Clipmarks | JICWyllie's clips

US unemployment reaches highest for 26 years

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:15:28 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

The Labour Department said that 190,000 jobs had been lost in October, worse than the 175,000 expected by economists, pushing the unemployment rate to 10.2 per cent — the highest figure since April 1983.

This week, Labour Department figures showed that first-time claims for jobless benefits had fallen fell by 20,000, better than expected, to a seasonally adjusted 512,000 in the previous seven days

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed people in America has risen by 8.2 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points.

The largest job losses last month were in construction, manufacturing and retail.

“Our concern is that, unlike the last recovery, with credit still tight, households aren’t going to be able to smooth their consumption using credit until the labour market eventually strengthens,” he said.

Tags: 1-unemployment, 2-increase, 2-record, 3-reported, 4-us

Personal insolvencies rise to new record as unemployment bites

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:53:51 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

More people than ever before were declared insolvent in England and Wales during the third quarter of the year. Figures released by the Insolvency Service yesterday reveal that there were 35,242 personal insolvencies over the three months to the end of September, up by 28 per cent on the same period of 2008, and by 6 per cent on the previous quarter.

Just over half of the insolvencies were fully fledged bankruptcies, while around 17,000 people entered into an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) or a debt relief order (DRO).

There is also some concern that the Insolvency Service's figures do not include debt management plans, where people agree with their creditors to pay a set amount each month, often of a token sum. These schemes do not count as insolvencies and no central register is kept, though many thousands of struggling borrowers are thought to have been advised to accept such arrangements with lenders.

Tags: 1-insolvancy, 2-increase, 3-reported, 4-uk

Scientists warn caribou collapse not unlike disappearance of cod stocks

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:31:51 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.google.com

Once a gigantic bloom of life that sustained entire societies, the cod fishery was closed in 1992 after a near-total collapse of fish stocks. The subsequent bust of Newfoundland's outport culture was nearly as complete.

Recent surveys on two major caribou herds in Canada's North suggest the same thing may be happening there. And as scientists begin to unlock the secrets of that decline, aboriginals who still depend on the great herds to feed both body and soul are rethinking old assumptions.

"The elders are saying that there is a cycle, that caribou go away somewhere but they come back," Nitsiza said. "This time, the caribou may not come back."

Climate change has long been suspected as being behind the recent widespread declines.

The Bluenose West herd

was under 20,000 animals in 2006 - a quarter its size at the turn of the millennium

Concern has been building for years. But this summer, survey results carried a distinct whiff of impending catastrophe.

Tags: 1-collapse, 1-ecocide, 1-extinction, 1-population, 2-increase, 2-risks, 3-reported, 4-canada

UK interest costs 'equal to entire Transport bill'

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:03:38 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: Interest rates will have to go up increasing public debt costs even further, as the value of sterling falls on the currency markets.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

The IMF singled out the UK as being at significant risk from the threat of rising debt interest costs as it absorbs the effects of the financial and economic crisis. It said that the proportion of UK taxes that will go towards financing the national debt will, in five years' time, be double what it was just before the onset of the crisis.

It said: "Just the increase in interest spending in the United Kingdom is about twice annual outlays for environmental protection and is equivalent to annual spending on public transportation."

The surprising bluntness of the warning, which was contained in a broader document analysing the fiscal situation in a variety of countries, will be seen as a direct rebuke to Gordon Brown, who repeatedly ignored IMF advice in previous years to cut the deficit and leave the UK better-placed for future downturns.

debt servicing costs should not surpass levels seen in the 1980s, they are extremely sensitive to a sudden jump in interest rates

Tags: 1-policy, 1-subsidies, 2-consequences, 2-record, 2-risks, 3-forecast, 3-researchj, 4-uk

Britain should become a 'hire society' rather than a 'throw away' society says WRAP

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:52:55 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: Good idea! Now if deconsumption became a coherent government policy aimed at orderly economic contraction, rather than growth, people in their masses would be able to engage. An added benefit of deconsumption would be shorter working weeks and more freedom time.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

The first ever study on how cutting waste can help the UK meet ambitious climate change targets, found ordinary people could save a huge amount of carbon dioxide simply by consuming less.

The biggest change is through eating less meat and making things last longer through "make do and mend".

However, thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide could also be saved by hiring goods rather than buying things brand new. This will not only stop old ski equiment and ball gowns clogging up cupbaords but change Britain from a "throw away society" to a "hire society".

The report by the Government agency in charge of cutting waste, WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), pointed out that around a third of all products that are thrown away are still working. By hiring things instead, it will ensure less goods are manufactured and thrown in landfill, therefore cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

£148 billion of the £732 billion spent every year by households could be spent on services rather than goods.

Tags: 1-climate change, 1-policy, 1-re-use, 1-thrift, 2-change, 2-opportunities, 3-advocated, 4-uk

It’s a dirty business — the new gold rush that is blackening Canada’s name

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:01:26 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: A picture of man-made hell where pristine carbon reducing forest thrived only a few years ago. People choose both to create and to live in it. And Canadian governments subsidise the process.

