Stand-alone emergency rooms popping up

When Lisa Boncler gashed the side of her head on the gate to her front yard, she immediately called her neighbor for a ride to the emergency room.

In this fast-growing Houston suburb, six ERs are just a short drive away. She chose Texas Emergency Care Center, a facility that feels like a Western lodge with its earth-toned brick walls, leather chairs and coffee bar. The eight-bed ER that opened last year has almost everything — except, that is, an attached hospital.

"This is so convenient," says a smiling Boncler, 40, as a doctor prepared to close her wound with medical staples less than an hour after her accident. "I've been here before. It's always fast."

The speedier care offered at such facilities, which are springing up in many states, including Texas, Florida and North Carolina, comes at a steep cost, however. Stand-alone ERs, which are often located near high-end shopping centers and target consumers with private insurance, bill like regular emergency rooms. Those prices, which can top $1,000 for a single visit, are spurring worries that the rapid growth of the facilities will lead to higher insurance premiums. Read more >>

Record 10,978,040 Now on Disability; ‘Disability’ Would Be 8th Most Populous State

The total number of people in the United States now receiving federal disability benefits hit a record 10,978,040 in May, up from 10,962,532 million in April, according to newly released data from the Social Security Administration.

The 10,978,040 disability beneficiaries in the United States now exceed the population of all but seven states. For example, there are more Americans collecting disability today than there are people living in Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey or Virginia.

The record 10,978,040 total disability beneficiaries in May, included a record 8,877,921 disabled workers (up from 8,865,586 in April), a record 1,939,687 children of disabled workers (up from 1,936,236 in April), and 160,432 spouses of disabled workers. Read more >>

Gold Coin Worth $500 Wrapped In $100 Bill Found In Salvation Army Kettle

A gold coin worth $500 wrapped in a $100 bill has been found in a Salvation Army red kettle set up at an upstate New York shopping plaza.

The American Eagle coin was wrapped in a C-note and a memo that read: "This coin is solid gold and worth around $500. God Bless."

Salvation Army officials say about 400 gold coins have been found in red kettles over the past 30 years. Gold coins have found recently in kettles in Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, North Carolina and Florida.

Source

Meningitis spreads to 19th state, sickens 347

Fungal meningitis tied to contaminated steroid injections from the New England Compounding Center has now sickened 347 people in 19 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday.

Twenty-five people have died.

Rhode Island was the 19th state to report an infection, joining Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Another seven individuals are infected with fungal joint infections from steroid shots administrated to other joints like the knees, hips, shoulders or ankles. Read more >>

Chief financial officers' pessimism about economy grows

The latest CFO survey from Duke University and CFO magazine finds little positive feeling as executives look ahead to the last quarter of the year. Even cuts in interest rates would likely have little effect, CFOs say. The "Optimism Index" Of U.S. CFOs fell to 52 from 56 in the summer quarter, based on a scale of 0-100. In the spring, the index was 59.

Twice the percentage of CFOs (44 percent) have "become more pessimistic" than are more optimistic, the survey found. That's not good news, warned one of the executives overseeing the survey. As a result, little improvement is expected on the jobs front.

CFOs expect to increase hiring by 1.5 percent and capital spending by 3.7 percent while earnings are forecast to grow by 6 percent. All those percentages fell from the previous quarter. “The drop in optimism is worrisome for the U.S. because historically it foretells slower economic activity over the next year,” said Kate O’Sullivan, editorial director at CFO Magazine. “Optimism is also falling in Asia and Europe.” Read more >>

USDA suggests food stamp parties, games to increase participation

 "In the 1970s, one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today one of every seven receive the benefit."

While spending on the food stamp program has increased 100 percent under President Barack Obama, the government continues to push more Americans to enroll in the welfare program. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has embraced entire promotional campaigns designed to encourage eligible Americans to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps.

A pamphlet currently posted at the USDA website encourages local SNAP offices to throw parties as one way to get potentially eligible seniors to enroll in the program. “Throw a Great Party. Host social events where people mix and mingle,” the agency advises. “Make it fun by having activities, games, food, and entertainment, and provide information about SNAP. Putting SNAP information in a game format like BINGO, crossword puzzles, or even a ‘true/false’ quiz is fun and helps get your message across in a memorable way.”

