Wednesday, July 29, 2009

World's tallest tower to open for public on Dec 2

The world's tallest building Burj Dubai will be thrown open to the public on December 2, to coincide with UAE's National Day.



The opening date of the building has been a closely guarded secret for years – however, a senior architect working on the project has confirmed that December 2 has been set aside for the opening, the Arabian Business reported.

The Armani Hotel, which is part of the building, will welcome its first guests on the same day.

Ceremonies to mark the launch are also being planned for December 2, the report said but it was not yet clear whether other parts of the tower will be fully accessible.

"This will be a huge achievement and a big celebration for the UAE and for Emaar, particularly as it's UAE National Day. It will be the first time the public can enter the building," said the architect.

The final piece of glass cladding to complete the exterior of Burj Dubai, was now ready and would be installed within weeks, developer Emaar Properties said. Emaar, however, has maintained it will not comment on the opening date.

Spanning six metres in length, the panel is the last of the 24,348 pieces of cladding fitted to the super-structure.

Emaar has been tight-lipped over the final height of the tower, which is believed to have topped 818 metres earlier this year. More than 1,000 specially commissioned pieces of art will adorn the interiors of Burj Dubai.

Betsy McCaughey - Don’t Let OBAMA & WASHINGTON BUREACRATS Tell Your Doctor What To Do

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Jim Rogers on The Disciplined Investor 26 July 2009

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2008年全球金融風暴 柏南奇資產縮水

(中央社記者黃兆平紐約28日專電)2008年全球金融風暴重創美國股市,連聯邦準備理事會(Fed)主席柏南奇也遭殃。根據最新資料,這位美央行總裁去年擁有資產約在85萬至190萬美元之間,比之前縮水約1/4。

2008年以前,柏南奇(Ben Bernanke)約擁有120萬至250萬美元資產。柏南奇任期到明年1月屆滿,他是否應該繼續連任,最近在經濟學家之間引起激烈爭辯。

「華爾街日報」報導,柏南奇資產縮水最大變動出現在大型股票變額年金 (large-cap stock variableannuity),從2007年底的價值50萬至100萬美元,減少到介於25萬至50萬美元之間。

  柏南奇所有的先鋒國際成長基金(Vanguard International Growth Fund)也失血不少。

資料同時顯示,柏南奇去年7月及11月,分兩次出售他擁有的加拿大政府債券。

柏南奇新增兩筆資料是在美國SunTrust銀行開了一個1萬5000美元到5萬美元的支票帳戶,貨幣市場存款帳戶金額介於5萬至10萬美元。

  另外,柏南奇在美第四大銀行Wachovia銀行也有支票及貨幣市場存款帳戶,但2008年存款顯示少於1000美元。

報導還指出,柏南奇在2008年購買由Blackrock公司管理的兩支基金,包括大型股及高報酬基金;2007年時,他擁有的類似基金由美林證券(Merrill Lynch&Co.)操盤。

全球最大鋼鐵廠阿塞洛米塔爾連3季虧損

(中央社台北29日綜合外電報導)全球最大鋼鐵廠阿塞洛米塔爾 (ArcelorMittal NL-MT)公佈連續第3季虧損,並表示由於需求復甦,該公司計劃恢復部份閒置產能。

總部設在盧森堡的阿塞洛米塔爾指出,第2季淨損7.92億美元或每股淨損57美分,上年同季淨利58.4億美元或每股淨利4.19美元。第二季淨損高於分析師預估的3.36億美元。銷售銳減60%,至152億美元。

執行長米塔 (Lakshmi Mittal)指出,「第二季持續是個艱困的一季,需求還是疲弱。我們預期今年上半年是這次景氣循環的底部。」他說,近週已出現些許回春跡象,公司計劃恢復部份產能。下半年景氣將「繼續逐步好轉」。(譯者:中央社趙蔚蘭)

台灣‧廟宇養眼壁畫處處‧土地公看爆乳仙女

(台灣‧台北)土地公老眼昏花需靠爆乳仙女“養眼”?

