Apple making plans for the future

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/02/apple

Apple has recently chosen to buy back some of it's share. Many are wondering what the company is doing with its large some of money because they racked up $23 billion in operating cash flow. I believe that Tim Cook is trying to get the company back to its innovative ways to supply the world with technologically advance products. By doing this he is hoping for apple to excel to be the most recognized companies for its creativity instead of having competitors that such as the ones they have now and have to share the the "Top Spot" for technology right now. This is risky but some believe that this is what Steve Job's would've done and look where he got the company.

GDP Forecast

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/02/focus-1

Forecasts for GDP are changing and growth rate for different countries has gone down since the last prediction.It appears that most economies, on some level or the other, are facing decreasing rates of GDP growth.However,USA suffered the least from it and Euro area (specially Spain) seem most affected.

Vietnam and its new reformer

       In terms of internet freedom, Vietnam now ranks near the bottom of global league tables, just above China and Iran. The main reason for the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) ’s defensiveness is its mismanagement of the economy. Only five years ago the country was lauded as the new Asian tiger, notching up record growth rates. Yet now the old structural problems of a largely unreformed socialist economic system have caught up with it. Everyone, even the Communist leaders, agrees that the main culprits are the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through which the party tries to manage the economy in traditional socialist style. Often the SOEs seem to be run mainly for the benefit of party members, many of whom are now very rich. Little actions have been made to tackle corruption. Finally, the party appointed Mr Nguyen Ba Thanh, a man with reputation for charisma and blunt, plain-speaking effectiveness. He carries the hopes of reformers that he can reproduce this at the national level.
       In my opinion, it is hard for Mr. Thanh to successfully heal the corruption's illness of CPV, because the corruption has been there for a long time. If corruption disappears, CPV needs to be gone. However, people's expectation for a role model like Mr.Thanh is understandable. It will be challenging, but it is good to have someone who can inspire and provide a sense of hope for the people.
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21570732-scandal-ridden-party-lashes-out-dissent-and-tries-tackle-corruption-thanh-man

http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/stan-collender/2708/whats-now-happening-federal-budget-worse-fiscal-cliff

The federal budget is always a major topic of discussion.  However it has become increasingly important with the growing deficit.  Budget cuts need to be made and what seems to be happening is that certain cuts will automatically go into effect if a new deal is not agreed on.  These cuts will include an $85 billion in military and domestic programs.  Neither party is for these cuts but an agreement can not be reached between the two sides.  The future of the federal budget is difficult, complex and extremely unpredictable but what is clear is that a solution must be found.  

Unequal Recovery, By Gender and Age

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/business/economy/recovery-has-brought-more-jobs-for-men-than-women.html?ref=economy&_r=0

This article examines how men have been benefiting from our recovery of the recession over women. According to the Labor Department's monthly survey of households, our economy has increased in jobs by 5.3 million since December 2009 through this past month. Thirty percent of these jobs went to women. When this survey began being taken in 1948, only 28% of employed people were women. Compared to January 2010, women made up of 47.5% of employed people. Also, age groups are being compared. Due to certain cohorts, there are a larger number of 55 year olds and older (the baby boomers) than there are ages 35 to 54. In comparing gendered age groups, as of January, 54.6% of women over the age of 20 had jobs, whereas 67.6% of men over the age of 20 had jobs.
This article also explains that there was a sharp decline in women's employment for both ages 20-24 and 45-54. Society finds it reasonable for 20-24 years old not having jobs due to the difficulty of starting a career fresh out of college or post secondary education. Although, there is not an easy explanation as to why their is a decline in 45-54 year old women. There is still improvement from when this survey was first taken back in 1948 when women only made up 28% of people employed. But there are still gaps between men and women in the work force, as well as gaps between ages.