The agency’s most recent outreach effort targets California, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio and the New York metro area with radio ads. The ads have been running since March and are scheduled to continue through the end of June — at a cost of $2.5 million — $3 million, CNN Money reported Monday. Read more >>

USDA Ad Campaign Urges People to Get On Food Stamps

More than one in seven Americans are on food stamps, but the federal government wants even more people to sign up for the safety net program. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been running radio ads for the past four months encouraging those eligible to enroll. The campaign is targeted at the elderly, working poor, the unemployed and Hispanics.

The department is spending between $2.5 million and $3 million on paid spots, and free public service announcements are also airing. The campaign can be heard in California, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and the New York metro area. "Research has shown that many people -- particularly underserved seniors, working poor, and legal immigrants -- do not understand the requirements of the program," said Kevin Concannon, a USDA under secretary.

The radio ads, which run through June 30, come amid a bitter partisan fight over the safety net program. Republican lawmakers want to reduce funding for the benefit or turn it into a block grant program, which would also minimize the cost. Democrats, however, are not willing to make major cuts. The issue has become so heated that Newt Gingrich called President Obama the "food stamp president" to show how he's increased government spending. Read more >>

NASCAR Race Attendance Plummets Because of Economy

The study, from the pro-market think tank Public Notice and Race Fans 4 Freedom, finds that the economic downturn of the last several years has directly affected how NASCAR fans watch and enjoy their sport. Since 2009, race attendance per year has fallen below 4 million people, and the number has been declining severely as the unemployment rate has skyrocketed. The cost of attending—with higher gas prices, less disposable income, and diminished financial security—has increased. 

According to the study, the value of the sport, too, is threatened by the poor economy, with the stock prices of racing team companies plummeting in the last five years and sponsors pulling back on funding cars. “The days of $25 million sponsorship deals appears to be over for the time being, sending teams scrambling for support,” the study reads. The result is a less competitive field with fewer racers. 

“At the end of the day, these numbers really hit NASCAR fans’ quality of life,” says Liz Dyar, the founder of Race Fans 4 Freedom. Dyar adds that with nearly 75 million fans across the country, the NASCAR nation is a “great snapshot” of the country as a whole—and that with plenty of those fans in swing states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, their views on the economy could impact the election. More...

More Than 200,000 Long-Term Jobless Lose Unemployment Checks

More than 200,000 long-term jobless Americans will lose their unemployment checks this week, when eight states roll off the federal extended benefits program. Nearly half of them live in California, and the rest reside in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Texas.

 The federal extended benefits program has provided the jobless with up to 20 weeks of unemployment checks after they've run through their state and their federal emergency benefits, which together last up to 79 weeks.

But the extended benefits program is expiring throughout the country as the economy improves. To be eligible for these benefits, a state must show that its unemployment rate is at least 10% higher than it was in at least one of the past three years. More...

99% Prepare to Occupy Bank of America's Corporate Headquarters

The 99% are preparing to occupy Charlotte, North Carolina, home of Bank of America's corporate headquarters, ahead of the bank's annual shareholder meeting Wednesday. Members of the 99% Power Coalition, which is organizing the events, said they expect nearly 1,000 individuals to arrive in Charlotte to protest Bank of America's foreclosure practices and its investment in coal mining, several members of the group said on a call with reporters Tuesday.

The organization has held similar protests outside the shareholder meetings of Wells Fargo and General Electric that have drawn hundreds of people. The organizers said they expect Bank of America's meeting to draw the largest crowds of all. "We see Bank of America as the worst of the worst," said Amanda Starbuck, a director at the environmental advocacy group, Rainforest Action Network, which is organizing the protests. "There's a lot of momentum around Bank of America."

In response, the city of Charlotte is beefing up police presence in a two-block radius surrounding the bank's headquarters, where the meeting will be held. Earlier in the year, the city deemed it an "extraordinary event," which allows the Charlotte police force to reallocate officers as it sees fit, according to a spokesperson for the mayor's office. More...

March jobs report points to protracted US downturn

By Andre Damon
The US economy gained 162,000 jobs last month, the most in three years, according to the latest figures from the Labor Department. Far from a recovery, however, the figures reveal a stagnant economy with mass long-term unemployment and a continual decline in wages.