台灣媒體近日報導,新竹縣新埔鎮米粉寮福德宮內爆乳仙女壁畫隨處可見,甚至還有24孝“乳姑不怠”2點全露的孝親圖。位在保守的客家莊內,地方居民反應不一,有文史工作者大歎敗俗,指“對神明不敬、不倫不類”,但畫工廖鳳琴卻說這是他的藝術創作。

新竹縣竹東鎮惠昌宮牆上彩繪的“觀音送子圖”,觀世音被畫成爆乳,文史工作者批“不倫不類”,廟方挺創作者,表示沒有人反映不妥。(圖:互聯網)
新竹縣竹東鎮惠昌宮牆上彩繪的“觀音送子圖”,觀世音被畫成爆乳,文史工作者批“不倫不類”,廟方挺創作者,表示沒有人反映不妥。(圖:互聯網)

位於四座里的米粉寮福德宮,其實是他在新埔最早完工的“作品”,內外不僅充斥許多爆乳的仙女迎接香客,甚至在土地公、土地婆面對著的正殿大門門楣上,就有2個捧著“福星拱照”的爆乳仙女。

此外,在廟外拜庭的天棚上則有24孝中“乳姑不怠”的孝親圖,畫中媳婦袒胸露乳讓婆婆吸乳,引人側目。

貴妃出浴“三點全露”

70歲的劉阿婆說,她用母奶養大孩,但是“有誰餵奶,2顆全都掀出來給人看的?”至於五埔裡開台宮的歡樂台牆上貴妃出浴的畫面,更讓貴妃幾乎“三點全露”;附近住民坦言,有時實在不好意思直視,更不希望孩子接近戲台玩耍。

四座里里長、也是當初米粉寮福德宮重建委員會委員的劉士相說,當初並不知道會畫成這樣,但是幾年過去了,大家已經見怪不怪。

此前就有台灣媒體報導說,台灣新竹縣竹東鎮惠昌宮天棚壁畫有一幀“觀音送子圖”,觀世音露出半邊酥胸的造型。

新加坡‧軟骨發炎潰爛‧女生打耳洞變“菜花耳”

(新加坡)打耳洞打到軟骨潰爛,女生忍受3年“菜花耳”後,落得整形收場!

18歲的陳嘉敏,目前在義安理工院念書。儘管整了形,但她的耳朵並沒有恢復到原來的樣子,看起來還是稍微畸形的。

陳嘉敏打耳洞後發炎,變成“菜花耳”。(圖:星洲日報)
陳嘉敏打耳洞後發炎,變成“菜花耳”。(圖:星洲日報)

她的父母原想採取法律行動,可是還沒來得及那麼做,那間打耳洞的店就倒閉了。

她向《光明日報》透露她的慘痛經驗時說,她是在逛一家飾品店時,一時好玩在右耳的上半部打了個耳洞。

“誰知一週後,整個耳朵竟腫得不成形,有時還會流膿,痛得不得了。”她忍了整整兩週後,決定看醫生。

醫生發現原來是打錯耳洞,因打進軟骨而發炎。

她因此被送進陳篤生醫院動手術,然而,受損的軟骨取出後,耳朵上半部便整個塌陷,成了“菜花耳”。

就這樣,她得用長發遮丑,“但有時還是得忍受同學好奇的目光,好幾次,忍不住一個人偷偷躲在一旁哭。”

接受外耳整形手術

今年1月,陳嘉敏在醫生建議下,到竹腳婦幼醫院接受外耳整形手術,留院4天。雖然手術費津貼,還是花了近5000元。

她的耳朵軟骨因壞損被取出,因此醫生從她右邊的肋骨取一部份軟骨取代。

“菜花耳”是消失了,但她形容整個過程“非常痛苦”。

另外,為了取肋骨下的軟骨,她的右胸底下留下了一道約4公分的疤痕,穿比基尼時得小心遮蓋。

一個小小耳洞,竟帶來這麼大的傷害,陳嘉敏說︰“打耳洞時,完全沒想到會引發那麼多問題。”現在想起來還是心裡怕怕。

新加坡‧明義涉失信案‧控方:入不敷出仍買貴物‧楊志恆不想還錢

(新加坡)楊志恆供稱有意償還5萬元貸款,但控方指他當時花錢購買昂貴物品,入不敷出,根本不想還錢。

他週二(7月28日)回答控方盤問時,承認他和曼陀羅之間並沒有貸款協議,並說這件事只有明義知道。他當時有告訴明義要向曼陀羅貸款,在明義答應後,仁慈財務部把付款單和現金支票交給他,由他拿給明義簽名。

