American consumer spending and personal incomes were flat in June and factory orders declined,
according to government statistics released earlier this month,
the latest indication that the economy would continue to struggle in the second half of the year.
The Commerce Department figures, which were seasonally adjusted, showed that personal income was steady in June, compared with a slight 0.3 percent rise in May.
But is it a good or a bad sign ???
China Construction Bank (CCB), posted a 20 percent rise in second-quarter profit
as the world’s second-biggest lender by market value
seeks to raise $11 billion to fuel growth restrained by a weak capital base.
Profit growth at CCB, China’s biggest lender to home buyers and construction projects, beats analyst expectations,
but slowed from last quarter’s 34 percent pace, foreshadowing the challenges Chinese banks will face in the second half.
Residents of the remote high-desert hills near Ione, Oregon, have had an unusual visitor recently:
a fixer working out the kinks in clean energy.
Patricia Pilz of Caithness Energy, a big company from New York that is helping
make this part of Eastern Oregon one of the fastest-growing wind power regions in the country, is making a tempting offer:
sign a waiver saying you will not complain about excessive noise from the turning turbines —
As the nation with the world’s largest number of Muslims, Indonesia every year sends the most pilgrims to Mecca by far.
About one out of 10 believers who performed the hajj last year were Indonesian.
Some 1.2 million of the faithful are now on a government waiting list to go to Mecca,
filling this country’s annual quota through the next six years.
As if Google’s alliance with Verizon diminishing “net neutrality” weren’t enough, the emerging Net monolith is making other major moves as well.
Earlier this month, it said it would change its search policy for most of Europe
to allow advertisers to buy and use as keywords terms that have been trademarked by others.
The changes will benefit the company’s hugely successful AdWords service, through which advertisers bid for keywords;
Nearly a dozen current or former lawmakers have been honored by university endowments financed in part by corporations with business before Congress,
posing potential conflicts of interest like that attributed to Democratic Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York in an House ethics complaint.
The donations from businesses to the endowments ranged from modest amounts to millions of dollars, federal records show.
The pledge has been criticized in Germany, with millionaires saying donations shouldn’t replace duties that would be better carried out by the state.
As noted just below, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway chair Warren Buffett
have been attempting to convince billionaires around the world to agree to give away half their money to charity.
More than three dozen billionaires, including well-known philanthropists like David Rockefeller and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York
and less familiar big donors like Lorry I. Lokey, founder of Business Wire,
have promised at least half of their fortunes to charity,
joining a program that Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett started in June to encourage other wealthy people to give.
As long-term unemployment in US hits record levels,
top execs in the American financial sector were being rewarded at a pace even the Federal government –
which has otherwise given the big banks just about everything they want – finds unacceptable.
Of course, it’s not going to actually DO anything, but, hey, it’s still Cheney / Bush America, whoever may sit in the White House.
With the financial system on the verge of collapse in Black September 2008,
In the US, unemployment has typically been a relatively brief affair.
The vast majority of people who lost jobs soon found new work.
That is not the way it has been in many other developed countries.
In Europe and Japan, long-term unemployment is far more common.
At any given time, most of the unemployed people in many European countries have been out of work for more than six months.
Now the United States appears to be becoming similar to Europe.