The official unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent. Even by government estimates, the rate is expected to stay at or above 10 percent for months, if not years.

Approximately 48,000 jobs added in March were temporary hires as part of the US census. According to some estimates,150,000 jobs have to be created every month in order to keep up with population growth. Combining these two figures erases the jobs gain.

The broadest measure of unemployment, which includes “discouraged” workers who have left the labor market and people working part-time because there are no full-time jobs, increased to 16.9 percent. This was the third consecutive monthly increase of this figure.

Long-term unemployment continues to rise, as millions of people have been unable to find jobs for months or years. More than 6.5 million have been out of a job for at least six months, up 414,000 from last month, and an all-time high. The average length of unemployment also rose to the highest level on record going back more than six decades—31 weeks.

An article in the Wall Street Journal Friday noted that the problem of long-term unemployment “is markedly worse in this recession than even in the deep slide of 1981 and 1982.” At the peak of the earlier crisis, the percent of unemployed out of work for six months or more was 26 percent, compared to over 40 percent today.

Many of the long-term unemployed will see the cut-off of their benefits and health care this week, as the Senate failed to pass an extension of benefits before taking a two-week recess.

A vast portion of American society is either unemployed or underemployed. About 15 million people are without jobs and look for work every week. Another 9.1 million work part-time because full-time work is not available. And millions more have simply given up looking for work.

The US economy has lost 8.4 million jobs since the start of the downturn, and would need to create 10.8 million jobs for the unemployment rate to return to pre-recession levels.

Wages are also stagnant, as employers have seized on mass unemployment to cut costs and boost profits. Average hourly wages fell by 0.1 percent in March, without taking into account inflation. When inflation is taken into account, average weekly wages fell by 2.2 percent in the third quarter of last year, the latest figures for which data is available.

March’s tepid job growth does not represent, as Obama termed it, “turning the corner” and the beginning of a sustained recovery in jobs. Even by the Obama administration’s own estimates, the US economy will not reach its pre-crisis level of unemployment for another seven years, if ever.

Obama met the jobs report with a speech at a lithium-ion battery plant in Charlotte, North Carolina. The White House had a propaganda video prepared beforehand, featuring interviews from workers at the company, Celgard, who had been rehired after their employer received money from the stimulus bill.

Obama used the speech to insist once again that there would be no federal jobs program to address the unemployment crisis. “The true engine of job growth in this country has always been the private sector, businesses like Celgard,” he said. “What government can do is create the conditions for companies to succeed.”

Indeed, the main component of the “recovery” has been in the profit levels of corporations, aided by the Obama administration. Corporate profits, which are highest when workers are overexploited and underpaid, grew explosively in 2009. The Obama administration’s various “jobs” programs, including the $750 billion stimulus bill, have gone in large part into subsidies to businesses like Celgard.

The growth of exploitation is reflected in a dramatic increase in labor productivity. Last month the Labor Department announced that labor productivity increased at a rate of 6.9 percent, meaning that, on average, people are working 7 percent harder now than they were a year ago.

All of this has taken its toll on the working class. A study of court records found that there were 158,000 personal bankruptcy filings in March, an increase of 35 percent since February, and up 20 percent from the same time last year.

The housing situation is even worse. In 2009 there were 2.8 million foreclosures, but RealtyTrac.com, a property marketplace, expects another 4.5 million people to lose their homes next year.

The Obama administration is presiding over a job-cutting offensive on all levels of the government. States and cities are facing record budget deficits and are responding by slashing social programs and jobs. Leaving aside temporary census hiring, the government sector shrank dramatically in March, including 3,500 postal jobs, 5,000 state government jobs, and 4,000 in local government.

But even more job cuts are coming. Employers announced plans in March to cut 67,611 jobs according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. This is a 61 percent increase from February. Planned layoffs in the government sector amounted to an astounding 75 percent of total job losses. The US Postal Service is leading other services, announcing that it would reduce its workforce by 30,000 this year.

Far from creating jobs, the Obama administration’s program is to foster an economic environment with high unemployment, low social spending, and falling wages. This is done in the direct interest of boosting the profits of corporations.

