"45,000 Mass. residents to feel pinch of federal cutbacks" by Megan Woolhouse | Globe Staff, April 13, 2013
About 45,000 Massachusetts residents who have been unemployed for at least six months will see their unemployment benefits shrink by the end of the month due to automatic federal cutbacks that went into effect recently because of a stalemate in Congress.
Massachusetts officials said they are mailing letters Saturday to alert these workers that their benefits will drop about 13 percent, or $50 a week on average, as a result of across-the-board cuts known as sequestration. Nationwide, about 2 million long-term unemployed are affected.
That's (almost) groceries for the week.
Related:
Budgeting My Posts
Obama Budget $crews Students
Elite Schools $queezing Taxpayers
Sunday Globe Specials: Fiscal Cliff Fraud
Did you see whose getting the check?
The cuts will not affect those receiving benefits during the first six months of their unemployment because those are paid through a state trust fund financed by employers. But the benefits after six months are funded by the federal government, making them subject to the $85 billion in cuts to military and domestic spending. Those cuts went into effect last month.
In Massachusetts, unemployed workers can collect up to 28 additional weeks of federally funded benefits after they exhaust state benefits.
The cuts come as long-term unemployment in the state and nation remains at near-record levels.
Nearly 65,000 unemployed people in Massachusetts and 3.5 million nationally have been looking for work for a year or more, nearly five times the number in 2006, according to the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development and US Labor Department. About half of those affected are age 45 and older, a segment of the workforce with vast experience that is finding little opportunity.
Related: The Boston Globe Writes About Me
“You are penalizing people who are already beaten down, taking more money away from the very short money that they have,” said Joan Cirillo, executive director of Operation ABLE, a Boston nonprofit that offers job placement and retraining assistance specifically to older workers. “It’s just one more punch to someone struggling.”
**************************************
And who did the Globe meet at the unemployment office?
Mary Lou Ward of Medford, who lost her job as a manager at WGBH eight months ago, said, “We’re going to be pinching pennies.”
*********************************
The reductions go into effect in Massachusetts the last week of this month. And that only adds to the worries of people like 54-year-old Harriette Batson of Chelsea, a commercial loan analyst who was laid off in October from her job of 12 years at a major bank....
Oh, yeah? Which one?
--more--"
And the bank remains safely anonymous.
Was it this one?
"JPMorgan earnings jump 33 percent in quarter" by Jessica Silver-Greenberg | New York Times, April 13, 2013
NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, reported a 33 percent rise in first-quarter earnings to $6.5 billion Friday, bolstered by gains in the investment banking business and a surge in mortgage lending....
Gains from investment banking [have] allowed JPMorgan to record 12 consecutive quarters of profit....
And your unemployment check is getting cut.
The report kicked off the bank earnings season. As the nation’s largest bank by assets, JPMorgan is often looked at as a bellwether.
A bright spot for earnings was mortgage lending, fueled in part by federal programs that have helped damp interest rates. Those low rates have prompted homeowners to refinance....
Except banks haven't helped them refinance.
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Also see: Slow Saturday Special: Crime Does Pay For Dimon
Or this one?
"Wells Fargo & Co., the nation’s biggest mortgage lender, said Friday that first-quarter profit surged 23 percent after it cut expenses. The lower costs offset a slight decline in revenue as mortgage lending slowed. Net income rose to $4.93 billion."
That's in three months time, folks.
I find that very interesting, don't you?
"Mortgage business boosts Wells Fargo profit" by Jessica Silver-Greenberg | New York Times, January 12, 2013
NEW YORK — Wells Fargo reported $5.1 billion in profit for the fourth quarter on Friday, a 24 percent increase, driven by the bank’s lucrative mortgage business.
Seizing on low-interest rates that have spurred a flurry of refinancing activity, the bank again notched record profits. For the last 12 quarters, profits at the bank have increased....
Wells Fargo, unlike many of its rivals, has been able to steadily increase its revenue....
Much of the revenue gains stemmed from the bank’s consumer lending business, as borrowers jumped on record low interest rates to refinance their mortgages. Wells Fargo, which dominates the market as the nation’s largest mortgage lender, notched $125 billion in mortgage originations, up from $120 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011. Refinancing applications accounted for nearly 75 percent of that total.
The big profit in the group came from the extra money Wells Fargo makes bundling the mortgages into bonds and selling them to the government. In the fourth quarter, the bank reported $2.8 billion of net gains on its mortgages activities, up 51 percent.
That is the SAME TYPE of MORTGAGE-BACKED SECURITIES S*** that DESTROYED the WORLD ECONOMY!
Yup, NO DODD-FRANK RULES have been written and WALL STREET is right back to BU$INE$$ as U$UAL!!!!!
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Related: US sues Wells Fargo over loan defaults
Turns out they misrepresented the quality of thousands of loans in order to be eligible for federal loan insurance. Some might call that lying.