主控官問他,既然是他向曼陀羅貸款,為何付款單還註明是仁慈貸款給曼陀羅。楊志恆答說,曼陀羅當時沒有錢,因此由曼陀羅向仁慈貸款,再由曼陀羅借他。

與曼陀羅沒貸款協議

楊志恆在主控官盤問下,承認他和曼陀羅並沒有貸款協議,也無法出示文件證明他和曼陀羅的協議,有關貸款只有他和明義兩人知道,他也為忘了通知曼陀羅另一名合夥人黃明成而認錯。

楊志恆(34歲)被指和明義(47歲)串謀,在2004年5月17日偽造付款單,把5萬元個人貸款當作是仁慈借給曼陀羅,以掩蓋他向仁慈貸款的真相。

他否認5萬元款項實際上是仁慈借給他的錢,但他同意控方說法,曼陀羅並未收到款項。

楊志恆想一次還清

楊志恆供證說,從他借錢那天開始,他已有意償還這筆錢,因為5萬元不是送給他的禮物。但主控官問他,當時是否有想到如何還錢,他卻說是想一次還清,而不是一點一點還。

主控官出示他的2005年和2006年信用卡賬單,證明他購買昂貴物品,入不敷出,因此根本就無意償還貸款。

楊志恆辯說沒減少花費不表示不想還5萬元;沒在2005年和2006年還錢,也不表示他不想還錢。他最後還清5萬元。根據控方證據,楊志恆是在2007年1月14日和3月9日分兩次歸還5萬元。

楊志恆說,他先還1萬元,其餘4萬元是向黃明成借錢。他後來賣掉香港上市公司股票,把錢還給黃明成。

他說,股票是他的朋友在2004年以港幣10萬元買下,朋友願意以這批股票幫他還債,當時沒立即賣掉股票是希望等候股價上漲,但後來還是以低於港幣30萬元的價格賣掉。

主控官指他撒謊,指他是因為安永會計公司介入調查,追查5萬元下落而償還款項。

楊志恆否認所指。

沒記下貸款
稱無心之過

楊志恆堅稱犯了無心之過,並無欺騙意圖。

由於5萬元不見之事是在舊NKF事件發生後不久,他因此很擔心別人會怎麼想,覺得自己難以洗脫罪名。

受衛生部委任調查仁慈的安永會計公司,是在2006年8月發現仁慈有賬目問題,一筆30萬元和另一筆5萬元不知所終。

楊志恆週二在主控官周祥泰副檢察司盤問下,堅稱他是正當地得曼陀羅5萬元貸款,而曼陀羅所發的付款單正確無誤。

主控官反問,既然貸款是正當獲得,那為何不把實情告訴安永調查員,為何還需擔心?

楊志恆說:“很擔心,因為無法確定別人會怎麼想。我不知是否該把這筆貸款記在賬目上,或得怎麼做。”

除了這個讓他擔心的理由,他也說忘記把5萬元記在曼陀羅賬目上是他的錯誤,“這也讓我擔心”。

他重申,他負責管理曼陀羅,人們會認為,既然曼陀羅是由他管理,如果發生甚麼事,他擔心他們不知會如何看待他。

辭仁慈職務
明義沒挽留

楊志恆是在2007年6月底辭去仁慈職務,當時擔任院監的明義並沒有挽留他,那是因為他之前已向明義提起辭職的事。

他說,他在2006年9月取得本地永久居留權的同年年底,通知明義說要在2007年7月離開仁慈。他自2007年1月起領仁慈半薪,分頭在新加坡和香港工作。

他也堅持,明義一直沒有問他5萬元用在哪裡,就算後來明義看了航運單,知道兩尊佛像是福海禪寺定購的,但仍然沒問他為甚麼接受那兩尊佛像的不是曼陀羅。

新加坡‧40至49歲男性風險最高‧新加坡平均每天1人自殺

(新加坡)新加坡去年平均每天有1人自殺,其中40至49歲男的自殺風險最高。受訪輔導員認為,這個年齡層男子面對工作和家庭等多重壓力,加上不擅於表達的性格,都是迫使他們最終走上絕路的原因。

