Worse than expected: 85K Jobs Lost, 10% Unemployment Rate
Nonfarm payrolls decreased by 85,000 in December. The economy has lost almost 4.2 million jobs over the last year, and 7.24 million jobs1 since the beginning of the current employment recession.
Investors add spice to rising food prices
Global food prices are rising again with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food price index hitting 168 points in November, the fourth consecutive month of increase and the highest since September 2008.
Jim Rogers, one of the world's most astute investors has been bullish on commodities in general for several years. On agricultural (or soft) commodities, he says: 'Food inventories worldwide are at the lowest in decades as the world continues to consume more than it produces. We even have a shortage of farmers now since agriculture has been such a terrible business for three decades. We should all hope prices go higher or there may soon be a time when there will be little or no food at any price.'
In China, the bubble people are talking about now is not in real estate but in garlic.
Worries about persistent swine flu prompted a spike in garlic consumption in 2009 and soon, everyone was hoarding it in hopes of making a quick buck. Prices are said to have gone up by 50 per cent in the last few months.
Rice could be next. Barclays Capital Research economist Leong Wai Ho says: 'The bigger problem for food prices is an old one - physical hoarding that can limit physical availability, unlike derivative trading.
In related news ... Steve Forbes says Ron Paul is right!
Worth Their Weight in Gold
When it comes to money, the mainstream media like to portray Congressman Ron Paul (R--Tex.) as a gadfly. Let Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke enjoy his Time-ly accolades, because history will judge that Paul had it right when it came to the Fed and its often misbegotten monetary policies.
Paul has aroused the fear and ire of the Federal Reserve with his bill calling for the Government Accountability Office to audit the Fed. This tenacious Congressman makes the point that independence should not be confused with a lack of accountability ... The Fed can bring about depressions ... horrific periods of inflation, as it caused in the 1970s, as well as the current economic crisis, which the Fed fueled with its excessive easing of monetary policy several years ago. Without the excess liquidity, the housing bubble could never have happened. Yet Congress exercises no oversight of the Fed.
Paul makes the argument that we don't need the Fed at all, that particularly in this high-tech era we can allow--and efficiently function with--competing currencies. Strange? The U.S. did exactly that for most of its existence, up until the Fed was created in 1913. Needless to say, that part of Paul's thesis is highly controversial. But what shouldn't be controversial is his belief that gold should be the ultimate anchor for money. Politicians always end up trashing paper money. Paul correctly hammers home the point that the Federal Reserve's repeated attempts to smooth business cycles and create perpetual prosperity have backfired badly and destructively. As for the Fed's ability to manage money, Paul simply notes that since the Fed's inception the dollar has lost more than 95% of its value.
