As the year 2010 comes to a close there was some "good news" issued from Washington. Just the fact that this 12 month time period is ending and there still exists a USA is good news but this referenced "good news" pertained to the on-going unemployment crisis in our nation.
Federal bureaucrats announced that last week's new unemployment claim figure reached only 388,000 persons.
Although this is still a big number, economists have indicated that if America can keep new weekly unemployment claims below 375,000 then there will be a consistent but slow reduction in the overall unemployment rate. Prior to this just released statistic, America was averaging right at 440,000 new unemployment claims every week
Remember that our overall unemployment rate stands at an unacceptable level of 9.8%.
But wait a minute, there is a footnote to this 388,000 figure. It seems that all government unemployment offices were closed for one day last week and that many were closed for 1 1/2 or 2 days. Taking this fact into consideration and applying some basic math, it would appear that the number of newly out of work Americans who would have sought first time benefits is closer to 468,000. This number, if it is correct, would cancel any indication that 388,000 was "good news".
On this same topic of "good news" but just a bit of a different approach , a recent article pointed out that some international leaders not well liked by America were getting "up in years". This list included Hosni Mubarak (81) of Egypt; Fidel Castro (85) of Cuba; Abdullah bin Abbdel Azin (86) of Saudi Arabia; and Kim Jing Il of North Korea who is only 70 but is ill.
With any luck, 2011 will bring "good news" to America in many areas.
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