Nearly 1 in 6 jobless in nine NC counties

Julie Rose
The latest unemployment figures show nine North Carolina counties now have an unemployment rate higher than 17 percent. That means nearly one in six people who want a job, can't find one.

Joyce Edwards has a front row seat to the staggering unemployment statistics. She's the director of Social Services in Caldwell County where the jobless rate is now 17.5 percent.

"It's probably worse than it's ever been in terms of the need in the community for citizens that have never really had to come in and get services like the Food and Nutrition program," says Edwards.

The Food and Nutrition program is what the government used to call "food stamps." Last year, the number of people getting food stamps in Caldwell County grew by more than 2,000 for a total of 14,456 in December. During that same time, the county's unemployment rate climbed from 10.5 percent to more than 17 percent.

The eight other counties with jobless rates at least that high are Cherokee, Graham, Swain and Rutherford to the west; Anson and Scotland in the south central part of the state; Edgecombe and Dare to the east.

"Primarily these are regions that have their economies based in things like textiles, furniture and tobacco," says NC State University Economist Michael Walden.

He notes those industries were already bleeding jobs and shifting overseas when the recession hit.

"And even in the best of times those counties have very, very high unemployment rates," says Walden. "When you add the recession to that, that's where you can get these extremely high unemployment rates."

The one exception is coastal Dare County which traditionally has very high unemployment in the winter, but swings back quickly in summer vacation months.

The state's highest unemployment rate is 19.3 percent in the far western county of Graham where nearly one out of every five people looking for work can't find a job.

Consumer Credit in U.S. Drops Record $17.5 Billion

Vincent Del Giudice
Consumer credit in the U.S. dropped a record $17.5 billion in November as unemployment close to a 26- year high discouraged borrowing and banks limited access to loans.

A labor market that’s shed 7.2 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007 is restraining consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. Fed policy makers have said tighter bank lending standards and reductions in credit lines are hampering the recovery.

“Double-digit unemployment is eroding consumer confidence and the uncertainty is prompting consumers to pay down their credit card debts,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. “We have not seen such a wholesale reduction in consumer credit since the last time we had double-digit unemployment rate following the early ‘80s recessions.”

The series of 10 straight declines in consumer credit was the longest since record-keeping began in 1943.

Treasury two-year notes gained the most in three weeks after the Labor Department said today that companies reduced payrolls in December by 85,000 workers after adding 4,000 a month earlier. The unemployment rate held at 10 percent.

Stocks, Yields

Two-year Treasury yields dropped below 1 percent, to 0.97 percent at 4:52 p.m. in New York, from 1.02 percent late yesterday.

Revolving debt, such as credit cards, plunged by a record $13.7 billion in November, the Fed’s statistics showed. Non- revolving debt, including loans for autos and mobile homes, declined by $3.8 billion. The Fed’s report doesn’t cover borrowing secured by real estate.

Auto sales in the U.S. climbed in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 10.92 million, up from 10.45 million in October. The pace increased to 11.23 million in December, the strongest since 14.09 million in August, when Americans took advantage of government incentives.

Consumer Spending

Consumer spending increased in November for the sixth time in seven months as Americans took advantage of discounts during the holidays, Commerce Department figures showed Dec. 23. Faster growth in sales and improvement in households’ balance sheets depends on job creation.

“U.S. consumer credit quality remains under considerable stress due to persistently weak labor market conditions,” said Michael Dean, managing director at Fitch Ratings. A report from Fitch on Jan. 5 showed delinquent balances on credit cards at a record level.

At American Express Co., defaults and delinquencies fell to 2009 lows. AmEx was the only one of the “Big 6” credit-card issuers to post November declines in write-offs and delinquencies, the New York-based lender said in a Dec. 15 regulatory filing.

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan has said the largest U.S. lender needs to reduce the loss rate on credit cards, which ranked highest among the nation’s six biggest card companies in November. Bank of America’s card defaults are “still very high,” Moynihan, 50, said.

‘Significant Bubble’

“As an industry, we over-lent and customers over-borrowed, and that led to a fairly significant bubble,” Moynihan said Jan. 4 in an interview on Bloomberg Television in Raleigh, North Carolina. “We have to help lead the economic recovery. At the same time, we have to be responsible lenders.”

