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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Rat dog micro-cap picks... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nicewatch who wrote (22520)	2/2/2005 9:04:48 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 48463

Take Milk Thistle for your liver and drink away

To: nicewatch who wrote (22520)	2/2/2005 10:31:47 AM
From: Bucky Katt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 48463

Indexes just hanging doing nothing. So the experts are waiting on the FED? I thought the experts had all the answers? Lol.... _____________ I am not sure what the following means, but overall it feels negative to me> Illinois gained more jobs than it lost last year for the first time since 2000, but the state badly lagged the nation in job growth, according to a report released Tuesday. "Our growth rates have been falling consistently behind those of the U.S." since the early 1990s, said Geoffrey Hewings, director of the Illinois Economic Observatory/Regional Economics Applications Laboratory at the University of Illinois, which produced the report. "In the last two years, we've fallen further and further behind as the U.S. economy has started to grow much more rapidly," he added. The monthly report was published by the Illinois Coalition for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity, an association of leading business groups. Hewings said a survey is planned to find out why job growth is lagging. Last year, Illinois gained 12,100 jobs, mainly in metropolitan areas, while growing at a rate of 0.21 percent. The U.S. grew more than eight times as fast, by 1.72 percent, while the Midwest grew twice as fast as Illinois, at 0.47 percent, the report said. The report rated the state economy's performance "neutral," noting that December marked Illinois' 11th consecutive month of job gains and that unemployment had fallen to a three-year low of 5.8 percent. "The positive growth rates are promising but the challenge remains to grow jobs at a rate fast enough to meet the needs of an expanding labor force and to grow them in sectors likely to provide the basis for sustained development," Hewings said. Among the report's bright notes: The state's manufacturing sector gained 1,000 jobs in the November-December period, outpacing the U.S. manufacturing sector's growth. The state's manufacturing job base grew by 0.14 percent compared with 0.02 percent for the nation and 0.04 percent for the Midwest. "Certainly the weakened U.S. dollar has helped our multinational companies' ability to sell overseas, and many of our suppliers and smaller manufacturers are helped by that," said Greg Baise, president of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association. "But what we're very concerned about is, we are still at an all-time low of manufacturing employees in this state, with just over 700,000 workers, and we don't see an enormous growth rate leading to improvement," he added. "It sort of momentarily stemmed the bleeding." Construction recorded the greatest gain of any sector in November and December, adding 2,100 jobs and growing by nearly 1 percent. Hewings disputed the perception that employment is growing slowly in Illinois because of a heavy concentration in declining sectors such as manufacturing. The U.S. and Illinois are "twin systems" when it comes to employment by sector, he said. "We are exactly the same as the U.S." except for the state's 1 percent greater concentration in leisure and hospitality. Groups like the coalition argue that Illinois lags in job growth because business costs are too high. Others suggest the state's products are concentrated in slower-growing markets. "We hope a survey will answer the question," chicagotribune.com