Markets Hub: Dollar Tumbles on Fed Predictions

 4/21/2011 11:58:23 AM

The dollar plunged to multiyear lows against most major currencies Thursday, as worries about the U.S. fiscal- and monetary-policy outlook made investors reluctant to hold the currency. Jon Hilsenrath and Michael Derby discuss.

A God's-Eye View of the World

 4/22/2011 7:00:00 PM

A wave of ambitious social-network experiments is underway in the U.S. and Europe to track our movements, probe our relationships and, ultimately, affect the individual choices we all make. WSJ's Robert Lee Hotz reports.

Resources for Job-Hunting Seniors

• MONEY
• APRIL 24, 2011

By TOM LAURICELLA

The tough employment market of the past few years has been particularly hard on people age 55-plus. But older job seekers don't have to go it alone. A number of online tools -- as well as in-person training centers scattered across the country -- can provide support.

The hurdles that older adults face in finding work today are considerable. They include basic age discrimination, as well as rapid changes in information technology. The latter, in particular, have transformed not just the workplace, but the job search itself, leaving many older adults at a disadvantage.

Tim Goldman

Tim Goldman

Statistics show the need for a leveling of a playing field that's tilted against older workers. In 2010, among those aged 50 and over and out of work, more than 53% were unemployed for more than six months, according to government data analyzed by Richard Johnson, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. In contrast, 46% of jobless men ages 25 to 49 were out of work for more than six months.

Older workers "really have a hard time becoming re-employed," Mr. Johnson says.

To help older workers, the Department of Labor in 2009 awarded $10 million in grants to organizations in Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin. This new program, called the Aging Worker Initiative, is aimed at helping anyone 55 and older who is unemployed or underemployed -- earning, say, close to the minimum wage. (The list of program managers can be found by searching dol.gov for the Aging Workers Initiative.)

This effort is in addition to the long-standing Senior Community Service Employment Program. SCSEP offers a job-training program for those in low-income families and the unemployed.

The Aging Worker Initiative programs generally start with the basics, such as training older workers to be more tech-savvy. That includes showing them where to look for jobs online. One prominent example: careeronestop.org, the Department of Labor-sponsored website offering thousands of job listings nationwide.

In addition, the programs often provide tutoring on how to handle interviews and job fairs as well as highlighting resume do's and don'ts. (Do emphasize your skills; don't include items that reveal your age.)

But what sets these programs apart is their ability to go beyond advice that can be found online. At Goodwill Industries of Houston, for example, coaches start with a program called "Yes you can" to rebuild confidence.

"These are people who have had the door closed in their face and told they can't be employed for one reason or another," says Steven Lufburrow, president of Goodwill Industries. "Their confidence is blown, and part of the job is to build that back up."

The Tecumseh Area Partnership, which services residents of 12 counties in west-central Indiana and operates a website, maturitymatters.org, holds weekly meetings for job-hunters that can act as support groups or networking opportunities. Tecumseh also helps arrange internships, with paid stipends, lasting one to three months for job-seekers.

For residents of eight counties around Harrisburg, Pa., the South Central Workforce Investment Board offers grants to job-hunters to subsidize retraining. The board is also working with local manufacturing, health-care and information-technology companies to subsidize continuing education programs for existing older workers who need retraining.

The Quad Area Community Action Agency in Hammond, La., will steer local job-seekers to local colleges where they can take non-accredited courses. Quad Area, whose senior employment website is silverforce.org, also partners with several dozen businesses for job postings.

Another resource for face-to-face help is the AARP Foundation's WorkSearch program. While primarily an online service, the foundation has partnered with 10 organizations around the country where, free of charge, anyone age 50-plus can search for jobs or sign up for training and classes. To find if there's a nearby WorkSearch location, job-hunters can call 877-659-0969.

These centers complement the information and tools available online on the WorkSearch website, aarpworksearch.org. This comprehensive offering provides an extensive tutorial on hunting for a job, ranging from the big-picture (matching your personality with a job) to the detailed: what to wear on job interviews and 14 do's and don'ts for handling phone calls during the job search.

In addition, AARP in September launched its own jobs search engine at jobs.aarp.org. In partnership with Indeed.com (a job search site), the AARP website folds in resources from WorkSearch.

The AARP website isn't the first on the block to target older workers. Workforce50.com, and its predecessor, seniorjobbank.org, traces its roots back to 1975 and offers tens of thousands of job listings. Retirementjobs.com has been around since 2005. The website publishes 20,000 to 30,000 job listings per month, says founder Tim Driver, from companies that it deems friendly to workers over 50 years old.