HP: Exploitative Student Labor in China

The Chinese economy has become synonymous with cheap and efficient labor and we often hear domestic outrage over the outsourcing of jobs abroad to countries like China by major corporations. This article gives significant insight into one of the reasons that labor is so cheap and efficient. Much to my surprise, student labor is more prominent than I had known as electronic companies often have students working in factories. Cheaper wages with a larger and more productive workforce seems ideal for any company and this is why manufacturers such as Apple have had such an efficient supply chain process. Their cost of production remains low and their profits are a testament to that. In this article, however, we see another big name in the electronic market, Hewlett-Packard, and how it is increasing regulation to limit exploitative student labor practices. It is interesting to note how corporate social responsibility and the company image may sometimes be more important than cheap and efficient production. While many other companies have taken the stance that students also do summer jobs in other countries, such as the United States, and that they learn something from being in a work setting, the student labor practices in China where the students are often required by schools to work in factories (while the school administrators get a cut of their salary or are being paid by companies to encourage such work) are most certainly exploitative in many ways and it is interesting to see what companies are willing to do to regulate this. Apple has gone against it but HP seems to have taken the regulation a few steps further and is trying to keep it to a minimum.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/business/global/hewlett-packard-joins-push-to-limit-use-of-student-labor-in-china.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business

Europe lower budget for the next 7 years

After intensive meetings that lasted over 24 hours, Europeans leaders came into the common ground as they agreed to lower the EU common budget for the next seven years. The new budget totals 960 billions euros and the efforts required for this meeting to reach such a cooperation are enormous. Resolving the conflict between national priorities and regional common welfare has always been a headache in any European Union's meeting. National leaders are so stuck with their own countries' interests which make every effort to overcome the crisis in Europe much harder to realized. Even though during this meeting they finally reached an agreement, it is safe to say they are hardly satisfied with the outcome but they have to accepted, proved by some of their's talks after the meeting.

In my opinion, though it's natural for leaders to prioritize their country's benefit, their cooperation to help the whole EU to get through such difficult time and regain the old values of the Euro would make everyone better off. The budget was just a start, and being obstinate to their countries' interests will just make negotiation harder and more stressful to carry out. Being accepting doesn't help that much, but being cooperative would be a huge improvement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/business/global/european-union-budget-talks.html?pagewanted=1&ref=business&_r=0

Housing could be a driver of future growth

            The bursting of the housing bubble in 2007 sent our economy on a downward spiral to dark economic times that have been hard to rebound back from. But the housing market is on track to turn the economy around. Home sales have rebounded to the strongest level in five years and show continue growth. Economists predict that there will be approximately one million new houses built in the coming year matching the twenty eight percent growth of 2008. Economists also say that demand for new housing is up as well. With a high demand and a tight supply economists predict that housing prices will increase about 3.7 percent.
          Although this is good news for our economy the housing market is only a small piece of the pie. In order to fully achieve a full recovery we need to start see a drop in the unemployment rate and a serious growth in GDP. With all of this new construction underway economists say this will add roughly under a million jobs to our economy. This is good news and a great start to a long recovery that will take years.

Venezuela sharply devalues its currency

Venezuela's government announced that it is devaluing its currency, changing fixed exchange rate from $4.30 bolivars to the dollar to $6.30 bolivars to the dollar. The change is expected to help solve the budget problem for the government, which has turned increasingly to borrowing to meet its spending. Analysts, however, think that the move would not be sufficient to end the government's budget deficit or balance the exchange rate with an overvalued currency. 25% of inflation and a continuation of shortages of some staple foods are predicted. Inflation in Venezuela has increased from 20.1% at the end of 2012 to 22.2% in January, resulting in shortages of some foods. To confront the shortages, the government planned to have the state oil company give more of its profit to the Central Bank while reducing government spending on public work projects. The strong demand for foreign currency didn't receive any additional support from government, which will likely push up the "parallel" dollar market higher. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles criticized government's heavy spending on campaigning, corruption and gift abroad for the situation and that officials were trying to slip the change past the public at the start of a long holiday weekend.

White House details pending budget cuts

With the United States' $1.2 trillion deficit over ten years, President Obama is calling for  federal budget cuts. The majority of the budget cuts will come from both non-defense and defense programs in the United States. According to a federal representative, budget cuts are expected to start taking place as of March 1st. President Obama's plan is to have these cuts take place over a 7 month period instead of a 12 month. This calls for heavy cuts over a rather small period of time. The White House is calling for such drastic budget cuts, but what will it do for the job market? Unfortunately, economists are estimating that there will be up to 1 million job losses over this short period. In addition, other programs that the White House budget office reported may be cut are as follows:

- 70,000 children would get kicked out of early childhood intervention programs that help poorer children catch up to middle-class peers, heading into kindergarten.

