Payrolls drop by 125K, jobless rate falls - Yahoo! Finance

Christopher S. Rugaber, AP Economics Writer, On Friday July 2, 2010, 8:38 am

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A wave of census layoffs cut the nation's payrolls in June for the first time in six months, while private employers added a modest number of jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent, its lowest level in almost a year.

Employers cut 125,000 jobs last month, the most since last October, the Labor Department said Friday. The loss was driven by the end of 225,000 temporary census jobs.

Businesses added a net total of 83,000 workers, an improvement from May. But that's also below March and April totals. The nation has 7.9 million fewer private payroll jobs than it did when the recession began.

Analysts expected private payrolls to rise by about 110,000, according to Thomson Reuters. The report indicates that businesses are still reluctant to hire as the economy slowly recovers form the worst recession since the 1930s.

The unemployment rate fell as 652,000 people gave up on their job searches and left the labor force. People who are no longer looking for work aren't counted as unemployed.

All told, 14.6 million people were looking for work in June.

Counting those who have given up their job searches and those who are working part time but would prefer full-time work, the underemployment rate edged down to 16.5 percent from 16.6 percent in May.

Payrolls Drop by 125K, Jobless Rate Falls:

32 States Now Officially Bankrupt: $37.8 Billion Borrowed From Treasury To Fund Unemployment; CA, MI, NY Worst:

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/32-states-now-officially-bankrupt-378-billion-borrowed-treasury-fund-unemployment-ca-mi-ny-w

Submitted by Tyler Durden 05/21/2010

Courtesy of Economic Policy Journal we now know that the majority of American states are currently insolvent, and that the US Treasury has been conducting a shadow bailout of at least 32 US states.

Over 60% of Americans receiving state unemployment benefits are getting these directly from the US government, as 32 states have now borrowed $37.8 billion from Uncle Sam to fund unemployment insurance. The states in most dire condition, are, not unexpectedly, the unholy trifecta of California ($6.9 billion borrowed), Michigan ($3.9 billion), and New York ($3.2 billion). With this form of shadow bailout occurring, one can only wonder how many other shadow programs are currently in operation to fund states under the table with federal money.The full list of America's 32 insolvent states is below, sorted in order of bankruptedness (in billions of dollars):

California $6,900
Michigan 3,900
New York 3,200
Penn. 3,000
Ohio 2,300
Illinois 2,200
N.C. 2,100
Indiana 1,700
New Jersey 1,700
Florida 1,600
Wisconsin 1,400
Texas 1,000
S.C. 886
Kentucky 795
Missouri 722
Connecticut 498
Minnesota 477
Georgia 416
Nevada 397
Mass. 387
Virginia 346
Arkansas 330
Alabama 283
Colorado 253
R.I. 225
Idaho 202
Maryland 133
Kansas 88
Vermont 33
S.D. 24
Tennessee 21
Virgin Islands 13
Delaware 12

A Shout Out for Scruffy...

GATA Bill Murphy's Lemetropole Cafe market letter...

http://agoracom.com/ir/ECU/forums/discussion/topics/412960-a-shout-out-for-scruffy/messages/1360171#message

Good morning Bill. As I read through the morning (non-mainstream) news I see a huge pervasive rot threatening all aspects of our financial lives.

Here is a short list of what we are up against:

1 A network of elitists bankers who have a get out of jail free card, who contribute to both sides of political campaigns, who migrate employees to key positions in the administration and in the regulatory agencies that are supposed to assure fair market practices.

2 A history of million dollar fines (if any) for billion dollar crimes and no jail time for the biggest crooks.

3 Total control of mainstream media to the point of effective propaganda. Has anyone read or heard anything re the recent CFTC bombshells on MSNBC?

4 Regulations that destroy any transparency in our markets. The big bankers are protected by the regulators that are commissioned to protect us against them.

5 Naked shorting by the elite insiders to the detriment of all of us investors. Every naked short sale recorded and is identifiable, yet I have never heard of a single person, or clearing house, or brokerage receiving as much as a fine let alone jail time.

6 Evidence repeatedly provided to regulators and compliance agencies of the US that is NEVER acted on. Not one of the exposures leads to cleaning up of the markets, to firing of the idiots in charge, to jail time for those obviously complicit graft enablers, nor intervening in the crimes in progress.

