Brought to us by our friends at TheFinancialBrand.com:
Goldman Sachs Ads "Don't Address Jack"
Brought to my attention by TheFinancialBrand.com, Goldman Sachs has launched a new Young & Rubicam-created ad campaign designed to improve Goldman's Rolling Stone magazine-decreed bruised and battered "Vampire Squid" image. Ad #1 from the campaign, slated to run into next year:
As TheFinancialBrand.com declares, "This campaign doesn’t address jack. In the court of public opinion, Goldman Sachs stands accused of financial crimes against humanity, and this is their public response? This is the exact same mistake Swiss banking behemoth UBS made last month with its 'We Will Not Rest' ad campaign: When you’ve destroyed people’s trust, the last thing they want to hear is a bunch of bromides and mushy, corporate rhetoric."
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Las Vegas August Unemployment Falls Slightly to 14.7%
The number of Las Vegans out of work for the month of August fell one-tenth of 1 percent, to 14.7%, while Nevada's rate climbed by the same ratio, to 14.4%, the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation reported this morning.
The rate represents 192,000 people out of work in the state with 142,000 of them in the Las Vegas area. More than 10,000 workers left the labor force to either seek employment out of state or became too discouraged to look for work, said Bill Anderson, the DETR's chief economist. “The hot summer days of August did little to stimulate Nevada’s economic fortunes,” he added. “Readings of key labor market indicators continue to show moderating losses."
FOX News Seeking Chief White House Correspondent Who "Thinks Less and Talks More"
FOX News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett is leaving the network for a job the National Journal, saying he wants to "think more and talk less."
See Comedy Central Stephen Colbert's take on this development in the video clip below.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Fox News Job Opening | ||||
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Joblessness & the Great Recession: A Scary, Scary Time-Lapse Digital Graphic, 2007-Present
This is both educational and very, very frightening: a time-lapse digital graphic of a map of the United States as unemployment and underemployment – devastating almost 31 million Americans and counting – sweeps the country, from January 2007 through today.
Las Vegas' jobless rate up to 14.8%, expected to again make it America's most unemployed metro area
Las Vegas’ July jobless rate increased two-tenths of a point, to 14.8%, likely ensuring it will again have the highest unemployment rate of major U.S. cities when national figures are released later this month.
The “real” unemployment rate, which also includes unemployed residents no longer actively seeking work, however, is 21.5%, the state’s Department of Employment, Training and Development announced this morning, which means more than one out of every five Nevadans is jobless.
The state’s July jobless rate ticked up one-tenth, to 14.3%. It is the smallest one-month increase of the year, but marks the 16th consecutive month the rate increased to a new record high. Given that Michigan announced a slight decrease in its jobless rate Thursday, it’s also likely Nevada will continue to have the country’s highest statewide unemployment rate.
"Weakness in Nevada’s job markets persists, with both the public and private sectors reporting less employment over the month," according to the statement. “Particularly troubling is the continued contraction of the employment services industry,” which supplies temporary workers to expanding businesses. “Growing demand for temporary workers is usually a precursor for future permanent hiring." The drop in July means “expectations for future hiring remain weak.”
Regarding the unofficial unemployment rate – which the state calculated and included in today’s announcement for the first time – “the reality of the recession’s impacts on Nevada’s workforce is much worse than presented” in the official rate.
Fading consumer confidence at odds with growing corporate profits fueled by layoffs and cost-cutting
“You can’t cut your way to prosperity,” according to an old business adage.
But during the Great Recession, corporate America is sure gonna try.
Americans' confidence in the economy faded further in July, according a Conference Board survey released earlier this week, amid job worries and flat wages. But don’t tell that to Big Business, which has enjoyed a recent rally fueled by upbeat earnings reports fueled by layoffs and overseas sales. And despite improved balance sheets and robust stock prices, few companies are rehiring any of the millions of Americans they’ve laid off in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
But "so far, history be damned," Samuelson wrote. "The contrast between revived profits and stunted job growth is stunning. From late 2007 to late 2009, payroll employment dropped nearly 8.4 million. Since then, the economy has recovered a scant 11% of those lost jobs. Companies are doing much better than workers; that defines today's economy." (Read more of Samuelson's thoughts on growing corporate profits and rising unemployment.)
Companies "have the wherewithal to do whatever they want -- hire; make new investments; raise dividends; do mergers and acquisitions," S&P's Howard Silverblatt told Washington Post Writer's Group columnist Robert Samuelson. "Historically, higher profits lead to higher employment," said Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com.
The Consumer Confidence Index registered 50.4 in July, a steeper-than-expected drop from the revised 54.3 in June, according to the Conference Board poll. The decline follows last month's decline of nearly 10 points, and is the lowest point since February. A healthy economy registers 90 or higher – but that’s a level not seen since the recession began in December 2007.
"Consumers have a much different view of the economy than the stock market does, and their views matter more to the economy," Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner told the Associated Press.