- 1,000 fewer criminals would be prosecuted due to furloughed federal prosecutors.

- 4 million fewer "Meals on Wheels" would be delivered to the elderly.

- 1,000 fewer research grants would be awarded, cutting research and laboratories for some 12,000 scientists and students.

The House Republicans are staying traditional and want to replace the defense cuts with more non-defense cuts, something the Democratic party rejects. The Democrats want to replace the cuts with a more 'tax-centered' strategy. The proposed sequester budget cuts could slow the growth of the economy. With the slowing of the economy will come job losses and the curtailing of many programs. Will the proposed budget cuts be beneficial? Should the government raise taxes? Time will tell.  

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/08/news/economy/white-house-budget-cuts/index.html?iid=Lead

USPS Continuing Struggles

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/08/news/economy/postal-service-finances/index.html

Continuing the discussion from two weeks ago regarding the USPS, Congress still continues to hamper  the development and progress of the Postal Service. If it wasn't for a Congress mandated law that forces the USPS to fund healthcare benefits for future retirees, the USPS would have reaped a $100 million profit last year. However, the institution is losing billions of dollars every year in order to finance Congress' law and is continuing to borrow billions of dollars from American taxpayers. On the bright side, shipping volume increased by 4% during the 2012 holiday season, enough to hold the USPS over for the time being. Unfortunately, with definite financial troubles and Congressional payments ahead, the USPS is exhausting its resources into brainstorming ways to cut spending or secure more income. After blowing through a $15 billion loan from the U.S. treasury, the Postal Service has proposed putting an end to Saturday mail delivery. This is projected to save an estimated $2-3 billion every year, but may be hard to enact without Congressional support. The USPS is expected to possibly defer their debt payments for another year in order stay afloat. One question still looms, will the United States Postal Service be able to stay afloat without Congressional support for much longer, especially while deferring payments? Only time will tell.

The States People are Fleeing in 2013

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2013/02/07/the-states-people-are-fleeing-in-2013/

This article discusses how thousands of people are moving from certain states in the Northeast and in the Midwest to states in the South and the West.  The economic recession has been related to the reasons as to why people are relocating all over the United States.  Even though the overall residential moves around the country has been declining, there has been a pattern that shows which states people have been fleeing fastest.  New Jersey is the highest state with the most people moving out of the state at approximately 3,900 people.  Other states with high move out rates are New York, Illinois, Michigan, Maine, Connecticut, and Wisconsin.      Other reasons as to why people are leaving are the cost of living in the state and economic opportunities.  People are looking to relocate where it would be warmer, have better economic opportunities and less expensive.  States with the highest ratios of people moving in are Arizona, Washington D.C., North and South Carolina, and Florida.  

Canada's unemployment fell to 7.0 percent last month, which is the lowest its been since December 2008, even while cutting 21,900 jobs. A Canadian agency stated this drop was due to the decreasing number of people seeking work which helped cause this four year low in unemployment. About 58,000 Canadians left the workforce or stopped looking for jobs which is largest exit from Canada's labor market since 1995. The biggest losses occurred in Ontario and British Columbia with most of the jobs coming from the public sector. Many economists predicted a balancing of the labor market coming at some point due to the recent economic struggles Canada suffered in latter part of 2012. Despite unemployment giving a lagging indicator of economic state, economic growth in the third quarter of 2012 fell about .6 percent and many forecast it won't improve during the fourth quarter possibly reaching about one percent. The Canadian dollar also fell to its lowest value since January 30th. These numbers just go to show the economic struggles across the globe and how unemployment number don't always tell the true story about the economic state of a nation. Until Canada along with many others are able to find a solution we can get used to seeing numbers like this across the board.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/canada-sheds-21900-jobs-but-unemployment-rate-drops-to-7-percent-in-january/2013/02/08/b6703e18-7204-11e2-b3f3-b263d708ca37_story.html

Mortgage rates reaching new lows

This article focused on the steady decline of interest rates on mortgage payments during this recent recession.  Due to this same recession, the housing market had collapsed due to people having less income to make big purchases and many homes were foreclosed on creating an abundance of properties selling at low prices. Yet with this steady decrease in interest rates and the ability for people to refinance this has created a rise in property sales and prices as a result of the increasingly limited market. The increasing prices of properties on the market has a ripple effect that causes homeowners to feel even wealthier and gain the confidence to make these big purchases and sales of their properties which is essential for rekindling the property market and possibly spark a boost in the overall economy.

