rate increase could also be taken as a singnal of inflation since also according to theory real rates of return in the long run across the coutries are the same and only difference is inflation. Than rate increase is seen as sign of inlation and so canadian dollar would decrease in value. It also could just be based on simple foreign exchange rate equation:

Future exchange rate = Current exchange rate ((1 plus rate of return in foreign country)/(1 plus rate of return in domestic country))

[Andrew]

True. I wonder if the CAD had been at $1 USD or above would they have increased interest rate, for fear of CAD increasing in value more (and hurting exports). But of course the main reason was inflation, since BoC targets inflation. And it also makes them look good for being the first G8 country to do so (confidence?).

[Andrew]

Payrolls increase by 431,000 in May

This is awesome news!

Virtually all the job creation in May came from the hiring of 411,000 census workers. Such hiring peaked in May and will begin tailing off in June. By contrast, hiring by private employers, the backbone of the economy, slowed sharply.

They added just 41,000 jobs, down from 218,000 in April and the fewest since January.

Haha, joking. Bad news...

The unemployment rate, which is derived from a separate survey than the payroll figures, fell to 9.7 percent from 9.9 percent. The dip partly reflected 322,000 people leaving the labor force for a variety of reasons. All told, 15 million people were unemployed in May.

Hurray unemployment numbers have decreased! Because people stopped looking for jobs (or retired etc).

This news hurt stock markets. DJIA below 10k.

Canada sees 25,000 new jobs created in May

Statistics Canada said the private sector added 43,000 people to its payrolls in May but there were 28,000 fewer self-employed workers.

Wait, so Canada created more private sector jobs than USA in May!? Unless I'm reading that wrong (probably use different methods). Sad to see less self employed.

Canada added 109,000 jobs in April, so it seems to be a trend in both Canada/USA that May sucked.

[Wolf]

EU money woes intensify: Euro drops to below 1.20 USD.

[Tatar Khan]

Canada added 109,000 jobs in April, so it seems to be a trend in both Canada/USA that May sucked.

Summer is always a slow down in job market so is January usually except this year when a lot of movement occured because the budgets fro the new year were being implemented.

Overall the loss of self-employed is not a big deal, ussually they are the people who went into such things as selling Avon, Amway, Primerica, etc. The idea of being your own boss and not getting fired is appealing to unemployed but after a while without being able to get clientel they usually leave the whole idea of self employement behind.

[Andrew]

The Third Depression

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

Paul Krugman thinks we are in the third depression.

Outlook for Home Prices Grows Darker

Since April 30, new purchase contracts have plunged as buyers no longer have the incentive of a federal tax break, builders and real estate agents say. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, estimated that contracts signed in May were 10% to 15% below the weak level of a year earlier.

So the government incentives for people to buy houses has run out and now the real truth appears. Basically the incentives just forced people to buy houses earlier than they would have to make the numbers look good. Incentive is gone and people who wanted to buy houses have bought their houses.

Housing market struggles without government aid

No new houses sold, no new jobs, only thing propping up the economy is government mandated inflation.

Todays article:

Stocks, commodities tumble on China growth fears

Markets fell after the U.S. Conference Board said late Monday that a calculation error led it to incorrectly state its economic leading indicator for China for the month of April. It said the gauge of future economic growth was up only 0.3 per cent, rather than the 1.7 per cent it had initially stated.

0.3%!? I'm guessing this is for only month of April. If stays like that for 12 months, that is only ~3.6%. China was getting 15% before recession I think.

The End of the Debt Bubble.

some guy/poster on fark wrote the article. Not good news.

The G20 meeting this past weekend cost >$1 billion. Seems like a huge waste of money to me. They could have held it on a military base and cost not much. I think Canadian federal debt is around 50 billion (not sure around what number exactly), so spending $1 billion for a 3 day event is stupid. PEI provincial budget is $1.5 billion (for 140,000 people).

[Andrew]

June Job levels are really bad

Seasonally adjusted it is worst since 1963. Not seasonally adjusted it is the worst since 1954.