Clip Source: business.timesonline.co.uk

BP and Shell are among dozens of oil companies preparing to raise production from 1.3 million barrels a day at present to 2.5 million by 2015 and 6 million by 2030.

The sands contain 174 billion barrels of proven reserves, the world’s second-largest reserves after Saudi Arabia. With improved techniques, Canada hopes to extract between 315 billion and 1.7 trillion barrels.

A Co-operative Bank study calculated that, even if all other carbon dioxide emissions stopped, fully exploiting the tar sands would still tip the world into catastrophic climate change by raising global temperatures more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. Extracting each barrel of crude from the sticky mass of sand, clay and bitumen produces two to three times as much CO2 as drilling for a barrel of conventional oil.

Alberta’s latest proposal to rid tar sands of their dirty image is a C$2 billion subsidy for carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities.

Tags: 1-climate change, 1-ecocide, 1-policy, 1-profits, 2-increase, 2-risks, 3-forecast, 3-reported, 4-canada

Our Produce-or-Die Culture Is Killing Us -- And We're Idiotically Grinning and Bearing It

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:13:04 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: You cannot be free if your life depends on salary (or a government handout).

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

It may be my bias, or my imagination, or my distaste for toil, but from here America looks like one big workhouse, "under God, indivisible, with time off to shit, shower and shop." A country whose citizens have been reduced to "human assets" of a vast and relentless economic machine, moving human parts oiled by commodities and kept in motion by the edict, "produce or die." Where employment and a job dominates all other aspects of life, and the loss of which spells the loss of everything.

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

No jokers, smokers or midnight tokers allowed in Mainstream American society and culture, which consists of working, consuming and "appearing to be," but never purely being.

we are

issued products of a profit driven workhouse where no human commons is allowable, lest the workers find meaning and joy in each other as human beings, and perhaps become less work driven, less productive and less profitable.

Tags: 1-employment, 1-policy, 1-productivity, 2-consequences, 2-increase, 3-argued, 4-us

How do you think nation-states will respond to these collapse scenarios? (cont.)

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:37:13 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: Like American Indians, resistance must kept up to the end, without hope. It is the only honour left. The first step is to find allies.

Clip Source: energybulletin.net

How do you think nation-states will respond to these collapse scenarios?

first of all I think we should recognize nation-states are not inevitable for the rest of human history. My own view is that were going to end up finding other ways to organize ourselves politically, because the nation-state is at the center of so much of this destruction.

we could do everything we can imagine in the realm of a just and sustainable policy and still fail. The human species does not have some magic guarantee. Other species have come and gone, and it’s quite possible, in fact I would argue it’s probably likely, were going to go that way relatively soon. And people always say, well that’s a rather depressing fact. Well if it’s a fact, it’s a fact, and you know there is no way to know for sure.

But even if it does seem to be our future, in the time we are here, I think part of what makes one human is to resist that, to struggle, even with no guarantee of success.

Arctic Sediments Show That 20th Century Warming Is Unlike Natural Variation

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:25:32 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

The research reveals that sediments retrieved by University at Buffalo geologists from a remote Arctic lake are unlike those seen during previous warming episodes.

The UB researchers and their international colleagues were able to pinpoint that dramatic changes began occurring in unprecedented ways after the midpoint of the twentieth century.

The whole ecosystem has now shifted and the ecosystem we see during just the last few decades is different from those seen during any of the past warm intervals."

"The 20th century is the only period during the past 200 millennia in which aquatic indicators reflect increased warming, despite the declining effect of slow changes in the tilt of the Earth's axis which, under natural conditions, would lead to climatic cooling."

Tags: 1-climate change, 1-proof, 2-increase, 2-record, 3-reported, 3-research, 4-arctic

War Society, Collapse and the University: an interview with Robert Jensen

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:01:27 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: energybulletin.net

So, the buildup in Afghanistan is not only immoral, it’s not only fundamentally unjust; in this case it’s also incredibly stupid. So on all counts, anyway you want to evaluate this, the United States is making crucial errors.

why are we doing this?

first of all remember that just because people in power might be corrupt and immoral doesn’t mean they’re always competent.

the war is an indicator not just of the depravity of the war-makers, it’s a very important indicator of what’s going on in society more generally. And about that, I’m terrified. The direction the whole culture is heading is very scary.

If everybody in the world lived like you and I live, the planet would literally die tomorrow.

The question shouldn’t be when can you predict all of this is going to fall apart; it’s a recognition that it inevitably will fall apart, and we either prepare for it, in both physical terms, but also I think in moral terms.

Tags: 1-morality, 1-policy, 1-war, 2-increase, 2-risks, 3-forecast, 4-afghanistan, 4-us

BA faces record losses as winter strikes loom

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:32:54 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: More grist for the the re-nationalisation mill? It would be worth it just to see how wound up Richard Branson would get.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

City analysts expect BA to have racked up a pre-tax loss of £252m during the first half of the year, leaving the airline facing a second straight year without profits for the first time since it was privatised in the 1980s.