"US banks’ profits are best in six years; but some say economy is not the main reason" by Marcy Gordon and Christina Rexrode | Associated Press, December 05, 2012
WASHINGTON — US banks are enjoying their best profits in six years and are lending a bit more freely. The gradual improvement suggests the industry will sustain its healing from the worst financial crisis in decades and help strengthen the economy.
Then all's well with the world.
The industry earned $37.6 billion from July through September, a 6.6 percent increase from a year earlier.
Oh, look, another record.
For the first time since 2009, the stronger earnings were due mainly to higher revenue rather than to less money set aside to cover losses, data issued Tuesday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. showed. Loans to consumers rose nearly 1 percent from the July-September 2011 period.
‘‘We are seeing the classic recovery from a recession,’’ said Bert Ely, a banking industry consultant in Alexandria, Va. ‘‘All of the arrows are pointing in the right direction.’’
I thought a classic recovery actually had some jobs.
Some of the largest banks caution, though, that earnings are up mostly because they have sold less-profitable businesses, shed bad loans, and trimmed jobs — not because of a more vibrant economy.
Only confirming what we already knew.
Some banks are testing higher fees on consumer loans and services to offset new rules mandated after the crisis that have crimped revenue.
Are they un-f***ing-believable or what?
Making billions of profit every quarter (admittedly all shadow wealth that exists only on paper through fraud, but it looks good in the bank acccount) and the DAMN MA$$ MEDIA MOUTHPIECE has the nerve to say CRIMPED REVENUE and NEW REGULATIONS!
I wish I could be "crimped" to the tune of billions a month!!!
Consumer lending grew in most categories in the third quarter. That shows banks are becoming less cautious, which could help the economy.
Could? I was told they are the drivers of growth, etc.
Of course, we all know by now that debt-driven economies will inevitably collapse.
More lending leads to more consumer spending, which drives roughly 70 percent of US economic activity. The banks’ mortgage loans rose 0.8 percent from the previous quarter; auto loans, 2.4 percent.
FDIC chairman Martin Gruenberg acknowledged the increase in consumer lending was ‘‘relatively modest.’’
Ely noted that many businesses and consumers are still reluctant to borrow, and banks are cautious about lending. That’s creating a slow transition for banks from stemming losses to boosting profits.
Are you tired of the disingenuousness and contradictory crap, folks?
They have made record profits three years running.
The biggest banks say that customers have held off on borrowing in part because of slower global growth and worries about the so-called fiscal cliff — automatic tax increases and spending cuts that kick in next month unless President Obama and Congress reach a deal to avert them.
See: Sunday Globe Specials: Fiscal Cliff Fraud
I'll bet the are happy now.
Since the Great Recession ended 3½ years ago, the economy has been growing at a subpar annual rate of roughly 2 percent. Most economists say it needs to grow twice as fast to rapidly lower unemployment, now at 7.9 percent.
Yeah, except the Grand Depression never ended for those of us outside the privileged realm of elite wealth.
This week, Wells Fargo & Co. chief executive John Stumpf said he expects the economy to remain tepid until customers and businesses better understand Washington’s plans. ‘‘I don’t see the impetus to all of a sudden go from a 2 percent growth to a 5 percent growth,’’ he said.
The Federal Reserve’s policies have helped banks borrow cheaply for the past four years. The Fed has kept short-term interest rates near zero to try to spur the economy. And the Fed’s bond purchases have led to lower long-term interest rates, which have helped drive a modest housing recovery.
Yeah, the Feds a real hero.
But banks complain that low interest rates have also reduced the money they can make on loans.
I gue$$ the F***ING MONEY JUNKIES are NEVER $ATED!!!!!!!!
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See anything else in that dark pool of rigged fraud?
Let's check those unemployment numbers, shall we?
"Dismal jobless report alarms" by Taryn Luna and Megan Woolhouse | Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff, April 06, 2013
The US job market sputtered again in March as hiring slowed sharply, hundreds of thousands of Americans gave up job searches, and the percentage of Americans participating in the labor force fell to its lowest level since 1979, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Meaning they are NOT COUNTED as UNEMPLOYED!
Employers added only 88,000 jobs last month, just one-third of job gains in February and the fewest since June, when the economy struggled through the financial crisis in Europe. The unemployment rate slipped to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent in February, but the decline was primarily the result of nearly 500,000 Americans giving up looking for work — a sign that the US economy is still not growing fast enough to reemploy the millions who lost jobs in the last recession.
After five years of recovery?
Btw, they are NOT LOOKING to EMPLOY YOU!
Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate — the percentage of working-age Americans employed or looking for jobs — fell to 63.3 percent, the lowest rate since May 1979.
“It’s almost like we’re trying to start an engine, where we think it’s revving up and it loses momentum again,” said Nigel Gault, chief economist with IHS Global Insight, a Lexington forecasting firm. “It’s not catching, and it’s definitely not firing on all cylinders.”
This is one of the same propagandists the Globe always turns to. He's been talking growth and shoveling the shit line for years.
The weakness in the labor market was viewed by analysts and investors as a setback after several months of solid job gains....
