Archive for June, 2010

New claims for US jobless benefits fell for the first time in three weeks, the government said Thursday amid persistent concerns that unemployment may dampen recovery.

Claims fell to 457,000 in the week ending June 19, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 476,000, the Labor Department said.

Most economists had expected claims to fall to 460,000.

Once again, another story with one missing fact. Congress has not extended unemployment benefits, so those people who are on unemployment cannot get it if they have reached the end of their existing tier. In other words, many people cannot get it so they stopped filing. Oops!

Mortgage rates fell this week to the lowest level on records dating to 1971, giving consumers added incentive to lock in low payments for home purchases and refinanced loans.

The average rate for 30-year fixed loans sank to 4.69 percent, from 4.75 percent last week, mortgage company Freddie Mac said Thursday.

Of course they fail to mention that home sales also dropped 33%. Oops.

Cut spending, increase taxes. Pay more, get less. Awesome. For Britain.

Britain’s structural deficit should be eliminated in five years by cutting public spending and raising taxes, finance minister George Osborne said Tuesday in the new government’s first budget.

“We are on track to have debt falling and a balanced structural currentbudget by the end of this parliament” in 2014-15, said Osborne, who is a key member of Britain’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.

The Conservative Party had made a key election pledge to eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit within five years.

I hope you haven’t eaten those SpaghettiOs you bought back in late 2008 or 2009.

Campbell Soup Co. is recalling 15 million pounds of SpaghettiOs with meatballs after a cooker malfunctioned at one of the company’s plants in Texas and left the meat undercooked.

The Agriculture Department announced the recall late Thursday. Campbell spokesman Anthony Sanzio said the company is recalling certain lots of the product manufactured since December 2008 “out of an abundance of caution” because officials don’t know exactly when the cooker at the Paris, Texas, plant malfunctioned. Officials believe it happened recently but aren’t sure, he said.

The meatballs that went through the cooker did not get the requisite amount of heat, according to the company.

YUM!

It’s funny watching someone who has been completely negligent in his response to the oil spill call the company responsible as reckless.

Vowing to “make BP pay,” President Barack Obama accused the oil giant of “recklessness” in his first address to thenation from the Oval Office Tuesday night, eight weeks to the day after the catastrophic oil spill began destroying waterways, wildlife and a prized Gulf Coast way of life.

They have had to revise their estimates not once, not twice, but three times now.

Researchers studying the flow of oil from the blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico said Thursday that as much as twice the amount of oil than previously thought may have been spewing into the sea since an oil rig exploded nearly two months ago.

It is the third — and perhaps not last — time the federal government has had to increase its estimate of how much oil is gushing.

Twice as much oil? That’s no ’slight miscalculation’ is it?

Investors pummeled shares of oil drillers and BP on Tuesday, after President Obama talked tough about dealing with the worst oil spill in the nation’s history.

Analysts added fuel to the sell-off by cutting their earnings outlooks on companies that figure to be hurt by the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf or the temporary delay in issuing permits for drilling in shallow water.

Don’t you find it interesting that investors are ‘fleeing‘, but within 3-6 months they will be “returning’ because they can’t resist those huge profits.

A handful of economic reports released Thursday raised hopes for an improving job market with fewer layoffs and more hiring.

Productivity slowed more than initially estimated in the first quarter of the year, a sign that employers are struggling to squeeze more work out of leaner staffs. The lower figure was expected after the government last week revised its growth estimate for the first quarter.

The number of people filing first-time jobless claims dipped for the second consecutive week but remains elevated for the year.

The number of people filing claims dropped, but the number of people out of work is still higher than it’s ever been. Great news huh?

Google employees are slamming Microsoft’s Windows operating system, claiming security vulnerabilities in the OS left the company open to Chinese hackers in January 2010, a new report says. According to the Financial Times, Google will ditch the internal use of Windows in exchange for alternative operating systems including the Mac OS, Linux, and Google’s own forthcoming Chrome OS operating system.

The May 31 Financial Times article quotes only anonymous Google sources, identifying them as several of Google’s 10,000 employees. FT reporters David Gelles and Richard Waters write: “Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from ‘quite senior levels’, one employee said. ‘Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,’ said another employee.”

It could be worse. They could be demanding the use of Blackberries.