Last Thursday, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to set up a committee to examine whether condoms should be required on all pornographic film shoots. California has run out of money, but it hasn't yet run out of things to regulate. For a government regulatory hearing, the testimony was livelier than usual. Porn star Madelyne Hernandez recalled an especially grueling scene in which she had been obliged to have sex with 75 men. The bureaucrats nodded thoughtfully, no doubt contemplating another languorous 18-month committee assignment looking into capping the number of group-sex participants at 60 per scene....
But luckily for me, economic data is what ruled the markets yesterday. We had a plethora of data released in the US, but the markets seemed to be focused on the release of CPI and the weekly jobs numbers. CPI led off Thursday morning’s data showing that prices in the US were unchanged for the [...]US Data Fails to Move the Markets originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, offers a uniquely refreshing, perspective on the global economy, investing, gold, stocks and today's markets. Its been called "the most entertaining read of the day."
With telltale signs of the greater depression all around us, especially unemployment, it comes as no surprise that the nation’s belief in the “American Dream” is on the wane. Dot-com bubble, terrorism, wars, real estate collapse… it’s been a tough decade. Providing evidence of the fading American Dream, Zogby International recently found “a significant decline [...]The Decline of the American Dream originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, offers a uniquely refreshing, perspective on the global economy, investing, gold, stocks and today's markets. Its been called "the most entertaining read of the day."
Iran is seeking $200 billion in oil, gas and refining investments over five years to avoid a production decline, and Iranian companies can sustain this should foreign interest fail to materialize, the country's oil minister said Wednesday. He also reiterated sanctions won't affect those plans. Speaking to reporters ahead of a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Masoud Mirkazemi said: "For the next five years, we are now...planning seriously for investment of upstream and downstream [of] $200 billion investment." Given the depletion of existing oil and gas fields, the minister said the investments will "introduce a degree, a...
Spurred by budget crises, California and Michigan together reduced their prison populations by more than 7,500 last year, contributing to what a new report says is the first nationwide decline in the number of state inmates since 1972. The overall drop was slight, according to the Pew Center on the States — just 0.4 percent — but its report suggests there could be a sustained downward trend because of keen interest by state policymakers in curtailing corrections costs. "The political and policy environment has changed drastically," said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project.
China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand. Within a month the US Treasury must rule whether China is a "currency manipulator", triggering sanctions under US law. This has been finessed before, but we are in a new world now with America's U6 unemployment at 16.8pc. "It's going to be really...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- One year into its promise of greater government transparency, the Obama administration is more often citing exceptions to the nation's open records law to withhold federal records even as the number of requests for information decline, according to a review by The Associated Press of agency audits about the Freedom of Information Act. Among the most frequently cited reasons for keeping records secret: one that Obama specifically told agencies to stop using so frequently. The Freedom of Information Act exception, known as the "deliberative process" exemption, lets the government withhold records that describe its decision-making behind the...
A decennial tradition that dates back 220 years to the days of George Washington continues today when federal census forms start arriving at more than 120 million households across the United States. But hanging over this 23rd U.S. census are concerns about a decline in participation. While the U.S. census has always evoked some resentment toward the feds for poking their nose into people's business, there's a sense that America's distrust of the government has reached greater heights and could contribute to poor census returns.
The long-simmering clash between the world's two great powers is coming to a head, with dangerous implications for the international system. China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand. Within a month the US Treasury must rule whether China is a "currency manipulator", triggering sanctions under US law. This has been...
A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade. Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic," and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold...
Friday, March 19, 2010
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