Mark Warner says federal spending is near all-time high, relative to GDP

The Truth-O-Meter Says:

"Right now we are spending at an all-time high, close to 25 percent of our GDP [is] being spent on the federal government. But our revenues are at an almost all-time low of about 15 percent [of GDP]."

Mark Warner on Sunday, April 17th, 2011 in a TV appearance.

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In the coming weeks, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner and a bipartisan group of five colleagues are expected to introduce a tough-love plan for lowering debt that they promise will make everyone angry.

Warner says his "Gang of Six" will propose an array of tax increases and spending reforms to entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security that would slice the national debt by $4 trillion over the next 10 years. He has been laying out the case for more taxes and less spending for months, calling the debt "a ticking time bomb."

Warner appeared on "Face the Nation" on April 17 and told CBS newsman Bob Schieffer: "Right now we are spending at an all-time high; close to 25 percent of our GDP [is] being spent on the federal government. But our revenues are at an almost all-time low of about 15 percent [of GDP]."

We wondered if he was right.

GDP, or gross domestic product, is the measure of the total size of the U.S. economy during a given year. The Department of the Commerce has been tracking GDP since 1929.

The Department of Treasury has been computing the size of government spending and revenues relative to GDP since 1940. It’s data backs up Warner’s contention. Rarely has government revenue been such a small portion of GDP, and rarely has spending been such a large chunk of the total economy.


Let’s start with revenue. Ninety-three percent of federal receipts come from taxes on personal income, corporate income and payrolls.

Uncle Sam took in $2.16 trillion during fiscal 2010, which ended Sept. 30. Revenues equaled 14.9 percent of GDP. In 2009 revenue was $2.11 trillion, again 14.9 percent of GDP.

So both of those figures are close to the 15 percent mentioned by Warner. How do they compare to the past 70 years?

The average since 1940 is 17.4 percent, and the average during the past 30 years is 18 percent. We found that revenue has not been below 15 percent of GDP since 1949 and 1950, when it checked in at 14.5 percent and 14.4 percent.

During those post-World War II years, taxes were cut and the nation enjoyed rapid economic expansion. Medicare and Medicaid did not exist. There were 16 workers for each Social Security recipient, as compared to 2.9 workers per recipient today.

The only other time where revenue was below the 15 percent level was 1940 through 1943, when the U.S. ran massive budget deficits to fund World War II.

So Warner’s right when he says federal revenues "are at an almost all-time low." The revenue totals for 2009 and 2010 were the lowest percentage of GDP in 60 years.

Now let’s look at spending.

The federal government spent $3.46 trillion in fiscal 2010 fiscal year, down slightly from $3.52 trillion in the 2009 budget year. The 2010 figure was 23.8 percent of GDP, and the 2009 figure was 25 percent of GDP.

Those numbers are above historical averages. Since 1940, federal spending has averaged 20.5 percent of GDP, and since 1981 the average is 21 percent.

Spending under George W. Bush ranged from 18.2 percent in 2001 to a high of 20.7 percent in 2008.  From 1980 through 2000, spending mostly ranged between 20 percent and 22 percent of GDP.

Only during World War II did expenditures climb above Warner’s 25 percent threshold. It peaked at 43.6 percent in 1943 and 1944 as the U.S. financed much of its global war efforts with debt. By 1946 the figure was down to 24.8 percent, and in 1948, spending fell to 11.6 percent of GDP.

Let’s wrap up.

Mark Warner said government revenue is close to an all-time low at 15 percent of gross domestic product, while spending is at 25 percent of GDP, which Warner says is an all-time high.

Revenue levels -- 93 percent of which come from taxes -- haven’t been this low in 60 years. So Warner is right.

He also aces the spending side. The U.S. has only seen government outlays chew up this much of GDP once in history, at the height of World War II.

We rate this statement True.

Gang of Six gives old-time politics a try

The six senators — three Democrats, three Republicans — working behind closed doors to deal with the nation's debt crisis have put aside the hyper-partisanship of today's Washington and are engaging in the give-and-take necessary to craft an agreement.

Top: Democrats Mark R. Warner of Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois. Bottom: Republicans Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Michael D. Crapo of Idaho and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. (Associated Press, Bloomberg, AFP / Getty Images, MCT, Getty Images)

By Lisa Mascaro, Washington Bureau

April 23, 2011

Reporting from Washington— 

For months, as a group of senators known as the "Gang of Six" secretively holed up in the Capitol, their unusual bipartisan meetings frequently included some version of the doomsday speech.