新加坡援人協會(SOS)週二(7月28日)發表的數據顯示,去年新加坡每10萬人中,有8.76人選擇結束自己的性命,自殺率雖然是10年來的新低,但全年仍有364人自殺身亡,包括232名男性和132名女性,平均每天有1人自尋短見。

在這些自殺者當中,有多達15%是40至49歲的男性,比2007年多出4%,自殺風險最高,接下來是50至59歲的男性,占總自殺人數的12%。

飛躍家庭服務中心執行主任凌展輝受訪時說:“40至49歲男性面對的壓力是最大的,除了需要應付工作上的挑戰,也得面對家庭的種種問題,使他們容易產生輕生的念頭。”

僱主裁員要目標

他進一步說,這群中年男子的薪水頗高,但生產力不如年輕人,是僱主裁員的首要目標,工作因此沒有保障,讓他們承受頗大的壓力。

凌展輝說,中年男性被夾在孩子和父母之間,不單要照顧孩子,也要奉養父母。

援人協會執行總監黃麗娟同意說:“中年男性往往是家中唯一的經濟支柱,養家活口的任務其實並不簡單,財務負擔一點也不。”

不擅表達加劇問題

善友輔導中心資深輔導員陳玉芬說,男人不擅於表達的天性也使問題加劇。凌展輝說,男人遇到挫折時不講內心事,也不懂得發泄情緒,凡事都悶在心裡。

黃麗娟指出,這可能與“面子”脫離不了關係。“男人的自尊心,工作或生活碰壁時鮮少向人傾訴。許多撥打求助熱線的中年男性,一般也都不馬上進入正題,得婆婆媽媽。”

A $100 million bonus

Citigroup (C) is considering paying a $100 million bonus -- to one guy.

This is the same Citigroup that received $45 billion in bailout money. The same Citigroup that will soon be 34% owned by the U.S. government. The same Citigroup that has lost 95% of its share value since 2007.

Citigroup is in no position to be awarding bonuses of $10 million -- let alone adding another zero to that amount. So why is it mulling such a colossally dumb move? Because the guy demanding it is probably the bank's most valuable employee.

Enter Andrew Hall. He's a rock star, a legend among banking circles. He makes a boatload of money for Citigroup as head of Phibro, the bank's energy-trading unit. The Wall Street Journal calls Phibro a secretive operation, housed in a former Connecticut dairy farm, that "occasionally accounts for a disproportionate chunk of Citigroup income."

Phibro made so much money for Citigroup last year that Hall got a $100 million bonus (His bonus is based on Phibro's profits). Phibro was the main source of the $667 million in pretax revenue Citigroup received in commodities trading, the Journal reported. And the unit is doing so well this year that Hall may be in line for a similar amount.

Even though it's only July, it sounds like Hall is pressing Citigroup for confirmation of the bonus. He's threatening to leave the company, reports say.

So here's Citigroup's dilemma: Keeping Hall would likely help the company climb out of the hole it's in. But can it afford to spend $100 million?

And will the U.S. government allow it? That will depend largely on the opinion of Kenneth Feinberg, the new pay czar appointed to oversee compensation at the bailed-out banks.

Hall already has so much money that he owns a castle in Germany called Schloss Derneburg (pictured here). He's a huge art collector, and caused a bit of a ruckus in Southport, Conn., by commissioning a six-ton, 80-foot-long sculpture of concrete and steel on his front lawn. That doesn't play well with Southporters.

And how will a $100 million bonus play with taxpayers? We'll see.

Related reading:

Fear and loathing between Citigroup and the FDIC

Citi's earnings: From bad to ... OH MY!

Citigroup: Fool me one more time?

Obama squashes Citigroup's $50 million luxury jet

by Kim Peterson

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60 minutes - SWINE FLU VACCINE WARNING - Part I

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Rev. James David Manning on Alex Jones Tv:Obama Going for Broke!!