But it's a golden age for corporate profits!
The Dow Jones industrial average fell by as much as 171 points after the March statistics were released, but rebounded to regain all but 41 points, closing at 14,565.
The Dow is a rigged piece of shit. They choose the top 30 companies, and the trading is all influenced by computer programs to create commissions for Wall Street banks. If you do badly, the Dow drops you and puts a better-performing company in your place.
The disappointing employment report also makes it likely the Federal Reserve will continue its policies to keep mortgage and other interest rates near record lows to accelerate job growth by encouraging businesses and consumers to borrow and spend, analysts said.
Then it is a FAILED POLICY that is doing nothing but putting money in the pockets of bankers while wrecking the purchasing power of the dollar!
And we DON'T WANT TO BORROW ANYMORE! We have $EEN where that LEAD$!!!!!
Earlier this month, with the economy showing signs of improvement, several Fed policy makers suggested that the time was approaching for the central bank to begin letting interest rates rise.
And watch hyper-inflation make the dollar worthless.
But speaking at a forum in Boston Friday, Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said, “a more aggressive response to persistently high unemployment rates is warranted.” Continued stimulus, he said, “is an appropriate response to labor market scarring.”
Also see: Rosengren sees more need for Fed stimulus
While the nation has been steadily adding jobs for more than three years, the growth has not been strong enough to absorb new workers entering the labor market and reemploy those who lost jobs in the last recession. Long-term unemployment remains near all time highs. Last month, some 4.5 million Americans were jobless for more than six months — nearly 40 percent of all unemployed.
Philip Swagel, an economist at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, called long-term unemployment “the most disconcerting thing about the labor market today.”
“If we don’t have a stronger recovery soon,” he said, “we will have a generation of people whose job prospects are permanently damaged.”
It's being designed that way, as I will soon prove when I start posting about the immigration bill coming out of Congress.
Roger Ahlfeld of Framingham has been hunting for a job for almost two years and burning through savings.
I know how he feels.
A former human resources executive at Uno restaurants, where he worked for 16 years, he said employers appear to be insisting on hiring people with very specific skills. For example, he has an advanced degree in hotel and restaurant management, but was told by one prospective employer that they wanted to hire a person with strictly hotel experience.
“Companies are thinking they can be extremely choosey,” he said.
$$$$$$$$$$$
Economists said the anemic hiring in March does not appear to signal a broader slowdown ahead. The length of the workweek, for example, increased slightly in March, a sign that companies are continuing to see demand for their products and services.
Why should we believe what those liars say anymore?
In addition, revisions to data in January and February showed the nation added 61,000 more jobs in those two months than initially estimated.
Uh-huh.
And what do you mean estimated?
See:
Boston Globe Giving You the Business
Boston Globe Business Pages Are Nothing But Bulls***!
Just like the rest of the paper.
Sophia Koropeckyj, managing director at Moody’s Analytics, a forecasting firm in West Chester, Pa., said it is important to look at more than one month when assessing the economy. Data can swing sharply from month to month and are frequently revised.
You know what they say: figures lie and liars figure.
So far this year, the economy has created an average of 150,000 jobs a month, a slight acceleration from previous months. But, she added, “It’s really not enough to get the labor market moving. . . . We need to see more than 200,000 jobs a month, but that’s not going to happen for awhile.”
Economists said cold, snowy weather in March might have contributed to the weak job growth. For example, building material and garden supply stores, which typically see business pick up as spring approaches, shed 10,000 workers last month, according to the Labor Department.
Just before?
But even as the winter finally passes, the economy faces more headwinds, economists said. The effects of the automatic federal budget cuts should begin to be felt in April, they said.
PFFFFFFT!
Pre-made excuse for failed policies.
“We’ll have to see whether the private sector will be strong enough to withstand what the federal government will bring down on the economy,” Koropeckyj said. “The economy will be taking a hit, and maybe this is the beginning.”
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But things are looking up!
"US jobless aid requests in sharp drop" by Christopher S. Rubaber | Associated Press, April 12, 2013
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to a seasonally adjusted 346,000, signaling that the job market might be stronger than March’s weak month of hiring suggested.
At what point does the $hamele$$ f***ing agenda-pu$hing stop?
Applications for unemployment aid dropped by 42,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The decline nearly reversed an increase over the previous three weeks. The four-week average rose 3,000 to 358,000.
The number of unemployment applications has been volatile in the past two weeks largely because of the Easter holiday, a department spokesman said.
Pffft!
The timing of the holiday changes from year to year. That makes it hard to adjust for school holidays and other changes that can cause temporary layoffs.
I am SO SICK of ALL the F***ING SOPHISTRY and EXCUSES!
Applications had risen two weeks ago to 388,000, the highest level in four months. That spike ‘‘appears to have been a false alarm,’’ Jim O’Sullivan, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics, said in a note to clients....
Last week’s drop in applications for unemployment aid could signal that hiring is picking up in April.
Or not as many people are being laid off.
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Someone should lay off the AmeriKan ma$$ media.