It's the one given by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), portending calamity about the nation's debt crisis, making Democrats in the room squirm.

"I say, 'Tom, not the doomsday speech again,'" said Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and one of the six, recounting the group's exchanges.

Yet Durbin has grown to appreciate the dire warnings. As months have gone by, the widely differing viewpoints of the senators — three Republicans, three Democrats — may have begun to meld.

"He has convinced me," Durbin said recently. "This is serious, and if we don't do something, and do it quickly, bad things can happen, in a hurry."

Amid the earsplitting and hyper-partisan debate over debt, spending and deficits, the Gang of Six has been toiling quietly, aiming to present lawmakers with a middle course next month.

The group is working the way Washington had long been known to operate: a small collection of would-be dealmakers engaging in the political give-and-take necessary to craft an agreement with broad bipartisan appeal. But the rise of political polarization in recent years has made rare what was once routine legislative horse-trading. The six stand as something of an anomaly in today's Washington. They might also represent the Capitol's best hope for resolving one of the nation's biggest long-term problems.

For now, the group's deliberations are largely secret. But its proposals are expected to include changes in the government's most costly programs — defense, the healthcare safety net and Social Security — as well as the closure of tax loopholes.

Members of the group say they do not expect their recommendations to calm the deficit debate, which got louder last week with President Obama's unveiling of his own plan and House approval of a GOP proposal that would dramatically change Medicare.

"Let me assure you, we're going to make everybody mad with our approach — Democrats, Republicans, independents — because we're touching every part of the problem," one of the six, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), said in a recent CBS interview.

But the six senators do hope that over time, Congress may follow their approach. They have steered clear of public squabbling, even while each side bends the other to its point of view. The Democrats have accepted the need for spending cuts and reforms in entitlement programs. The Republicans have agreed that changes in tax policy must be included.

Already, the group's three Republicans — Coburn, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Sen. Michael D. Crapo of Idaho — have endured barbs from their party's conservative flank.

Grover Norquist, an anti-tax activist and head of Americans for Tax Reform, warned in a stern letter that support of a deal that included tax policy changes "would most likely be a violation of your Taxpayer Protection Pledge." The pledge is a commitment his group asks Republicans to sign when they run for office.

But the three GOP senators said they would not be subdued. "Our pledge is to protect taxpayers, not special interests," Coburn, Chambliss and Crapo replied. "To do so, we must analyze every aspect of the federal budget, including the tax code."

At the same time, the political left has taken shots at the three Democrats — Durbin, Warner and Sen.Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada has insisted that no changes to Social Security be on the table. The group apparently has ignored that plea, saying every facet of the deficit problem must be examined.

"Our hope and prayer is that then the people of goodwill from both parties will basically check their Democrat hat and check their Republican hat and say, 'Let's take this on,'" Warner said.

Last week, as the debate heated, the six sequestered themselves for hours. They work without a chairman, away from the sting of their "tea party" and liberal wings, as they push toward an agreement.

Together, they constitute a representative swath of the Senate:

Warner is a millionaire former telecommunications executive and onetime Virginia governor, now part of a new generation of senators. Brokering this deal could make the moderate Democrat a rising star.

Warner and Chambliss launched the Gang of Six, and they have visited each other's states as they've taken their ideas on the road. Chambliss is friends with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), and his role as a member of the gang comes after years of criticism from Democrats for his 2002 campaign to oust former Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, in which he questioned whether the incumbent, a Vietnam War veteran and triple amputee, was committed to national security.

Durbin is among the Senate's more liberal members. His work in the Gang of Six has reinforced his position as a party leader after Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat, overshadowed him at times.

Coburn, the sometimes prickly conservative known to colleagues as "Dr. No," has little to lose: He has said this is his final term in the Senate. The same goes for Conrad, the fiscal guru and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Crapo is trusted by Senate conservatives.

The group has proved resilient. When Obama harshly criticized the 2012 budget plan by House Republicans last week, some observers feared it could splinter the six senators, but they continued meeting.

Dozens of senators have expressed interest in a bipartisan accord. Democratic senators up for reelection next year are particularly interested in debt-reduction strategies, an issue that has energized independent voters.

Still, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate's Republican leader, has said his top priority is to make sure Obama is a one-term president. That could become less likely if Obama presides over a landmark budget deal. Then again, McConnell tapped Coburn to deliver last weekend's GOP radio address.

