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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

July News Factoids

The irrational & false accusations by the Republican dis-information machine against Barack Obama has led to a new official website www.fightthesmears.com

Nearly three years after Hurrican Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans is still missing 90% of its former residents.
== The Nation Magazine, July 2008

The folks at Californians for High-Speed Trains Coalition are promoting a line from Sacramento to Tehachapi-Lancaster to Los Angeles to Riverside to San Diego, with a branch from San Francisco to Gilroy meeting up just below Merced.

ECONOMIC CRISIS

Annual U.S. consumer spending is $9 trillion for 300 million people, while China's 1 billion people spend only one trillion dollars.
== Barbara Ehrenreich, in The Progressive Magazine

"This is the worst bout of selling since 9/11. Global equities, as measured by the MSCI World Index, have now declined more than 20% from their October 2007 all-time highs. Just since late May, more than six trillion dollars' worth of equity values has been erased worldwide."
== Eric Roseman, Soveriegn Society ezine

"Consumer prices surged in June at the fastest rate in 26 years"
== headline 15 July 2008

"Inflation is rising at a faster rate today than at any time in the last 25 years."
== Jack Cafferty, CNN newsman

HOUSING/MORTGAGE CRISIS

"[In Jan 2008,] the number of homes facing foreclosure [was] up 57% compared to the same month of the previous year."
== Mother Jones Magazine

"[In the first quarter of 2008,] foreclosure activity [was] reported up 112% from the first quarter of 2007."
== Mother Jones Magazine

U.S. home prices dropped a record 15.8% in May, according to Standard & Poors in July.

"New home sales down 0.6 percent in June"
== headline July 2008

ENERGY CRISIS

The local utility company here in New Mexico reported to customers in the June billing brochure that their cost of natural gas increased 43 percent over last year. The base billing price for electricity went up 19.5% for the summer and 12.2% for other months, with higher increases for larger users.

HEALTHCARE

In 2005, Taiwan's successful and efficient single-payer health care system cost 6.2% of G.D.P. compared with 16.2% for the U.S. In 2003, Taiwan spent less than $800 per person for health care, compared with a U.S. level of approximately $5500 (By 2005, U.S. health care spending had increased 6.9% to $6697 per person.)
== per Ian Williams, in The Washington Spectator

JOBS CRISIS

The unemployment rate for men is 13%, the rate for women is 27% unemployment
== talk show host Randi Rhodes, 12 June 2008

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The National Jobs For All Coalition lists June 2008 figures of an official jobless rate of 5.5% with 8.5 million Americans unemployed (an increase of 19.6% over last year). They also list Hidden Unemployment of 10.3 million, for a total of 18.8 million, or 11.8% of the workforce. Meanwhile, the latest figures (2006) show 16.4% of full-time workers are earning below the official poverty line.

In addition, the N.J.F.A.C. site cites Bureau of labor Statistics statistics for May 2008 of only 3.6 million job openings, which computes out to roughly five job-seekers for each job opening.

Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

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