Willie Walsh, BA's chief executive, will unveil the loss to shareholders at the end of a turbulent five days that begins tomorrow with a union meeting of 2,500 cabin crew at racing ground Sandown park. There will also be a connected High Court hearing later in the week.

Officials at BA fear that even the threat of a walkout will be enough to deter passengers from booking with the airline and potentially saddle it with a pre-tax loss that eclipses the £401m recorded in its last financial year. The summer period is critical for most airlines, and in the first half of 2008 BA enjoyed a profit of £52m despite the UK economy already being mired in recession.

Tags: 1-aviation, 1-losess, 1-strikes, 2-increase, 3-reported, 4-uk

Meat creates half of all greenhouse gases

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:23:55 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: People are cutting down rain forests to make grazing land for cattle, or to grow soya beans for cattle to eat. Now the numbers of methane emitting livestock are orders of magnitude greater than they were only 50 years ago.

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

Climate change emissions from meat production are far higher than currently estimated, according to a controversial new study that will fuel the debate on whether people should eat fewer animal products to help the environment.

In a paper published by a respected US thinktank, the Worldwatch Institute, two World Bank environmental advisers claim that instead of 18 per cent of global emissions being caused by meat, the true figure is 51 per cent.

They claim that United Nation's figures have severely underestimated the greenhouse gases caused by tens of billions of cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry and other animals in three main areas: methane, land use and respiration.

"If this argument is right," write Goodland and Anhang, "it implies that replacing livestock products with better alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change.

Scientists are concerned about livestock's exhalation of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Cows

emit 37 per cent of the world's methane.

Tags: 1-emissions, 1-farming, 2-increase, 2-record, 3-reported, 3-research, 4-intl

Wildlife crime: Britain's killing fields

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:10:24 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: "What a piece of work is man", said Hamlet.

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

Crimes against wildlife, including badger baiting with dogs, hare coursing, poisoning of protected birds and even trapping them to sell as caged pets have soared to unprecedented heights. New figures from the police show that the number of wildlife crimes more than doubled in the last year, from 2,177 to 5,854.

Incidents are now being recorded at a rate of 120 a week. They cover not only the slaughtering of badgers and rare birds of prey, but also egg thefts, bird trapping, deer poaching and habitat destruction.

Northumbria a conspicuous target for wildlife criminals.

What make the statistics even more remarkable is that they do not include crimes against domestic and farm animals. In 2008, the RSPCA investigated 140,000 cases of animal cruelty in England and Wales, a steep rise from the 2003 figure of 105,000. The charity has seen dog fighting rise tenfold since 2004, with nearly 300 incidents last year.

Badger baiters are travelling far and wide to commit offences

Tags: 1-cruelty, 1-extinction, 1-murder, 2-increase, 2-record, 3-reported, 4-uk

Royal Bank of Scotland to be 84% nationalised

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:02:41 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: More public debt! First money spent on nationalised banks. What next? British Airways? It's all piling more and more debt on the future. I suspect that the future won't pay up.

Clip Source: business.timesonline.co.uk

Alistair Darling is preparing to plough billions more of taxpayers’ money into Royal Bank of Scotland to take the government stake in the bank from 70% to as high as 84%.

A Treasury announcement this week will confirm RBS is signing up to a controversial deal to pump £270 billion of problematic loans into a state-backed insurance scheme.

As part of the deal, the government will pour up to £19 billion of additional capital into RBS by taking up an issue of “B” shares. The subsequent increase in the taxpayers’ stake will leave the bank virtually nationalised, with a small portion of shares left in the hands of private investors.

The scale of the state aid at RBS has also prompted a savage response from Brussels, which is imposing penalties on all European banks bailed out during the financial crisis.

Tags: 1-bailouts, 1-nationalisation, 1-policy, 2-change, 3-reported, 4-uk

Oil firms' profits keep dropping as recession shrinks demand for energy

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:49:22 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: What will happen if the price falls back to less than $50 a barrel? The key is that the oil price is really based on the most people can afford, not supply. If it doesn't pay to maintain supply because costs are higher than income generated, then supply will not be maintained.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

The world's biggest oil companies are reporting sharp declines in quarterly profit as the recession continues to weigh on consumer demand, driving down energy prices.

Exxon's refining business took an especially large hit from July to September, with profits dropping 89 percent, as gasoline and diesel prices fell. Shell, whose refining earnings declined 47 percent, said the plunge in demand will keep profit margins narrow in "the short and medium term" and a quick recovery in energy usage and prices is unlikely.

"If you look at the whole picture for all the big oils, the only thing that's really helped them is that the oil price has come off the floor,

Those rising prices -- which usually fatten profits at companies such as Exxon -- have come with a cost, however. The refining side of the business is getting hit hard because it must pay more for crude to make fuel, but consumer demand for fuel has not rebounded as strongly.

Tags: 1-profits, 1-supply, 2-consequences, 2-decrease, 3-reported, 4-intl