Banks have responded by tightening credit standards, for consumers and companies. Fed Governor Elizabeth Duke said in a Jan. 4 speech that total loans on banks’ books fell at an annual rate of more than 11 percent in the third quarter. While banks are reducing lines of credit and tightening lending standards, small businesses are also losing their business relationships with banks as firms fail, merge or reduce their loan portfolios, Duke said.

Broken Relationships

“When existing lending relationships are broken, time may be required for other banks to establish and build such relationships, allowing lending to resume,” Duke said.

Britt Beemer, chairman of consumer polling firm America’s Research Group, said in a Dec. 21 interview that if lenders weren’t cutting customer spending limits and rejecting more credit-card applications, holiday sales would have been stronger.

December same-store sales climbed 3 percent, the biggest gain since April 2008, Retail Metrics Inc. said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010

Project Censor's Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010

• 1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street
• 2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
• 3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates
• 4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
• 5. Europe Blocks US Toxic Products
• 6. Lobbyists Buy Congress
• 7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past
• 8. Bailed out Banks and America’s Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
• 9. US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza
• 10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
• 11. Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine
• 12. Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief
• 13. Katrina’s Hidden Race War
• 14. Congress Invested in Defense Contracts
• 15. World Bank’s Carbon Trade Fiasco
• 16. US Repression of Haiti Continues
• 17. The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan
• 18. Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights of Nature
• 19. Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor
• 20. Secret Control of the Presidential Debates
• 21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare
• 22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team
• 23. Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
• 24. Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion
• 25. Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon

Audit the Fed Bill: Attempted Saturday Night Massacre Underway

nakedcapitalism.com

So get this, sports fans: the day (or maybe two max) before the so-called Audit the Fed bill (a bipartisan initiative to increase transparency) has a torpedo shot at it by a member of the House Financial Services committee, one Mel Watt of North Carolina. Of course, his amendment professes to increase transparence too, but in fact does nothing of the kind, and in fact would reduce the GAO’s audit powers over the Fed.

I’ll admit I’m a bit of a newbie at these matters, but it strains credulity to think Watt came up with this Trojan horse on his own. I’ll bet the Fed provided the language for this stealth operation.

From the Huffington Post:

Rep. Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, has introduced an amendment intended as an alternative to the measure to audit the Federal Reserve introduced by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson’s (D-Fla.) . But instead of increasing transparency, as the amendment claims to do, Watt’s measure would instead make the institution more opaque….

Watt pitched his amendment in a letter to colleagues circulated Tuesday. “While my amendment will certainly fall short of demands by those intent on destroying the independence (if not the existence) of the Fed, the critics of my amendment will have to concede…that my amendment will provide transparency of the Fed’s financial operations that will be completely unprecedented,” he wrote.

In fact, the critics are conceding no such thing. “The Watt Amendment, as written today, actually places new restrictions on the little authority that exists, such as it is, for independent auditing of the Fed,” Grayson said. “It keeps in place all existing restrictions and adds four more. So I don’t see why anybody would reasonably think that it creates unprecedented authority to audit the Fed.”

The devil, as always, is in the details. While Watt’s amendment talks a big game about opening up the Fed to a complete audit, all of the new powers granted must be carried out “each case in accordance with subsections (b) and (e).”

Those subsections of the current law delineate the many restrictions that an auditor confronts when seeking to audit the Fed. Watt’s measure not only leaves those in place but requires all audits to abide by them.

And in addition to the current restrictions in place, it creates new ones. An auditor could not look at loans or liquidity arrangements the Fed enters into, the terms of those arrangements, or the effect of those loans and other liquidity deals on “reserves, the balance sheet or financial condition of a Federal reserve bank or the Federal Reserve System.”

Yves here. That is tantamount to saying you are permitted to operate a strip club as long as the patrons are prohibited from looking at un or underclad bodies. Back to the article:

The Fed has expanded its balance sheet drastically over the last year, entering into exotic swap arrangements and otherwise pumping trillions of dollars into the economy. How it has done so and who has been on the receiving end would remain secret under Watt’s bill.

By contrast, the Paul-Grayson amendment is patterned after Paul’s bill H.R. 1207, which has broad bipartisan support. It has more than 310 cosponsors in a chamber with 435 members.