"I know there isn't a problem we can't solve if we do it together," Coburn said then. "But the only way we can solve them is to put our political careers on the line and stop engaging in petty political attacks."

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Russell Simmons Letter To President Barack Obama (Don't forget the poor)

Marksallen on 04.21.11 at 9:48 PM |

Russell Simmons Letter to President Barrack Obama

by Marc Loveless on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 2:58pm

Dear Mr. President,

I listened to your speech last week at Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network's 20th anniversary dinner, talking among friends and close supporters. This was an annual African American dinner, a very important one. While I know that any Democrat would have fulfilled their promise to come back if they had won the '08 election, I also know the significance, and the special burden it poses on you, as the first African American President, at the same time.

Still, I woke up the next day feeling uneasy, not because you didn't take issues of direct significance to the black community head-on -- like the fact that one in three black children go to jail once in their lifetime or that black people have an unemployment rate double the amount of white people -- but because nowhere in your deep and thoughtful remarks did you talk about the elephant in the room that affects ALL Americans, irrespective of color: the growing ranks of poor Americans, Americans struggling not just to meet their mortgage payments but to eat, sleep under a roof, educate their kids and pay their basic bills.

As a passionate advocate of yours since I joined your campaign in 2008, there is something you need to hear: in trying to soar above party politics, you risk forgetting your most important commitment to inclusion and empowerment. As you prepare for your speech to the nation tomorrow night, I write this letter to you as a friend and strong advocate.

The rich are already at the table, as are the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party and the unions, the business interests and the moneyed interests. The poor can't afford for you to forget about them, and you cannot afford it either. Of all Americans, the poor are not just the real victims of this recession; they are the victims of a thirty year campaign of smear and neglect, to strengthen the rich on the backs of the rest of America in the dim and ultimately futile fantasy that the rich getting richer will somehow "trickle down."

Well, it hasn't trickled down. While middle class wages have declined in the face of unparalleled wealth and technology creation since the 1980's, the poverty rate in our country is the highest it has been in 51 years. That takes us to the early 1960's. Shame on all of us who otherwise take pride in the achievements of this rich and powerful nation.

If you don't put the poor at the heart of your policies for the next two years, with the interests aligned in favor of the rich, too many of the middle class will join them in their suffering. That is the "trickle up" of poverty that has impoverished nations with unfair concentrations of wealth at the top. That is what destroys great nations.

After the devastating financial meltdown of 2008 -- which came from the orgy of gambling by the richest among us -- and the generational recession that it wrought and now the agenda of cuts on the backs of the neediest in America, we are the precipice of losing the very fabric that makes us strong.

A few months ago, I was sitting in the church pew during the beautiful celebration of the life of one of my heroes, and one of yours, Kennedy's adviser and architect of so many policies of inclusion and empowerment, the great Sargent Shriver. It was Sargent Shriver who influenced and encouraged President Lyndon B. Johnson to declare a war on poverty in America in 1964.

The service for Mr. Shriver was deeply moving, yet there was a noticeable absence. The First Lady, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, Oprah, Bono, Gov. Schwarzenegger and too many other celebrities, politicians and well-wishers to mention were all there, and you were around the corner at the White House. We needed you there to seize that moment to renew Mr. Shriver's dream and address our nation with a stirring speech reminding us of your campaign vows and life-long commitment to fight a war on the illness of poverty that afflicts our country, and that more and more Americans are falling into.

If we do not attack this problem with the same zeal with which we are talking about the national debt, the narrative in Washington will continue going in the direction of more misery and more poverty on the horizon, more needless suffering, young minds lost and greatness denied. Why? Because we've let the moneyed interests that gambled with the economy and came to you for bailouts paint the narrative that the poor, not they, are to blame.

By your own admission, you were too busy "getting stuff done" to paint the narrative of the transformative presidents of both parties you respect so much. Where is that narrative now? Why don't Independents and Democrats and even thoughtful Republicans buy into the amazing accomplishments of your term so far: saving the economy, managing two wars you didn't get us into, health care reform, financial reform? Because the heart of your story is missing the hard crushing reality facing everyday Americans who could not only NOT afford the $1,000 to come to the National Action Network dinner, but had to wonder about the $2.50 subway ride uptown. The heart of your story is "the other America," the one that either is or is just about to be, poor. It may not poll well today but that is only because there is more to leading than "getting stuff done." And you are the only one who can lead.

