Submitted by The Capital Spectator
No one should be surprised by this morning’s discouraging news on weekly jobless claims, which surged to 407,000 last week–the highest since the anomalous but temporary spike in September 2005 directly after Hurricane Katrina. The warning signs have been bubbling for months, as CS and others have pointed out. And so, […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by Econbrowser
Several chapters of the IMF’s semi-annual research document are now available online, in advance of the IMF-Bank meetings.

See this web page:

Chapter 3. The Changing Housing Cycle and the Implications for Monetary Policy
Chapter 4. Climate Change and the Global Economy
Chapter 5. Globalization, Commodity Prices, and Developing Countries

Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by CARPE DIEM
WALL STREET JOURNAL–As the shortage of primary-care physicians mounts, the nursing profession is offering a possible solution: the “doctor nurse.”
More than 200 nursing schools have established or plan to launch doctorate of nursing practice programs to equip graduates with skills the schools say are equivalent to primary-care physicians. The two-year programs, including […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by Businomics Blog
Fast Company magazine has a good article about AOL’s troubles.  There are plenty of troubles to chronicle, but here’s a particularly informative one:
In November [2006], search had posted 38.9 million visitors; by May, the figure was down to 35.2 million. [COO Ron] Grant zeroed in on the multimedia character of AOL query […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by CARPE DIEM

The Democrat-led Congress last year broke a promise to slash pork spending and doled out $17.2 billion for pet projects, a 30% increase over the previous year’s $13.2 billion expenditure, according to the Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) 2008 “Pig Book.” Congress stuffed 11,610 projects into fiscal 2008 spending bills, the second-highest […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by Econbrowser
And a bit on the IMF’s revised forecast for the US.
From Reuters, “U.S.’s Paulson praises China on currency progress”:

BEIJING, April 2 (Reuters) - China has made substantial progress toward adopting a more flexible currency that will help it cope with inflation pressures from rising food prices, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by CARPE DIEM
 
The Monster Employment Indexedged up two points in March, as overall U.S. online job availability rose moderately for the second consecutive month, but remained down 10% from a year ago. The Monster Employment Index is based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large, representative selection […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by A Dash of Insight
For the last few months, and much longer for some, there has been a barrage of commentary about whether or not “we are already in a recession.”  The financial media have continuously polled the public to see what they think, and asked everyone who appeared on financial television.  It did […]

continue reading.....