Paul’s measure would repeal the provisions that Watt’s leaves in place. If every member who cosponsored Paul’s bill votes for it in committee this week, it would have the votes to pass. Watt’s amendment is an effort to peel off votes…

“The new exemptions are described as limited but they are extremely broad,” Grayson said. They’re so broad, in fact, that there would be very little left for an auditor to look into. What could an auditor check up on?

“Count the pencils on the desks,” Grayson speculated. “Perhaps check on proper Metro card usage.”

You can read the full text of the Watt letter at HuffPo.

If this offends you as much as it does me, I hope you’ll make a call or two tomorrow. Here are the Democratic numbers of Congress who support auditing the Fed. They should support the Paul-Grayson amendment and not the Watt amendment. Thanks!

Rep. John Adler, NJ: (202) 225-4765
Rep. Travis Childers, MS: (202) 225-4306
Rep. Steve Driehaus, OH: (202) 225-2216
Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, TX: (202) 225-2531
Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, FL: (877) 956-7627
Rep. Dan Maffei, NY: (202) 225-3701
Rep. Brad Miller, NC: (202) 225-3032
Rep. Walt Minnick, ID: (202) 225-6611
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, CO: (202) 225-2645
Rep. David Scott, GA: (202) 225-2939
Rep. Brad Sherman, CA: (202) 225-5911
Rep. Jackie Speier, CA: (202) 225-3531

The Obama Effect - Americans Hoard Ammo

Image by mr.smashy via

Americans aren't just hoarding Ammo because they fear a Democratic crackdown on the 2nd Amendment. Americans clearly see that a total economic collapse in the U.S. is dead ahead.


Lewis Page
Ammo rationing at Wal-Mart as panic buying sweeps US

The USA is suffering the most severe ammunition famine in living memory. Gun fanciers, fearing a Democrat crackdown on every American's right to pack heat, are clearing shelves at ammo shops and hoarding cartridges.

AP reports that the Remington Arms Company's factory in North Carolina is now working around the clock trying to supply insatiable demand for rifle, pistol and shotgun cartridges.

"We've had to add a fourth shift and go 24-7," Remington spokesman Al Russo told the news wire. "It's a phenomenon that I have not seen before in my 30 years in the business."

The shortages are so bad that retail globocorp Wal-Mart has been forced to introduce rationing at the ammo counter in many of its stores. Depending on calibre, customers may be limited to purchases of just 50 rounds at a time. Apparently, classic .45 ACP pistol ammunition is especially scarce - a fairly good indication that it is in fact conservative Middle America rather than, say, inner-city criminals buying up all the ammo*.

According to the National Rifle Association, America's pro-guns lobby, the people of the USA normally buy about 7 billion cartridges a year (an average of 23 rounds per head). The past year has seen that figure jump to 9 billion. The FBI reports a 25 per cent climb in background checks made prior to gun sales.

The ammo rush has been dubbed the "Obama effect" by gun-industry people, but in fact there is no sign at present of any particularly aggressive move towards stricter federal gun laws.

580,944 initial unemployment claims filed last week

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORT

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 580,944 in the week ending July 18, a decrease of 90,298 from the previous week. There were 411,408 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.7 percent during the week ending July 11, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 6,231,108, an increase of 57,168 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.4 percent and the volume was 3,164,970.

Extended benefits were available in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin during the week ending July 4.

More...

667,534 filed claims last week - Govt Lied

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORT

UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 667,534 in the week ending July 11, an increase of 86,389 from the previous week. There were 483,981 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.6 percent during the week ending July 4, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 6,135,066, an increase of 63,714 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.3 percent and the volume was 3,118,724.

Extended benefits were available in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin during the week ending June 27.

Initial claims for UI benefits by former Federal civilian employees totaled 1,642 in the week ending July 4, an increase of 14 from the prior week. There were 1,870 initial claims by newly discharged veterans, a decrease of 192 from the preceding week.

There were 17,471 former Federal civilian employees claiming UI benefits for the week ending June 27, an increase of 17 from the previous week. Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 28,772, an increase of 242 from the prior week.

