New unemployment claims jumped by 66,000 last week to 374,000 after months settling down toward 300,000. This doesn't begin to show the real effects of the government shutdown as contractors are only now beginning to kick people to the curb. The effect this will have on the rest of economy will begin to show soon as the lack of spending by those affected by the shutdown starts to mushroom into a reduction in US GDP. This is one of those self reinforcing feedback loops that are commonly referred to as a 'death spiral'.
You see, the problem isn't confined to the simple math of less spending, but is actually multiplied by the fact that the natural mitigators of an economic downturn that we commonly refer to as 'government safety nets' are also being removed. State run programs are running out of 'pass through' money, and the charities will be affected soon. Right wingers are always saying churches could care for the poor better and somehow do it at no cost, but the christian charities get 2/3 of their money from the Feds. With Uncle Sam out the picture, their private donations will dry up too.
Prairie 2: Hobbling the Four Horses of the Apocalypse
The Forest Mafia: How Scammers Steal Millions Through Carbon Markets
When the balding Australian first stepped off the riverboat and into the isolated pocket of northeastern Peru's Amazon jungle in 2010, he had what seemed like a noble, if quixotic, business plan.
An ambitious real estate developer, David Nilsson hoped to ink joint venture agreements with the regional government of Loreto province and the leaders of the indigenous Matses community to preserve vast thickets of the tribe's remote rainforest. Under a global carbon-trading program, he wished to sell shares of the forest's carbon credits to businesses that hope to mitigate, or offset, their air pollution.
Global effort to capture carbon emissions takes hit
Despite progress in the global effort to capture carbon emissions from power plants and industrial facilities, the number of global large-scale projects aimed at capturing carbon declined from 75 to 65 in 2012, according to a new report.
The Global CCS Institute, an environmental research organization established with funding by the Australian government in 2009, said Thursday that while efforts to implement carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques witnessed some new projects in the last year, the net decrease was a worrisome trend for long-term efforts to reduce the negative impact of climate change.
PolitiFact to launch PunditFact, checking pundits and media figures
PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website of the Tampa Bay Times, will soon launch PunditFact, a site dedicated to checking claims by pundits, columnists, bloggers and the hosts and guests of talk shows.
PunditFact is being funded by $625,000 in grants over two years from the Ford Foundation and the Democracy Fund. Seed money for the project was provided by craigconnects, a philanthropy group run by Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist.
Patriot Act author prepares bipartisan bill to curb NSA
The conservative Republican who co-authored America's Patriot Act is preparing to unveil bipartisan legislation that would dramatically curtail the domestic surveillance powers it gives to intelligence agencies.
Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who worked with president George W Bush to give more power to US intelligence agencies after the September 11 terrorist attacks, said the intelligence community had misused those powers by collecting telephone records on all Americans, and claimed it was time "to put their metadata program out of business".
Nuclear power: why US nuclear 'renaissance' fizzled and plants are closing
A funny thing happened on the way to a nuclear renaissance: For the first time in 15 years, operating nuclear plants are being forced to close, and energy companies are scuttling plans for new plants and upgrades to existing ones.
In addition to four closures of nuclear plants so far this year, two other US nuclear plants are at a crossroads, and dozens more at risk of early retirement.
16-year-old Malala Yousafzai wins Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought
Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai has won the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Parliament President Martin Schulz called the 16-year-old a "brave advocate for education" who "reminds us of our duty toward children and especially girls." The prize is worth about $67,000.
Lonely planet without a star discovered wandering our galaxy
An exotic young planet free-floating through the Milky Way galaxy rather than orbiting any star is practically a newborn in cosmic terms, astronomers say.
Dubbed PSO J318.5-22, the planet without a host star is 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. It formed a mere 12 million years ago, researchers said -- a newborn in planet lifetimes.
The Kochs Can't Control the Monster They Created
The government shutdown and looming threat of default have pitted House conservatives against the Republican Party's traditional allies in the business community. Populist Tea Partiers driven by ideology care little for the pleas for sanity from banking lobbyists and the Chamber of Commerce; indeed, they wear their disregard for Big Business as a badge of honor.
Where does that leave the Koch brothers? The billionaire industrialists have funded a sprawling empire of libertarian-conservative activism; they've been dubbed the bankrollers of the Tea Party. Liberals frequently accuse them of seeking deregulatory policies to further their company's financial interests. But what happens when the Tea Party's ideological warfare threatens to plunge the U.S. economy into chaos?
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