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Flashback Wrh Radio interview with Ry about Native Americans

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Incident at Oglala - The Leonard Peltier Story

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Fed up? Fed out!

Today, I’m going to explain the Federal Reserve System. Hey, where ya goin’?

First: It’s not really federal. Nor are there reserves. (Not many, anyway.) It is a system, however. (Well, a scam, actually, but those behind the 1913 Federal Reserve Act that birthed the Fed bypassed that identifier, for some reason.)

And, prey (that’s you), who backed the act?

Oh, just everyday folks with names like Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Rothschild who, a century ago, joined forces to saddle the U.S. with a central bank that, naturally, they’d control, in turn giving them control over the country’s money supply.

Alas! If only our nation’s framers had been smart enough to anticipate a ploy like this and thus guard against it in the Constitution.

Um, turns out they were. Fresh off the colonies’ disastrous experiences with non-stop printing presses churning out worthless currency both before and during the revolution, the founding fathers made sure to constitutionally preclude both Congress and the states from issuing “bills of credit.” In other words, paper money. Silver and/or gold-backed coinage was to be the name of the game.

Creating the Fed, which comprises twelve private banks spread regionally throughout the U.S., was an end run around that, with the sleight-of-hand working this way: Congress authorizes interest-bearing IOUs (bonds and notes) to be sold to the Fed, which in turn gives Congress oodles of paper money created from thin air and backed by nothing, an amazing alchemical process authorized by, well, Congress.

Though a dozen banks are involved in the con, er, system, the head bank is and always has been the Fed’s New York branch. (Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence it was mainly the obscenely wealthy Big Apple banking interests that pushed the Fed’s creation in the first place?)

It’s obvious what’s in it for the bankers, but how about Congress? Well, our “representatives” get money whenever they want for whatever they want. This comes in handy for buying votes back home, uh, I mean, for serving their constituents, like agribusiness, Big Pharma, weapons manufacturers, etc. Oh, and also those in the banking industry who, if they screw up the economy by being greedy little pigheads, can be duly punished by being given trillions more faux dough scot-free by, who else?, Congress.

Let’s hope this never happens.

Interest off bonds isn’t the only perk for the Fed (or bankers in general). But don’t even get me started on fractional-reserve banking. Otherwise I’d have to tell you how a few folks with a soft spot for things like usury will get a charter, start a bank, take deposits and then start loaning “money” at a nine-to-one ratio based on the total of those deposits (now redefined as “reserves,” ninety percent of which are dubbed “excess” and thus, abracadabra, available for lending). That’s right: they’re now loaning dollars that don’t exist. A few strokes on the ol’ keyboard and, voila, instant money!

It gets better. Once those loans are repaid and come back to the bank as deposits in other accounts, then that money is used as the basis to issue more nine-to-one loans. And so on. Can you say “pyramid scheme,” boys and girls? This is why what bankers fear most are bank runs, when lots of customers at one time are audacious enough to actually demand their account balances in cash, money that is nowhere to be found because the vast majority of it exists only in electronic ledgers. This is the very moment the magic of making money from nothing disappears — shazam! — and the locks and chains on bank doors materialize — sa-lam! — overnight.

Of course, those who created the Fed devised an ingenious way to guard against runs. It’s called the “lender of last resort.” Know who that is? It’s you!

This brainstorm was one of the main reasons for establishing the Fed in the first place. The rich and powerful bankers, tired of pesky competition from other banks and the distasteful specter of having to pay for good avarice gone bad, decided it would be much better to institutionalize an ironclad way to protect their profits. It took a few years and some political chicanery, but with a complicit president and a duped Congress (oh why does this sound so familiar?), they finally hit the jackpot by legislatively securing the mechanism by which they could place the taxpayer squarely on the hook, I’m sorry, more strongly underpin the economy.

Aren’t you thrilled to know you’re the one lending fabulously wealthy individuals even more money to tank the economy and put you out of a job? Just asking.