On a population-adjusted basis, the June 2010 figure is the worst June performance in the 63 years BLS has been tracking the data.

[Tatar Khan]

June Job levels are really bad

Seasonally adjusted it is worst since 1963. Not seasonally adjusted it is the worst since 1954.

Well apparently most organisations have a freeze on hiring. So they are replacing out going people but not expanding any of their departments. Often also the new hirings are only contract based. Many government organisations are also have freeze on hirings. So being unemployed really sucks right now.

[ErasOmnius]

Down, down to Goblin-town..."

The West is sinking. Sinking in a mass of deficit bonds.

Nothing can really change until the collapse comes, and a new kind of Order replaces it.

[chatfsh]

Well apparently most organisations have a freeze on hiring. So they are replacing out going people but not expanding any of their departments. Often also the new hirings are only contract based. Many government organisations are also have freeze on hirings. So being unemployed really sucks right now.

Yes, most companies have already cut as much fat as they can and are now endeavoring to keep the expense base flat while they struggle to grow revenue.   We too have a moratorium on external hires.  Which means that we must hire from within the company

[Andrew]

Job growth shocker: Economy sails on in Canada

Rather than the 15,000 or fewer new jobs expected last month, more than 93,000 were created, the second biggest monthly gain ever. June

[Tatar Khan]

Job growth shocker: Economy sails on in Canada

Well, looks like Canada is almost completely out of any job losses from recession.

The numbers look good except they are crap. What they showing is people finding work, but as CBC showed (and ironically they were all rosy about it too) mos to those jobs are low paying positions that are staffed by people with degrees and diplomas. So now we just have massive underemployment. Nothing to celebrate at all.

I been in that position for now over 1.5 years. Nothing really good. The worst thing is that I can't even show that work on the resume because according to the way HR is taught. According to HR departments, if I person with degree working now for that low level job, there is something wrong and therefore it is better not to hire him/her, since accordingly you should have more respect for yourself if you have a degree to not fall down so low level work.

[Dragoon Knight]

Thirty US billionaires pledge to give half their fortunes to charity.

Well that's interesting, to say the least.  I mean, there's no legal obligation, but damn.  I'd love to see the tax deductions for that financial quarter. :P

I highly doubt this is pure altruism, but from the outside, it certainly looks like a Good Thing

[athanasios]

From seeing the face of Bill Gates... you are right!

[Lord J]

Thirty US billionaires pledge to give half their fortunes to charity.

Well that's interesting, to say the least.  I mean, there's no legal obligation, but damn.  I'd love to see the tax deductions for that financial quarter. :P

I highly doubt this is pure altruism, but from the outside, it certainly looks like a Good Thing

[Dante]

I'm inclined to agree. The difference between $25bn and $50bn is, in actual terms, huge, but in proportional terms it's negligible. In terms of standard of living, monetary influence etc, the difference between $10k and $20k is substantially greater.

In other words, while this is definitely a good sign (if subject to certain cynical interpretations), it's hard to call it a meaningful sacrifice on the part of those making the donation.

Also, now that I think about it, it depends on which charities are going to benefit.

[Andrew]

Food stamp use hit record 40.8m in May

Wow, that sucks. That's more people than all of Canada.

Guess that recovery in USA isn't going so good if more people are getting food stamps. 13% of population on food stamps isn't good (40/310).

[Acriku]

Oh my store gets tons of food stamp users. And the irony is that the majority of them use it for crab legs, massive birthday cakes, frozen shrimp, and other ridiculous food items. It's a system that is being taken advantage of daily.

[ErasOmnius]

Oh my store gets tons of food stamp users. And the irony is that the majority of them use it for crab legs, massive birthday cakes, frozen shrimp, and other ridiculous food items. It's a system that is being taken advantage of daily.

Don't you think that's a bit simplistic, and reinforcing of a basic stereotype?

I'm sure they use it for the basic necessities of life to feed themselves, others, and children.