However, even with these low rates and promising upturn of the market most individuals still lack the disposable income to take advantage of these rates and cannot afford the large down payments given the strict loan policies that are still in place. Also one aspect of the housing market that is not factored into the average rates is the additional fees borrowers of loans must pay on top of what they already put down in order to have access to the lowest rates. These fees range from 0.8% to 0.6% of the total loaned amount which can also reduce the amount of people who have the initial disposable income to afford these lowest rates in the first place.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/02/07/mortgage-rates-unchanged/1898601/

China reports better than expected trade data

This article talks about how the Chinese economy is performing better than what was expected. Even though we saw that the growth rate slipped in 2012 to 7.8 % the slowest since 1999. This was a huge worry because china is the second largest economy.

The economic conditions are getting better as it can be seen with the help of the trade data and also that both the export and import figures were about 5 to 8 % points above the market expectations   . The exports were up to 25 % , higher than the 17% that was predicted . An increase in domestic demand lead to imports being at 28.8% . The Chinese lunar new year plays a major role in the economy because many factories are closed during these times which has an impact on the number of goods and services which are produced and the increase in demand is seen right before the new years. Overall we can see a pretty good sign of recovery.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21378048

The National Debt

Next week President Obama will give the annual State of the Union Address to Congress and the American people. Surely a large topic of conversation will be not only the current state of the economy, but the largely talked about, national debt. In an article posted in The Economist, "Deficit-reduction Disorder", the long-term domestic economy is discussed. This highlights the fact that the economy has greatly improved since the start of the recession, predicting that this fiscal year the national deficit will be 5.3% of GDP. Comparing this figure to 2008, 10.1% of GDP, illustrates that government spending has greatly decreased. This is overshadowed by the national debt, a huge political talking point. Both parties, Democrats and Republicans, would like to begin to chip away at this debt. Democrats are demanding an increase in taxes and republicans, cuts in entitlement programs (medicaid, medicare, etc.). With a republican majority in the House of Representatives, and a democratic majority in the Senate,  a bipartisan effort is essential to accomplishing this feat.

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21571456-austerity-and-economic-recovery-are-bringing-down-deficit-long-term-problem

Unemployment Aid Applicants

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/states-with-the-biggest-changes-in-jobless-aid-applications-and-some-reasons-at-a-glance/2013/02/07/e8afc37e-712f-11e2-b3f3-b263d708ca37_story.html

This article informs about the decline in applicants for unemployment aid across America. This list five states with the biggest decrease in applicants, Ohio is one of them. Ohio's applicant rate decrease 2,588 due to fewer layoffs in manufacturing. On the surface, this appears to be good, in the sense that less people are unemployed and less people are applying for aid. Manufacturers could be laying off less people causing not as many unemployed people applying. But this could also not be good for many reasons. This could be due to discouraged workers are just not applying for any aid. As well as people could have been rejected from applying previously. There could be many factors contributing to why the number of applicants declined, some of which could be good and some could be bad. But the main question is, how many people are getting hired from being unemployed.

Inflation in India

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-06/imf-says-india-should-hold-rates-until-inflation-is-contained.html

This article discusses the issues inflation can cause when a country seeks to boost its growth rate through monetary policy. The central bank seeks to enact a policy of monetary easing to lower interest rates and boost growth since India's GDP growth rate has been slow recently. However, they are unable to reduce interest rates to the degree that they seek since it might cause undue inflationary pressures in a country where inflation is already fairly high compared to most of the developing world.

