Rome protest turns up heat on new PM Letta
ROME (Reuters) - Thousands of people protested in Rome on Saturday against austerity policies and high unemployment, urging new Prime Minister Enrico Letta to focus on creating jobs to help pull the country
Of course, there is no such thing as “austerity,” just the banks soaking up any and all available credit to balance past bad bets, leaving nothing for any actual productive investment. No productivity, no velocity of money, no credit expansion. Keep printing, you are doing nothing.
According to March 2001 Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) data, wages and salaries for private industry union workers averaged $18.36 per hour while those for nonunion private industry workers averaged $14.81 per hour. Union workers’ wages were also higher in March 2011, averaging $23.02
per hour for union workers compared with $19.51 per hour for nonunion workers.
Alessandro Rossi, who runs another pizzeria in Rome, is also surprised that Italians refuse to take up an occupation that is part of their cultural DNA, especially as unemployment among young people has reached 35 per cent.
“The Italian mindset is that being a pizza-maker is humiliating, it is a manual labour job,” he said. “Young Italians want to own 40,000 euro cars and wear nice clothes but they are not prepared to work for it. So the gap is being filled by the Egyptians, the Filipinos and the Arabs.
Value, surplus and wealth can only be created by increasing productivity. If an investment doesn’t increase productivity, it is either malinvestment, misallocation of scarce capital or consumption.
The cans, which mimic the decades-old logo that frames the Budweiser name on packaging, will be offered as an alternative to traditional cans, not as a replacement, and will come in 8-packs rather than the standard 6-packs, the brewer said Monday.
St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, the North American headquarters for Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev, has been working on the bowtie design since 2010. The can’s unique design is intended, in part, to attract young adults who haven’t yet tried a Budweiser.
“We know there are a large number of consumers out there looking for new things, the trend-seekers,” Anheuser-Busch’s vice president of innovation Pat McGauley told the Post-Dispatch. “We expect both our core beer drinkers and new customers to try it.”
In 2011, the brewer launched the redesign of Budwesier cans and packaging that features the bowtie as a focal point on each can.
The new bowtie-shaped Budweisers launching next month hold 11.3 ounces of beer and contain 137 calories – 8.5 fewer calories than a 12-ounce can of Budweiser.
Chris Whalen on Fed Policy, Bank Earnings, Housing: Video
Chris Whalen, executive vice president and managing director at Carrington Investment Services, talks about the impact of Federal Reserve monetary policy on bank earnings. Whalen, speaking with Tom Keene and Scarlet Fu on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance,” also discusses the outlook for the housing market. (Source: Bloomberg)
Important reminder that only jobs can generate income to service debt.
Thanks largely to the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jeffrey Nelson was able to put up a shotgun as down payment on a car.
Money was tight last year for the school-bus driver and neighborhood constable in Jasper, Alabama, a beaten-down town of 14,000 people. One car had already been repossessed. Medical bills were piling up.
And still, though Nelson’s credit history was an unhappy one, local car dealer Maloy Chrysler Dodge Jeep had no problem arranging a $10,294 loan from Wall Street-backed subprime lender Exeter Finance Corp so Nelson and his wife could buy a charcoal gray 2007 Suzuki Grand Vitara.
All the Nelsons had to do was cover the $1,000 down payment. For most of that amount, Maloy accepted Jeffrey’s 12-gauge Mossberg & Sons shotgun, valued at about $700 online.
Beer fight brewing over taxes
Sorry, this is a classic overreach by the crafters. They have played the job creation card enough during the Great Recession, no need to go arguing for special excise tax breaks because they are “small.” Remember, ability to pay is the metric of the progressive taxers. If a simple flat income tax is the most just and efficient income levy, one without distortionary pitfalls and marginal windshear, so is a flat excise levy on alcohol.
In short, stick to brewing guys. Leave the tax policy schemes to the swill beer makers.
Some healthcare costs may rise when "Obamacare" implemented: official
Shock. This is the news of the week folks. Not a robed priesthood debating who may or may not have a State-sanctioned adult relationship. Wake up.
Student Debt almost tripled between 2004 and 2012 and
stands at $966B as of 2012:Q4.
