Current Events - November 9, 2012

 

 



What is the fiscal cliff?

The “fiscal cliff” is the colloquialism used to describe a series of federal tax increases and spending limitations scheduled to automatically take affect at the beginning of 2013. Among the automatic tax increases, as summarized by the Congressional Research Service, are the termination of all the lower marginal income-tax rates enacted under President George W. Bush, the termination of the “patch” in the Alternative Minimum Tax that now protects about 27 million middle-class American households from having to pay a higher federal tax rate, and the 2-point cut in the 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax that President Obama signed into law in 2010.

The automatic spending limitations include a $54.7 billion reduction in currently planned fiscal 2013 defense spending and a similar $54.7 billion reduction in currently planned fiscal 2013 non-defense spending.

The so-called “sequestration” of this $109.4 billion in fiscal 2013 federal spending was included in the Budget Control Act, which legislated the deal that President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner negotiated in August 2011 to increase the federal debt limit by $2.4 trillion. The Treasury reported last week that it now expects this $2.4 trillion increase in its borrowing authority also to be exhausted by the end of this year.

Another element of the fiscal cliff is that the fees Medicare now pays to doctors for serving Medicare patients will be automatically cut by 27 percent across the board next year.

How Many Businesses Have Announced Closings or Layoffs Since Obama Won A Second Term?

Do elections have consequences? If you have been paying attention to the financial markets, you might think so. Wall Street has had two horrible days since President Obama won a second term.

However, stock prices are not the only thing taking a hit. It appears that the job market is also suffering. In the last 48 hours, the following major corporations have announced layoffs in America

• Energizer - The St. Louis-based company said Thursday that it expects to shed about 1,500 employees. When finished, the restructuring should lead to $200 million in pretax yearly savings, Energizer said. It aims to have most of its restructuring steps finished by the end of September 2014.

 • Westinghouse - Westinghouse Anniston, the contractor responsible for shutting down Anniston’s chemical weapons incinerator, has reduced its workforce by another 50 employees.

 • Research in Motion Limited -Research in Motion Ltd., the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, laid off about 200 people at its U.S. headquarters in Irving on Wednesday, according to a source close to the company who did not want to be named.

 • Lightyear Network Solutions -More than one dozen employees at a Pikeville company lost their jobs this week. Officials with Lightyear Network Solutions said they are consolidating offices in Louisville and Pikeville to save money.

 • Providence Journal -The Providence Journal Co. laid off 23 full-time workers Wednesday as part of a cost-cutting effort, including 16 members of the Providence Newspaper Guild and 7 non-union employees.

 • Hawker Beechcraft - The company says 240 employees will lose their jobs with the closing of Hawker Beechcraft Services facilities in Little Rock, Ark.; Mesa, Ariz.; and San Antonio, Texas
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• Boeing (30% of their management staff) -Boeing Co. said Wednesday it plans to employ 30% fewer executives at its Boeing Defense, Space & Security unit by the end of 2012 compared to 2010 levels.
• CVPH Medical Center -CVPH Medical Center has handed pink slips to 17 employees. The layoffs — nine in management and eight hourly staffers — are part of an effort to “help bolster the hospital’s financial position in 2013 and beyond,” a press release said.

 • US Cellular -The move will result in 980 job cuts at U.S. Cellular, with 640 in the Chicago area, according to a spokeswoman. The cuts are slightly under 12 percent of the approximately 8,400 total employees U.S. Cellular had at the end of the third quarter.

 • Momentive Performance Materials -About 150 workers at Sistersville’s Momentive Performance Materials plant will be temporarily laid off later this month, officials said this week.

 • Rocketdyne -About 100 employees at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, most of whom work in the San Fernando Valley, were laid off Wednesday in response to dwindling government spending on space exploration, the company said. The layoffs were effective immediately, and 75 percent of them came at the facilities on Canoga and De Soto avenues, which employ about 1,100 people. The company has six sites across the Valley.

 • Brake Parts -The leader of an automotive parts plant in Lincoln County has told state officials that there are plans to lay off 75 workers starting in late December…The layoffs are expected to start Dec. 28 and continue in the first quarter of 2013

 • Vestas Wind Systems - Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS) is seeking to sell a stake of as much as 20 percent and said it’s reducing headcount by 3,000 to raise the staff cuts by the biggest wind turbine maker to almost a third over two years.

 • Husqvarna - Husqvarna AB (HUSQB), the world’s biggest maker of powered garden tools, plans to cut about 600 jobs in a move that will save 220 million kronor ($33 million) a year by 2014.

 • Center for Hospice New York -The Center for Hospice and Palliative Care plans to temporarily lay off as many as 40 employees next year as it embarks on a major renovation of the inpatient unit at its Cheektowaga campus.

 • Bristol-Meyers - Bristol-Myers Squibb is following up its lackluster third-quarter results with almost 480 layoffs. As Pharmalot reports, the company notified the New Jersey government that it would scale back in Plainsboro, which means the cuts will hit its sales operations.

 • OCE North America - Trumbull printer- and scanning-equipment provider Oce North America, Inc. will lay off 135 workers in three Connecticut communities, including East Hartford, according to its notice with the state Labor Department.

 • Darden Restaurants -The company, which was among those who had received an Obamacare waiver in the past, is looking to limit workers to 28 hours per week. A full time employee that is required to have health insurance (lest the employer pay a fine) works 30 hours per week, as defined by the Obamacare law.

 • West Ridge Mine -In its statement, UtahAmerican Energy blames the Obama administration for instituting policies that will close down “204 American coal-fired power plants by 2014″ and for drastically reducing the market for coal.

 • United Blood Services Gulf -United Blood Services Gulf South region, the non-profit blood service provider for much of south Louisiana and Mississippi, will lay off approximately 10 percent of its workforce. It was a hard decision to make according to Susan Begnaud, Regional Center Director for the Gulf South region.