But how, exactly, during these times when things are a little tight and you’re considering the pragmatism of fattening up Fido, do you lend any money at all, let alone trillions? Why, through the insidious tax called inflation, of course. See, once the government, hand-in-hand with the Fed, goes nuts and sells bonds by the trainloads thereby resulting in untold un-backed dollars being pumped into the economy, inflation kicks in and the less those dollars are worth. If this is not apparent now, perhaps it will come to mind the next time you hook the oxen up to your cash-laden trailer to go buy a loaf of bread.

So, if the dollar has nothing to support it (and it doesn’t), just what keeps this fiat money afloat? Two things: a) our unshakeable, bedrock confidence in it (uh-huh) and b) because we have to. “Legal tender” laws ensure, under threat of imprisonment, that we’ll use dollars whether we like it or not.

When the government does something like this (puts money into circulation without backing), it’s called “monetary policy.” If we do it, it’s called “counterfeiting.”

OK, that’s enough misery for now. Who needs more gloom and doom anyway, especially these dire days? There is one possible silver lining, however, to the disaster that is our current economy: If enough pain manifests, perhaps a clamor will arise to throw the Fed and its worthless, debt-based system out on its money-changing ear, thereby precipitating a return to real money, backed by gold and silver, as codified by this country’s founders. A long shot, true, but stranger things have happened. For instance, who ever thought the Bush administration would actually leave the White House? (Now if we could just get Dick Cheney to go back to his home planet…)

by Mark Drolette

The Real Unemployment Rate Hits a 68-Year High

July 26, 2009 "Dollars & Sense " -- -Although you have to dig into the statistics to know it, unemployment in the United States is now worse than at any time since the end of the Great Depression.

From December 2007, when the recession began, to May of this year, 6.0 million U.S. workers lost their jobs. The big three U.S. automakers are closing plants and letting white-collar workers go too. Chrysler, the worst off of the three, will lay off one-quarter of its workforce even if it survives. Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar and giant banking conglomerate Citigroup have both laid off thousands of workers. Alcoa, the aluminum maker, has let workers go. Computer maker Dell and express shipper DHL have both canned many of their workers. Circuit City, the leading electronics retailer, went out of business, costing its 40,000 workers their jobs. Lawyers in large national firms are getting the ax. Even on Sesame Street, workers are losing their jobs.

The official unemployment rate hit 9.4% in May—already as high as the peak unemployment rates in all but the 1982 recession, the worst since World War II. And topping the 1982 recession’s peak rate of 10.8% is now distinctly possible. The current downturn has pushed up unemployment rates by more than any previous postwar recession (see Table 1).

Table 1: The May 2009 Unemployment Picture

Source: Table A-1, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Labor Department, www.bls.gov.

The comprehensive U-6 unemployment rate adjusts the official rate by adding marginally attached workers and workers forced to work part time for economic reasons to the officially unemployed. To find the U-6 rate the BLS takes that higher unemployment count and divides it by the official civilian labor force plus the number of marginally attached workers. (No adjustment is necessary for forced part-time workers since they are already counted in the official labor force as employed workers.)

Calculating the Real Unemployment Rate

The BLS calculates the official unemployment rate, U-3, as the number of unemployed as a percentage of the civilian labor force. The civilian labor force consists of employed workers plus the officially unemployed, those without jobs who are available to work and have looked for a job in the last 4 weeks. Applying the data found in Table 2 yields an official unemployment rate of 9.1%, or a seasonally adjusted rate 9.4% for April 2009.

Accounting for the large number of marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons raises the count of unemployed to 24.0 million workers for May 2009. Those numbers push up the U-6 unemployment rate to 15.9% or a seasonally adjusted rate of 16.4%.

Some groups of workers are already facing official unemployment rates in the double digits. As of May, unemployment rates for black, Hispanic, and teenage workers were already 14.9%, 12.7% and 22.7%, respectively. Workers without a high-school diploma confronted a 15.5% unemployment rate, while the unemployment rate for workers with just a high-school degree was 10.0%. Nearly one in five (19.2%) construction workers were unemployed. In Michigan, the hardest hit state, unemployment was at 12.9% in April. Unemployment rates in seven other states were at double-digit levels as well.