States reported 2,525,342 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending June 27, an increase of 6,241 from the prior week. EUC weekly claims include both first and second tier activity.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending June 27 were in Michigan (7.2 percent), Puerto Rico (6.9), Oregon (6.5), Pennsylvania (6.3), Nevada (6.1), Wisconsin (5.8), California (5.4), South Carolina (5.4), Connecticut (5.2), Illinois (5.2), New Jersey (5.2), and North Carolina (5.2).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 4 were in Michigan (+12,144), New York (+8,913), Wisconsin (+5,838), Indiana (+5,430), and Ohio (+4,240), while the largest decreases were in New Jersey (-5,030), California (-4,293), North Carolina (-3,983), Kansas (-3,544), and Oregon
(-1,454).

Source

Prepare For Rash of Murders, Suicides, Civil Unrest

USA Today reports the number of police officers killed in the line of duty increased 20% during the first six months of 2009 compared with last year. All categories of officer deaths in the U.S. are up in 2009, including those killed by gunfire.

Steve McNair's girlfriend had mounting debts that included payments on a Cadillac Escalade, and LaToya Jackson is claiming Michael Jackson was murdered for his money.

European researchers have concluded what many of us already new, murders and suicides spike with unemployment.

"The scientists, who combed through almost four decades of European Union records," reports Bloomberg, "found that a 1 percent increase in joblessness brings about a 0.8 percent rise in suicide and murder rates. The global economy is now in its deepest recession since World War II, with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicting the output of its 30 members will shrink 4.1 percent this year. The slump has pushed unemployment to its highest since 1983 in the U.S. and the most in a decade in the 16 nations that use the euro.

“The effects of a financial crisis depend crucially on how governments chose to respond,” lead researcher David Stuckler of Oxford University said in a telephone interview. “Suicides are just the tip of the iceberg,” Stuckler said. “We can’t measure all the emotional distress. There is much more going on in the background in terms of human suffering.”

"When the social security system is less extensive, unemployment is a more probable mediator between mental illness and suicide," said Dr. Andreas Lundin and Dr. Tomas Hemmingsson, of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. "A related concern is that fear and anxiety in the present crisis could be particularly long-lasting; even when the market recovers, people's worries and associated behaviors might not."

Even as far back as March of this year, Christian Science Monitor's Patrik Jonsson considered the mounting violence when he wrote about four Oakland, Calif., police officers who were shot down; an Alabama man strolling a small town with a rifle looking for victims; seven elderly people shot dead at a North Carolina nursing home; and six people, including four kids, who died in an apparent murder-suicide in an upscale neighborhood in Santa Clara, California.

"Most of these mass killings are precipitated by some catastrophic loss, and when the economy goes south, there are simply more of these losses," says Jack Levin, a noted criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston.

Criminologists say that certain kinds of violent crimes have risen during specific economic downturns. The recession in the early 1990s "saw a dramatic increase in workplace violence committed by vengeful ex-workers who decided to come back and get even with their boss and their co-workers through the barrel of an AK-47," Mr. Levin says.

Jonsson covers a study released in Florida which links domestic violence and job loss and foreclosures. The study claims Florida saw an almost 40 percent jump in demand for domestic-violence centers, an increase related to the state of the economy.

Jonsson's piece also directs our attention to the link between murder-suicides and the economy and a study by the Violence Policy Center in Washington. "We've been looking at this issue of whether there are more murder-suicides … [and] a pattern is starting to develop that may point in that direction," says Kristen Rand, legislative director at the center. "Between the Texas Tower shootings in the 1960s until the McDonald's massacre in 1984, it was extremely rare to see these types of mass shootings. Now we're seeing them much more often, and they do seem to happen in spurts."

Since we already live in a violent world, it's easy to dismiss the news reports of murders and suicides as isolated incidents unrelated to Depression 2.0 -- even as the violence multiplies before our eyes.

And we're just getting started. Unemployment will continue to rise to unprecedented levels. In the US, record numbers are receiving Food Stamps, and the welfare rolls continue to swell as state after state will follow California's lead into bankruptcy. The picture becomes even more chilling when you consider that each day more and more of the unemployed run out of their extended unemployment benefits. When all the benefits run out, the states go broke, and the US defaults, then what?