Sunday, May 10, 2009

Good Morning, and Happy Mother's Day.  We are supposed to have a cool but sunny day.  Perfect for a trip out to Sister's for a potluck dinner.

This little story caught me by surprise.  Did anyone out there know that the Postal Service was raising stamps by 2 cents as of Monday?  I hadn't heard anything about that.  It didn't make the news.  Apparently it is now automatic.  They can raise the price yearly so long as the increase doesn't exceed the inflation rate.  Crap!!!

On the other hand, this blog entry did not surprise me.  I haven't bought into the notion that a minor decrease in the RATE of jobless increase is cause for wild elation.  Yes, 500+k new unemployment claims is better than the 600+k of the last several months.  But it is still half a million and change newly unemployed people.  It is wonderful that 4+M new jobs were created but there is still a big deficit.  I agree totally with Meteor Blades at Daily Kos.  And, as Daddy always said, figures don't lie but liars sure can figure.  All they have to do is carefully choose which numbers to use and then put the best possible spin on those numbers.

The Economic Populist has an interesting analysis of U.S. debt and China's willingness (or lack of willingness) to purchase that debt.  Given that our recovery is being fueled by debt, this may have interesting repercussions and not pleasant ones.

Again, have a happy Mother's Day.

2 comments:

Elaine said...

I hadn't heard about the increase in postage (again)! Does your bank offer online bill pay? Mine does and it's great! I rarely mail anything except cards and a few odd things.

Sunny and cool here too...have a wonderful day at your Sister's!

Kay Dennison said...

Postage increased? Yikes!!!! Does that mean my forever stamps are no good?

Unemployment is 11% in my county here in Ohio and there are counties that are much worse.
And that is a false figure. It doesn't count all the people whose unemployment compensation is gone but still have no job.

Employers are buried in a sea of papers -- they get 100+ resumes for a part-time office job.

It's a holocaust