When we talk about cutting, if we don't talk about reversing the unfair Bush tax cuts on people like me who get richer, it seems, just by breathing, if YOU don't personally challenge America day in and day out for a more balanced economy between rich and poor, between fair and unfair educational outcomes, and in favor of basic services while reforming entitlements, you risk the very passion that you will need -- in your constituents and in your own deeply compassionate heart -- to win today, forget the future.

My businesses have always benefited from giving a voice to those outside the mainstream who, through their creativity could change and then transform America: rappers, comedians, poets, designers, people who need a bank account, bloggers who use this very website on which this letter is posted, GlobalGrind.com, to talk to a new America, one that is multi-racial, tech-smart, inclusive and deeply compassionate. I have benefited from never wavering from my mission of giving a voice to those communities. You can't afford not to.

We have tough times ahead. Perilous times. Treacherous times. But it has to start with the victims, the poor, paying the least and the rich, who did so incredibly well, paying the lion's share of the hard sacrifices ahead. And for that fight, I will be at your side morning, noon and night.

Your Friend,

Russell Simmons

House GOP’s Dirty Little Secret Revealed:

April 22, 2011

 Ryan’s Own Budget Calls For Immediate $2 Trillion Hike In Debt Limit

Language Buried Inside House GOP’s ‘Path to Prosperity’ Would Lift Debt Ceiling by $2T Right Away and Nearly $9T by 2023

House GOP’s ‘Escalating’ Threats On Debt Ceiling Ring Hollow Since Reckless Budget GOP Passed Just Last Week Calls For More and More Borrowing Into Future

HOUSE GOP IS ‘ESCALATING’ THREATS TO NOT RAISE DEBT CEILING …

Politico: ‘Republicans Escalate Demands on Debt Ceiling.’“One day after being named to a presidential task force to negotiate deficit reduction, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP ‘will not grant their request for a debt limit increase’ without major spending cuts or budget process reforms.” [Politico, 4/20/11]

… BUT, IN AN INCONVENIENT TWIST SURE TO UPSET TEA PARTY, HOUSE GOP BUDGET APPROVED LAST WEEK ALREADY CALLS FOR DEBT LIMIT INCREASES

House GOP Budget Would Raise the Debt Limit By More Than 60%, to $23.1 Trillion. The federal debt ceiling currently stands at $14.3 trillion. Under the House Republican budget, the amount of public debt subject to the limit would be $23.1 trillion in Fiscal Year 2021, meaning the GOP plan forces an $8.8 trillion in additional debt – an increase of more than 60% - over ten years. [H. Con. Res. 34 (Page 5); Los Angeles Times, 4/15/11]

LA Times: ‘Do House Republicans Realize They Just Endorsed a Higher Debt Limit?’ “As far as I could tell, no amendments were offered to reduce the levels of spending outlined in the budget to hold that level of debt at or below $14.3 trillion. So, I guess that means Republicans won't object to raising the current debt ceiling within the next few weeks so that the federal government can honor the commitments it has already made?” [Los Angeles Times, 4/15/11]

If They Had Not Changed Their Own Rules, GOP Budget Vote Last Week Would Have Been a Vote to Raise the Debt Limit. “Under House Rule XXVII (commonly referred to as the Gephardt rule after its author, former Representative Richard Gephardt), a joint resolution specifying the amount of the debt limit contained in the budget resolution automatically is engrossed and deemed to have passed the House by the same vote as the conference report on the budget resolution, thereby avoiding a separate vote on the debt-limit legislation.” That means that, under the Gephardt rule, the House Republican budget passed last Friday would have been considered a vote to raise the debt limit. When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January 2011, they eliminated the so-called Gephardt rule. [CRS, 6/26/08; Washington Post, 1/5/11]

GOP BUDGET NOT ONLY ENDORSES IMMEDIATE $2T HIKE IN DEBT LIMIT, IT CALLS FOR NEARLY $9T IN INCREASES OVER NEXT DECADE

Debt Subject to the Debt Limit Under House GOP Budget
Current Limit	$14.31 Trillion
FY 2012	$16.20 Trillion
FY 2013	$17.18 Trillion
FY 2014	$17.95 Trillion
FY 2015	$18.70 Trillion
FY 2016	$19.50 Trillion
FY 2017	$20.25 Trillion
FY 2018	$20.97 Trillion
FY 2019	$21.70 Trillion
FY 2020	$22.41 Trillion
FY 2021	$23.10 Trillion
TOTAL DEBT LIMIT INCREASE NEEDED UNDER GOP PLAN:  $8.8 TRILLION

[H. Con. Res. 34 (Page 5)]