To counteract this, the central government has announced policy decisions aimed at curbing the fiscal deficit and reducing spending in order to curb inflation. The IMF has predicted India's growth at 6% and agrees with India's central bank that the room for monetary easing is limited due to inflationary pressures. 

Emergency Economics in Washington

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/crisis-junkies-can-washington-break-its-addiction-to-emergency-economics/272889/

The author of this article expresses the opinion that for the past 6 years in the US, ever since the recession, the Government has been dealing with crisis situations consistently. So much so, that these days almost all policies are reactive (to a crisis) rather than proactive, with a purpose. The reason for this could be the uncertainty of the economic and financial conditions for the past couple of years. However, that does not mean that the people in power should only follow reactive policies and  not proactive ones.

Some laws, such as immigration reforms, affordable care act, etc. are policies which can affect economic conditions strongly. They are not a response to crisis. Contrast these with Dodd-Frank reforms. Dodd-Frank was an emergency response to the financial crisis. However, 5-6 years have passed since the recession hit the US and it is high time that the Government get out of the crisis/emergency situation mentality. It is  proactive politics rather than crisis management that is the need of the hour.

China Looks to Close the Income Gap

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/05/news/economy/china-income-inequality/index.html?iid=SF_E_LN

As China has become more and more developed in the last decade, its citizens have seen an overall rise in income. With a growing upper class, China has seen its growing income gap as a problem that needs to be addressed.

This week, China revealed a plan to close its growing income gap. A increase in minimum wage, a pay ceiling for government employees, and new estate taxes are at the forefront of this reform. Critics say that the effort by the Chinese government is in vain, though, because the plan has no specific deadlines. In addition, a goal like closing the income gap is a long-term effort; much of China's plan focuses on short-term changes.

Whether or not China's reform proves effective, it is interesting that its government has decided to take action to combat the income gap. For now, we'll have to wait and see how the reform works--perhaps, America will be able to learn a thing or two that we can apply to our own income gap.

Argentina pegs supermarket prices rises

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21331052

IMF has formally censured Argentina for understating the rate of inflation since 2007 in order to keep interest payments on its debt low. Analysts believe inflation could be as high as 30% by the end of the year, although the government stated that inflation was below 11%. If Argentina does not improve the quality of its statistics before September, it could potentially face being excluded from taking part in the IMF decisions later this year. On top of facing potential sanctions, Argentinians are already facing the effects of this higher inflation in their everyday lives. To address the problem (or diminish the effect of the economic crisis in society) two-thirds of its supermarkets agreed to keep prices steady until the first of April. It is time, therefore, for the government to stop trying “cheat the system” and address the inflation problem to bring the economy back to normality.

Spain's economy shrinks again and remains deep in recession

This article talks about the Spanish Economy , which is the euro-zones fourth largest economy . The economy contracted dramatically by 0.7 % . The economy which is still trying to recover form the double dip recession is facing may problems.The consumers have cut down spending and the unemployment rate currently at 26% are causing problems for the economy to grow and come back on track.

The increase in Value Added Tax (VAT) lead to a rise in prices of goods and services and this lead to the retail sales fall by 10% because consumers are not willing to spend . To make Spanish firms more competitive the government has passed a law which would allow companies with falling sales to cut wages for its employees. These actions could have negative effects in the long run.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/30/spain-gdp-economy-shrinks

Will French intervention in Mali be beneficial in the long run?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21320636

For people who have been accompanying the News, French forces have invaded Mali to drive Islamists extremists out of the country. Problem is that most of these Islamists are part of a tribe called the Tuareg, which after establishing itself in the North, started to trade with the natives. After the French re-established the Malian government rule in those areas that were once under the Tuareg, they started to flee in fear of reprisals from other tribes. As a result, food and fuel supplies to some parts of northern Mali are starting to dry up. Aid Agency Oxfam said prices in Gao had risen by more than 20% since the French military intervention. Philippe Conraud, Oxfam country director in Mali, said if the traders did not return soon, it could become "very difficult for people to get enough food to feed their families", which makes us think to what extent is the French intervention really considering Malian internal issues. In the short run, one could argue that the economy may suffer from the lack of traders but if a democratic state is established in Mali and it becomes stable enough to get control over the national integrity, Mali could benefit from better trade relations with other secular powers, such as France.

