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Battered US markets in intensive care
Melbourne News.Net
Friday 5th September, 2008
U.S. stocks weren't going anywhere Friday, after Thursday's brutal sell-off which saw the Dow lose 345 points.
Indices however limped back into the black in late trading.
Driving sentiment Friday was another set of disappointing payroll data. 84,000 jobs were lost in the U.S. in August and the unemployment rate hit a five-year high of 6.1%.
605,000 employees have lost their jobs so far this year, nearly a quarter of a million in the last three months.
"According to our estimates, the sharp rise in the unemployment rate over the past six months translates into a recession probability of 70%, which is higher than in 1990-91 and 2001," Harm Bandholz of UniCredit Markets in New York, told the Reuters newsagency.
At the close of trading Friday the Dow Jones industrials were up 32.73 points or 0.29% at 11,220.96.
The Nasdaq Composite was down 3.16 points or 0.14% at 2,255.88.
The Standard and Poor's 500 edged up 5.48 points or 0.44% to 1,242.31.
The U.S. dollar continued strengthening. Around the New York close the euro was changing hands at 1.4233. The British pound was at 1.7638, while the Swiss franc was off sharply at 1.1173.
The Australian dollar, which has now dropped 17 cents in recent weeks since topping out at .98 cents was down at .8127. The Canadian dollar was a tad stronger at 1.0625 while the Japanese yen weakened a touch to 107.19.
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Comments on this story
` ~galljdaj+
09-06-08, 07:22 AM |
Battered US markets in intensive care
This past week the Republicans presented a host of speeches that 'say', i.e., the plan is for Americans to live the dream, and to experience the trills of being entrepeneurs in the Greatest Country of the World. Where they get to reap the rewards of their own efforts! And they will bask in the sun! Create Jobs! And live the Dream by electing US!
They want those 84000 that have been added to the depression rolls to still vote for Republican Individualism where you get screw/cheat and win! With! put your Country First!
I am not sure what they meant by putting your country first, when their platform is to be rich at the other citizens expense!
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` ~galljdaj+
09-06-08, 08:06 AM |
Leaders & Leadership... . How have Republicans handled the Job?
Is the assumption, that most US Leaders are Republicans, correct? Who are the leaders?
The leaders I am referring to are the decision makers that set the courses and the conditions of Life in the USA. Obviously they do more like life and death in Iraq, but that 'effect' is another story. Its life and death in America that is my focus here.
I don’t believe the percentage in my example to be the norm, but then its not that far off either! The example; I attended a conference on Management and Union Negoiations at a very well known Catholic/Jesuit University some time back. The University President Led the Morning Session almost to the end of the session. He spoke as if he were only speaking to one half of the Subject. Every, and I mean every, strategy was to put UNION PEOPLE in a coffin and to bury them in defeat! Being blessed and cursed with a good memory and being able to pull together facts into conclusions logically, I did to him what he advocated doing to Union Negoiations! He became beet red, and as a few, and I mean few, came up to me afterwards saying, 'I thought he was having a heart attack.' My point here is, there were a couple over 1500 attendees, and less that 10 acknowledged they had UNION PEOPLES' INTERESTS! The targeted participants were people responsible for Labor Contracts! Lawyers, negoiators, and Management Decision Makers, and US Labor Department Employees were the participants. Of this group approximate 150 attended the Presidents and CEO Brunch. One attended commented 'I am surprised they let you in, I would have bet you’d been removed!'
Leaders! At least 1490 Republicans and about a dozen Democrats!
When It comes to Political Leadership, it much harder to achieve the same percentages, mainly because of apportionment! If it were only Money, the Percentages would be the same!
So where is Leadership taking Americans?
They are sending jobs to lower cost workers! They are burying workers! Fellow Citizens! Its not Country first! Its not about GOOD JOBS, its 'servant jobs'!
The leadership is about stripminning and filling pockets of the entrepenuers! Individuals getting rich, not about the Country doing good together! Working together! Leadership Failure is the cause of Our Current Depression!
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