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Non-Tech : The ENRON Scandal -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (4743)	1/6/2003 3:16:53 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 5185

Coward of the Year Award Should Go to George W. Bush! He refuses to tell you how many people lose their jobs each month!

To: Mephisto who wrote (4743)	5/13/2003 10:03:20 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 5185

Making the Jobless Pay May 13, 2003 latimes.com Here's a snapshot of what's driving the tax cut bills now in Congress: In order to give President Bush more benefits primarily for the wealthy, the Senate Finance Committee rejected extending the Temporary Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which provides additional weeks of unemployment insurance benefits to people unable to find a job. On top of that, the tax cuts being contemplated have very little chance of generating the promised jobs, given that despite $1.3 trillion in cuts approved in 2001, the United States has lost 2 million jobs since Bush became president. In the last three months, more than half a million jobs have been lost. On this issue, the gap between theory and reality, between claim and outcome, is too big to paper over. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow has claimed that the cuts would revive what he called a "soggy" economy. But what if they simply drown the economy in an ocean of debt? The deficit is already soaring as a result of the first tax cut. The Congressional Budget Office has just raised its estimate of the deficit this year to more than $300 billion from the $246 billion it predicted in March. Tax revenues are $62 billion lower than they were last year at the same time, while spending is $76 billion higher. Congress will probably have to respond soon to the administration's request to raise the debt ceiling from its limit of $6.4 trillion. Faced with a 6% unemployment rate, Bush is pressuring the Senate to pass something similar to the deceptive $550-billion tax cut package approved by the House on Friday. That package includes much of Bush's original $726-billion proposal and would not entirely eliminate the individual income tax on corporate dividends. It also assumes that the cuts will not be made permanent and will even be canceled at the end of 2005, an unlikely scenario at best. The Senate passed a proposal for more than $400 billion in cuts meant to be offset by other rate hikes - another unlikely occurrence - to technically bring the total cut down to $350 billion. Some of the lesser measures in the Senate plan might actually help stimulate the economy. For instance, $20 billion in direct aid to the states over two years. But overall, the cuts are targeted at upper-income taxpayers, not the middle class, the poor and the unemployed - the people who would funnel the money back into the economy quickly. With two Republican senators, George Voinovich of Ohio and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, holding their ground at $350 billion in new tax cuts, which is already too much, Bush is turning across the aisle. He is visiting the states of centrist Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) to pressure them. They should have at least the backbone of Voinovich and Snowe.

To: Mephisto who wrote (4743)	7/9/2003 12:27:40 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 5185

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JUNE 2003 EXCERPT: " Nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged in June, while the unemployment rate rose to 6.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll job losses continued in manufacturing, but were partly offset by employment increases in other industries. Unemployment (Household Survey Data) The number of unemployed persons increased by 360,000 in June to 9.4 mil- lion, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.1 to 6.4 percent. Since March, unemployment has increased by 913,000. The rate for adult men edged up for the third month in a row; at 6.1 percent, the jobless rate for this group was 0.8 percentage point higher than in March. The teenage unemployment rate, at 19.3 percent, has trended up since the beginning of the year. Over the month, the unemployment rate for blacks increased to 11.8 percent. Jobless rates for the other major worker groups--adult women (5.2 percent), whites (5.5 percent), and Hispanics (8.4 percent)--showed little change from May. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.8 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) In June, there were 2.0 million unemployed persons who had been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, an increase of 410,000 over the year. They re- presented 21.4 percent of the total unemployed, up from 18.8 percent a year earlier. (See table A-9.)" bls.gov