7 A strong $ policy based on propaganda and manipulation. Does anyone with one eye and two brain cells believe the inflation #s? ... the unemployment numbers? ..that we have "turned the corner" or have begun the recovery? ..that the ObamaCare will cut the deficit? .. that the treasury is not the biggest buyer of treasuries via buy-backs?

8 Gambling casinos (crimex/nymex/lbma) that set the prices on physical commodities.

9 "Physical Markets" that have no physical.

10 Bribes offered to keep options holders from demanding physical delivery.

11 ETF’s that can’t be audited. Anyone who has read the prospectus and thinks that he/she is investing in physical should not be allowed to wield a check book.

12 Rules that allow options to be settled with (fraudulent) ETF shares.

13 A Fed that can keep its books hidden from the public. I was going to say from congress, but congress is part of the problem and we cannot count on them to act responsibly.

14 A government backed stock market manager (PPT) to get people to continue to "invest" in a stock market balloon while savings returns are miniscule to nonexistent.

15 A steady move to shun new purchases of US treasuries by the rest of the world.

16 Most moves up recently in the US $ have not been because of anything that indicates the $ is healthy, but because the currencies of the rest of the world are down graded by US based rating agencies. This while ALL currencies are pushed around by markets dominated by US and UK bankers.

17 Assassination attempts on whistle blowers.

18 And not the last, not the least, but one of the most egregious, a congress and administration that panders to special interests and totally disrespects, ignores, and denigrates the citizens, as it shoves this nation down the socialistic toilet.

And once again, as has often been repeated throughout history, gold and silver are the last shelter and protection one can have against corrupt public and financial institutions.

Thanks Bill and all the GATA organization. Many people are now in a better position to see what is going on and to protect themselves.

Scruffy

All’s Well?...

Here are a couple of uplifting titles to stories in today’s mainstream media:

From MSNBC: “Stocks boosted by upbeat economic reports”

From CNNMoney.com: “Stocks pop on jobless claims”

Wow. I don’t know about you, but I’m optimistic.

But wait. Could these titles be misleading? I don’t think I need to answer that.

Apparently the good news was 439,000 new people filed jobless claims in the week ended March 27, down 6,000 from an upwardly revised 445,000 the previous week. And outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. showed that planned job cuts accelerated substantially in March.

So, almost half a million people file new jobless claims in a week and employers accelerate layoffs and that’s considered good news these days. I’d really hate to hear some bad news.

In addition to this “good” news, we have a new national employment report published by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing Inc. that indicates private employers unexpectedly shed 23,000 jobs in March despite concensus analysis calling for an increase in jobs. And the Commerce Department reports that U.S. construction spending fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $846.23 billion, the slowest rate in over seven years, as activity softened in every major sector from homebuilding to public construction projects. Meanwhile, personal consumption expenditures increased 21.7 times more than personal income over the most recently reported month according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

That’s not to say that every bit of news that comes out is completely negative. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that a barometer of capital spending by businesses climbed. Non-defense capital goods orders, excluding airplanes, rose 2.0% in February. But that followed a big drop in January of 4.4%, suggesting businesses uncertain about the economy remain cautious about spending plans.

And there’s even some actual good news out there. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index rose to 59.6 in March from 56.5 in February, marking eight straight months of expansion in the sector.

All in all, however, we still firmly believe that the bad seriously outweighs the good. None of the real issues that brought us into the 2008 financial meltdown have been addressed. Banks’ balance sheets are still terrible, especially if you take out the impact of accounting changes that were allowed last year. The overhang of derivatives continues to grow. And as bad as the real estate situation is, it’s about to get a lot worse.

Look, we don’t like to be the bearer of bad news all time. But we have to tell you what we really think based on all the research and analysis that goes on over here. And what we think is that the far wall of the hurricane is still heading toward the economy. When it’s going to hit we really can’t say, though it will probably be sooner rather than later. The catalyst will likely be fear caused by one single and unforeseen or known but ignored event (a black swan). The event will create a panic in the markets that will then create a chain reaction like a house of cards falling. So as painful as it may be for your psyche, it’s prudent for you to remain wary of this “recovery.” All is certainly not well.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/displayCdd.php?id=389