"A rapid, sustainable recovery can't happen without the American consumer. Economists closely watch confidence because consumer spending accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity, and is necessary for a robust economic recovery.
"Businesses can't cost cut their way to consistent profit growth," Zandi told Samuelson. "Eventually, they need to generate revenue growth that requires investment and hiring.
"Fatter profits have shown that companies have squeezed higher productivity out of remaining workers, but that also means that "households are not benefiting," Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, also told the AP. “The profit picture is "good news for Wall Street, but not good for workers."
"Consumers have a much different view of the economy than the stock market does, and their views matter more to the economy," Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner told the Associated Press.
"A rapid, sustainable recovery can't happen without the American consumer. Economists closely watch confidence because consumer spending accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity, and is necessary for a robust economic recovery.
"Businesses can't cost cut their way to consistent profit growth," Zandi told Samuelson. "Eventually, they need to generate revenue growth that requires investment and hiring.
"Fatter profits have shown that companies have squeezed higher productivity out of remaining workers, but that also means that "households are not benefiting," Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, also told the AP. “The profit picture is "good news for Wall Street, but not good for workers."
It's official: Las Vegas' Unemployment Rate in June Highest Among Major U.S. Cities
In a #1 ranking no one wants, the Las Vegas Valley topped major U.S. metro regions in unemployment for the second consecutive month, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released this morning.
Of the 49 metropolitan areas with a population of 1 million or more, Las Vegas topped the list at 14.5%, the BLS said.
Unemployment rates were lower in June than a year earlier in more than half of the 372 metropolitan areas the bureau ranks. A dozen areas recorded jobless rates of at least 15% percent, while 6 areas registered rates below 5.0%. The national unemployment rate in June was 9.6%, not seasonally adjusted, compared with 9.7% a year earlier.
El Centro, Calif., and Yuma, Ariz., again recorded the highest unemployment rates, 27.6 and 26.4%, respectively.
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Once booming Nevada, California and Florida move to end of the line, according to new economic study
Once booming Nevada, California and Florida move to end of the line, according to new economic study
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| A homeless man in downtown Las Vegas. |
The half-decade has been particularly devastating to my home state of Nevada, which finished #1 in the business publications' mid-year review in 2005, but now is dead last. Its results were only about one-half a percentage point worse than California, which was 11th in 2005, and finished 50th this year. (The District of Columbia is included in the rankings.) Florida was second five years ago and is 49th this year.
Several factors sent all three states to the back of the line, primarily their boom-and-bust real estate sector and dramatic declines in tourism that's been driven by the global Great Recession.
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| Empty Florida beach chairs |
Portfolio.com and bizjournals rely on a nine-part formula to analyze state employment trends. It uses U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data over the latest five-year period and zeroes in on raw and percentage changes in private-sector employment, as well as unemployment rates.
Forty states had fewer jobs in May 2010 than five years earlier. The nation lost a total of 4.51 million private-sector positions between mid-2005 and mid-2010.
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| California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger |
The 10 states at the bottom of the standings faced an overall unemployment rate of 11.8% in May. They collectively lost 3.12 million jobs during the five years, or 1,710 jobs A DAY.
For the complete ranking, click here.
Unemployment benefits extended to 99 weeks for jobless Americans
President Barack Obama yesterday signed the bill that extends unemployment benefits for more than 2.5 million jobless Americans. The legislation passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 272-152 earlier in the day.
The bill extends the cut-off for benefits from June 2 to Nov. 30, and unemployed citizens will continue to receive payments for 73 weeks after that, for a total of 99 weeks of unemployment benefit. The new law works in concert with Home Affordable Unemployment Program, which gives qualified homeowners the ability to borrow up to $50,000 to assist them with their mortgage, provided that they have a reasonable prospect of resuming payments within two years.
In states like Pennsylvania and New York, the back payments should go out next week, officials said. In others, like Nevada and North Carolina, it may take a few weeks for all of those eligible to receive benefits.
Thirty-one House Republicans, about one in six, voted for the measure Thursday, while 10 Democrats opposed it. In my home state of Nevada - which had the highest jobless rate in the nation in June, at 14.2%, for the second consecutive month. The Nevada Congressional delegation's support of the measure was unanimous when Republican Congressman Dean Heller crossed party lines and joined Las Vegas-area Congressional Democrats Dina Titus and Shelley Berkley in voting for the measure. Heller was unsuccessful in a bid to introduce an amendment that would have tapped unused economic stimulus funds to pay for the extension. Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign was the only state official to oppose the measure, in the Senate's earlier vote.
Even with an extension to 99 weeks for most unemployed Americans, will it be enough? U.S. economist Lawrence Souza told HousingWire that the current state of unemployment is not going to be solved overnight. "It will be 2015 when full employment is achieved at 95 to 96% of the workforce," he said.
The estimated cost surrounding the legislation is $34 billion, one reason some in Congress were hesitant to vote it through. But Obama argued that the bill had to be funded via deficit spending because it was an emergency measure to protect 9.5% of the United States' population.
For more information about the bill, click here.
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