In Hard Economy for All Ages, Older Isn’t Better ... It’s Brutal

This article explains how baby boomers have suffered the most financial pain from the recession. Their retirement savings and home values fell sharply at the worst time possible - just before they needed to cash out. Unemployment rates for Americans closing in on retirement are much lower than those of young people, but that does not tell the whole story. Those who are unemployed and in their 50s and 60s have a tremendously hard time finding new work once laid off. Understandably, businesses often prefer to higher younger professionals because they have less health risk and the training they receive can be put to use for a longer period of time. As college students, we are fortunate to be learning about retirement at a young age to better prepare us. It seems so far away, but we need to begin saving now in order to take advantage of the power of compound interest.

10 Things You'll pay more for in 2013

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/pf/2013/01/04/2013-price-increases/index.html

An interesting series of picture mini-articles telling us that which we already know: prices increase from year to year!
In all seriousness, the interesting points of this article were the examples of product groups focused on. Basic things, such as meat and milk, are going up in price because of a rise in the price of animal feed. Additionally, the article addresses technology such as cable (which has become commonplace for many Americans) and smartphones (T-Mobile eliminating its subsidies for the product) as well as post and other things that we don't think about having an effect on overall consumption or that we simply take for granted as being in a "normal" range. It will be interesting to see if people start stockpiling dried meat and milk in alarm from this article. But I think not.

Super Bowl Economics

http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/super-bowl-economics/Content?oid=2409246#.UQ8mcUI1aFJ

Once a year when the Super Bowl comes around, companies and die-hard fans will pump lots of money into the economy. Companies alone spend millions upon millions of dollars to be a sponsor of this momentous event. The die-hard fans that frequent the event spend a lot of money too at local businesses and on merchandise. This article shows just how much people spend for this annual ritual and how beneficial it can be the economy. Imagine if we had two or three Super Bowls.

Federal Reserve blames stalled economy on weather

http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/30/news/economy/federal-reserve-policy/index.html?iid=SF_E_River

According to this very interesting article, the Fed decided to put the blame on the weather. However, it does not specify why and how exactly the weather was the cause of the recent economic slowdown. As the Fed keeps its policies of holding the interest rate near zero by continuing to buy $40 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion a month in Treasuries, many fear that it will trigger rapid inflation rate.

As the cost of living and taxes have been rising, the Fed's policies have not been working as well as they should. However, the Fed ran out of options and they declared that they will continue buying securities until the employment rate goes down.

US Jobs, Sterling and Europe.

Here's the Article.

This article gives a summary of the latest economic headlines concerning the United States and some European countries as well. There were 150,000 jobs added to the US however the unemployment rose by 0.1% to 7.9% because there was an increase in the number of people looking for work. There is a mention of a fall in output in the US during the last quarter of 2012. The Pound fell against the Euro for the first time in fifteen months showing a not-so-great start to the year for sterling. However, the Euro has a promising future since Europe's central bank has promised to do whatever takes to save the currency. Manufacturers in the region had had their best month in almost a year which helps the Euro. Purchasing has increased in Europe however there is worry in France because their products are not doing well abroad and there is very low demand domestically at the moment. 

Unemployment and the Jobs Report

       According to the latest report from the Labor Department, unemployment rose slightly to 7.9% in January. This point has been taken by uninformed republican critics as a sign of the sure mismanagement of the economy that they predicted would follow another 4 years having Barrack Obama as president. Economists on the other hand see this as a sign of progress.
       Looking closer at the Jobs report, it is interesting to note that in January a total of 157000 jobs were added to the economy. This information when coupled with the rising unemployment rate shows that more discouraged workers are finally reentering the labor force. These workers stopped searching for jobs because there were none available but have now seen the expansion of the economy and the new jobs available as a sign of progress and are now applying for jobs. Their reentry into the labor market raises the unemployment rate and the labor participation rate.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/02/01/obamas-jobs-record-looks-better/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=marketbeat
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/02/01/dont-dismiss-rise-in-unemployment/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/january-jobs-report-unemployment-rate_n_2597751.html