 Here are some more of the business closings that were announced in just the past two days:

•Caterpillar Inc. will close its plant in Owatonna Minn.
•Mount Pleasant’s Albrecht Sentry Foods
•The Target store at Manassas Mall Va.
•Millennium Academy in Wake Forest NC
•Target Closing Kissimmee FL Location
•The Andover Gift Shop in Andover MA
•Grand Union Family Markets Closing Storrs Location CT
•Movie Scene Milford Location NH
•Update: TE Connectivity Closing Greensboro Plant – 620 Layoffs Expected
•Gomer’s Fried Chicken in South Kansas City
•Kmart in Homer Glen
•Fresh Market on Pine Street in Burlington
•AGC Glass North America to permanently close its Blue Ridge Plant in Kingsport Tenn.
•The Target store at Platte and Academy in Colorado Springs
•The Roses store on Reynold Road in Winston-Salem NC
•Meanders Kitchen losing its West Seattle location at 6032 California Ave
•Bost Harley-Davidson at 46th Avenue North and Delaware Ave. in West Nashville TN
•Townsend Booksellers in Oakland
•The Kmart store in Parkway Plaza off University Drive in Durham NC – 79 Jobs Lost
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/how-many-businesses-have-announced-closings-or-lay-offs-since-obama-won-a-second-term/

The Mass Firings Begin

Here's a collection of today's headlines. Please say a prayer for the families who will be suffering. Had Romney won, many of these companies would now be hiring.

• Teco Coal officials announce layoffs
• Momentive Inc plans temporary layoffs for 150
• Wilkes-Barre officials to announce mandatory layoffs
• 600 layoffs at Groupon
• More layoffs announced at Aniston Weapons Incinerator
• Murray Energy confirms 150 layoffs at 3 subsidiaries
• 130 laid off in Minnesota dairy plant closure
• Stanford brake plant to lay off 75
• Turbocare, Oce to lay off more than 220 workers
• ATI plans to lay off 172 workers in North Richland Hills
• SpaceX claims its first victims as Rocketdyne lays off 100
• Providence Journal lays off 23 full-time employees
• CVPH lays off 17
• New Energy lays off 40 employees
• 102 Utah miners laid off because of 'war on coal', company says
• US Cellular drops Chicago, cuts 640 jobs
• Career Education to cut 900 jobs, close 23 campuses
• Vestas to cut 3,000 more jobs
• First Energy to cut 400 jobs by 2016
• Mine owner blames Obama for layoffs (54 fired last night)
• Canceled program costs 115 jobs at Ohio air base
• AMD trims Austin workforce - 400 jobs slashed
• 100 workers lose jobs as Caterpillar closes plant in Minnesota
• Exide to lay off 150 workers
• TE Connectivity to close Guilford plant, lay off 620
• More Layoffs for Major Wind Company (3,000 jobs cut)
• Cigna to lay off 1,300 workers worldwide
• Ameridose to lay off hundreds of workers

 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/the_mass_firings_begin.html#ixzz2Bk2Ji2me


2 Days AFTER Election, Team Obama Admits US Will Be Downgraded Again

An economic analyst invited by the State Department to brief a group of foreign journalists on the U.S. economy on Election Day responded to a question from a reporter from the Egyptian newspaper Al Wafd by predicting that U.S. Treasury securities—the means by which the U.S. government finances its debt--will be downgraded again.

At Tuesday's State Department event, the Egyptian reporter asked analyst Kathy Bostjancic, director of Macroeconomic Analysis for the nonpartisan Conference Board, what impact the so-called “fiscal cliff” facing the U.S. federal government would have on the rating of U.S. Treasury securities.

“I mean, to me, it seems the odds of us getting downgraded again are very high,” said Bostjanic.

“But I think that they [Republicans and Democrats] get around the sequestration,” Bostjanic went on to say, “and I think by consequence, because they’re not going to find an agreement on how to offset that in the budget, we’re going to get downgraded.”

http://redflagnews.com/headlines/after-election-team-obama-admits-us-will-be-downgraded-again

MSM Ignored Oct. 30 Report Showing US Dropped Out of Top 10 in Prosperity Index

By: Jim Hoft and Rachel Pulaski

The 2012 Legatum Prosperity Index found that the "American Dream is in jeopardy" and "The national ethos of the U.S. is under threat." The assessment of prosperity is based on material wealth and personal well-being. The Prosperity Index benchmarks countries in eight categories: Economy, Entrepreneurship & Opportunity, Education, Governance, Personal Freedom, Health, Safety & Security, and Social Capital.

The Unites States dropped out of the global prosperity ‘top ten’ for the first time to the twelfth position in the worldwide prosperity rankings and fell eight places in ‘Entrepreneurship & Opportunity’. The assesment found fewer US citizens agree that "hard work gets you ahead."
Business Insider reported:

"The London-based public policy institute pegged the precipitous drop in the U.S. to a decline in consumer and voter confidence, along with a bleak economic and entrepreneurial outlook; four percent fewer citizens believe that "hard work gets you ahead," and business startup costs as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI) have doubled in the past two years.
In fact, the U.S. economy sub-score dropped to twentieth and its personal freedom score dropped four points to fourteenth, just above Uruguay."

The report was first released on October 30, 2012, the group was hoping the report would have "electoral implications" but as always MSM remained silent:

"As the US struggles to reclaim the building blocks of the American Dream," Gedmin noted, "now is the time to consider who is best placed to lead the country back to prosperity and compete with the more agile countries that have pushed the U.S. out of the top ten."

http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/jimhoft/msm-ignored-oct-30-report-showing-us-dropped-out-o