As bad as they are, these figures dramatically understate the true extent of unemployment. First, they exclude anyone without a job who is ready to work but has not actively looked for a job in the previous four weeks. The Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies such workers as “marginally attached to the labor force” so long as they have looked for work within the last year. Marginally attached workers include so-called discouraged workers who have given up looking for job-related reasons, plus others who have given up for reasons such as school and family responsibilities, ill health, or transportation problems.

Second, the official unemployment rate leaves out part-time workers looking for full-time work: part-time workers are “employed” even if they work as little as one hour a week. The vast majority of people working part time involuntarily have had their hours cut due to slack or unfavorable business conditions. The rest are working part time because they could only find part-time work.

To its credit, the BLS has developed alternative unemployment measures that go a long way toward correcting the shortcomings of the official rate. The broadest alternative measure, called “U-6,” counts as unemployed “marginally attached workers” as well as those employed “part time for economic reasons.”

When those adjustments are taken into account for May 2009, the unemployment rate soars to 16.4%. That is the highest rate since the BLS began calculating the U-6 rate in 1994. While not exactly comparable, it is also higher than the BLS’s earlier and yet broader adjusted unemployment rate called the U-7. The BLS began calculating the U-7 rate in 1976 but discontinued it in 1994 in favor of the U-6 rate. In the 1982 recession the U-7 reached 15.3%, its highest level. In fact, no bout of unemployment since the last year of the Great Depression in 1941 would have produced an adjusted unemployment rate as high as today’s.

Table 2: The May 2009 Unemployment Picture

Why is the real unemployment rate so much higher than the official, or U-3, rate? First, forced part-time work has reached its highest level ever, going all the way back to 1956 and including the 1982 recession. In May 2009, 8.8 million workers were forced to work part time for economic reasons. Forced part-timers are concentrated in retail, food services, and construction; about a quarter of them are young workers between 16 and 24. The number of discouraged workers is high today as well. In May, the BLS counted 2.2 million “marginally attached” workers. That matches the highest number since 1994, when the agency introduced this measure.

With the economy in the throes of a catastrophic downturn, unemployment, no matter how it’s measured, will rise dramatically and impose yet more devastating costs on society and on those without a job or unable to find full-time work.

John Miller teaches economics at Wheaton College and is a member of the Dollars & Sense collective.

Sources: U.S. Dept. of Labor, “The Unemployment Rate and Beyond: Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization,” Issues in Labor Statistics, June 2008; John E. Bregger and Steven E. Haugen, “BLS introduces new range of alternative unemployment measures,” Monthly Labor Review, October 1995.

This article is from the July/August 2009 issue of Dollars & Sense magazine.

By John Miller

Hawaii again declares Obama birth certificate real

HONOLULU – State officials in Hawaii on Monday said they have once again checked and confirmed that President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen, and therefore meets a key constitutional requirement for being president.

They hoped to stem a recent surge in the number of inquiries about Obama's birthplace.

"I ... have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen," Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said in a brief statement. "I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago."

So-called "birthers" — who claim Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born outside the United States — have grown more vocal recently on blogs and television news shows.

Fukino issued a similar press release Oct. 31, but was prompted to speak out again because of the renewed attention on Obama's beginnings. Hawaii's Health Department has been flooded in recent weeks with questions from individuals and several national TV news networks asking for proof that Obama was indeed born in Hawaii.

"They just keep asking over and over and over again," Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said.

The Constitution states that a person must be a "natural-born citizen" to be eligible for the presidency. Birthers contend that Obama's birth certificate is a fake, and many say he was actually born in Kenya, his father's homeland. They've challenged his citizenship in court.

One widely circulated YouTube clip of a town hall meeting showed a Republican congressman getting booed for saying Obama is a citizen. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh and CNN's Lou Dobbs have also raised the issue, and 10 Republican members of Congress co-sponsored a bill that would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificate.

However, it appears Congress has moved on and has accepted Obama's island birthplace. The U.S. House on Monday unanimously approved a resolution recognizing and celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hawaii becoming the 50th state. A clause was included that reads: "Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961."

State law bars the release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest.

However, Obama's birth certificate along with birth notices from the two Honolulu newspapers were brought forward even before he took office. But that's done nothing to shake the belief by many Obama critics that the president was born abroad.

By JAYMES SONG