WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The unemployment rate fell to a 2-1/2 year low of 8.6 percent in November and companies stepped up hiring, further evidence the economic recovery was gaining momentum.
Nonfarm payrolls increased 120,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, in line with economists' expectations for a gain of 122,000.
The relative strength of the report was also bolstered by revisions to the employment counts for September and October to show 72,000 more jobs created than previously reported.
While part of the decline in the unemployment rate from 9.0 percent in October was due to people leaving the labor force, the household survey from which the jobless rate is derived also showed solid gains in employment
The unemployment rate had been expected to hold at 9 percent. It last dropped by 0.4 percentage point in January.
"The really good news is that employment has grown for four months running -- in large steps. There was a solid increase in private employment. Everything there looks steady, but clearly healthy and positive," said Pierre Ellis, a senior economist at Decision Economics in New York.
However, retail accounted for more than a third all new private sector jobs in November.
U.S. stock index futures added gains after the report, while Treasury debt prices briefly extended losses and interest rate futures held steady. The dollar extended gains versus the yen.
The report is unlikely to take much pressure off President Barack Obama, whose economic stewardship will face the judgment of voters next November. The outlook for the U.S. economy is also being threatened by Europe's deepening financial crisis.
The report could temper the appetite among some Federal Reserve officials to ease monetary policy further.
In forecasts released earlier this month, the Fed said the jobless rate would likely average 9 percent to 9.1 percent in the fourth quarter. It did not expect it to drop to an 8.5 percent to 8.7 percent range until late next year.
Data ranging from manufacturing to retail sales suggest the growth pace could top 3 percent in the fourth quarter, in contrast to China, where growth is cooling and the euro zone, which many economists believe is already in recession.
While the economy's growth pace appears to have accelerated from the third quarter's 2 percent annual rate, unemployment remains too high.
At the same time, U.S. fiscal policy is set to tighten in the new year, even if lawmakers extend a payroll tax cut.
Taken together, some analysts believe the headwinds facing the U.S. economy will lead the Fed to ease monetary policy further by buying more bonds.
"We still have a very long way to go. I would favor the Fed going for a third round of quantitative easing," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. "It's the only powerful tool left, even though it's losing some of its bang."
Analysts say the economy needs to create at least 125,000 jobs every month just to keep the unemployment rate steady.
But there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic.
While the government's survey of employers has shown a still tepid pace of job growth, its separate poll of households that is used to calculate the unemployment rate has shown robust jobs gains for four straight month.
At the same time, a broad measure of unemployment that includes people who want to work but have given up looking for jobs and those working only part time for economic reasons dropped to a 2-1/2 year low of 15.6 percent in November from 16.2 percent in October.
PRIVATE SECTOR SHOULDERS BURDEN
All the increase in nonfarm payrolls in November again came from the private sector, where employment rose 140,000 after increasing 117,000 in October.
Government employment fell by 20,000. Public payrolls have dropped in 10 of the past 11 months as state and local governments have tightened their belts.
Outside of government, job gains were almost across the board, with retail surging 49,800.
Elsewhere, construction payrolls fell 12,000 after losing 15,000 jobs in October. Factory jobs edged up 2,000, with most of the gains coming from automakers.
Health care and social assistance hiring rose 18,700 after adding 30,300 job in October. Temporary hiring -- seen as a harbinger for future hiring - increased 22,300 after adding 15,800 jobs last month.
The average work week was unchanged at 34.3 hours, with hourly earnings falling two cents.
(Additional reporting by Ellen Freilich in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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CAMP VICTORY, Iraq ? Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday thanked U.S. and Iraqi troops for sacrifices that he said allowed for the end of the nearly nine-year-long war, even as attacks around the country killed 20 people, underscoring the security challenges Iraq still faces.
Biden's comments came during a special ceremony at Camp Victory, one of the last American bases in this country where the U.S. military footprint is swiftly shrinking. The ceremony was hosted by the Iraqi government as a way to commemorate the sacrifices of U.S., Iraqi and coalition forces during the nearly nine-year-long war.
"Because of you and the work that those of you in uniform have done, we are now able to end this war," Biden told the hundreds of American and Iraqi service members assembled at Al Faw palace, which was built by Saddam Hussein.
Joined by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, Biden said the United States takes "immense" pride in what American troops have done in Iraq. He said they are leaving with their heads held high.
By the symbolism at Al Faw, which has served as the U.S. military's headquarters almost since the first U.S. troops battled their way through here in 2003, it was apparent who was on the way in and who was on the way out.
Iraqi flags and tinsel, a favorite Iraqi decoration for festive occasions, replaced the American flags that used to line the driveway to the palace. Iraqi flags hung from the palace walls. After the ceremony was over, the Iraqi band members took out their packs and started smoking ? almost unheard of in U.S. military facilities.
Talabani, referring at times to "our friends, the Americans," praised the troops for their sacrifices and said that based on the "joint efforts" of the coalition and Iraqi forces, stability in the country has been restored.
Biden's eighth visit to Iraq since being elected started on Tuesday and was meant to chart a path for a new U.S. relationship with a country that is home to billions of barrels of oil reserves and more closely aligned with neighboring Iran than the U.S. would like.
But even as the remaining American troops prepare to leave by the end of the year, violence and instability are still a constant in Iraq, albeit dramatically less so than at the height of the conflict.
Two separate attacks on Thursday in Iraq's northeast killed 20 people and wounded 32.
A parked car bomb exploded at an open marketplace in the town of Khalis as morning shoppers were starting to arrive, killing 13 and wounding 28 people, according to the police and Faris al-Azawi, the spokesman of Diyala's health directorate.
Khalis, a Shiite enclave 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Baghdad, lies in the largely Sunni province of Diyala that was a hotbed of al-Qaida in Iraq during the height of the country's violence in 2004-2007.
Earlier at dawn ? also in Diyala ? gunmen stormed the home of an anti-al-Qaida Sunni fighter in the town of Buhris, killing him and six of his family members, said al-Azawi. Buhriz is located about 35 miles (60 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
Iraqi security officials maintain that they are fully prepared for the American withdrawal, which is required under a 2008 security pact between the U.S. and Iraq. About 13,000 U.S. troops are still in the country, down from a one-time high of about 170,000. All of those troops will be out of the country by the end of December.
But many Iraqis are concerned that insurgents may use the transition period to launch more attacks in a bid to regain their former prominence and destabilize the country.
Thursday's deaths bring to at least 56 the number of Iraqis killed in separate attacks across the country in the past eight days, a warning that even more violence may be in the offing ahead of the American withdrawal.
Biden did not address the day's violence directly, but emphasized that Iraqi security forces would be able to protect the country without their one-time American military backers.
"It doesn't mean that the threats are over. Far from it. Violent extremists continue to launch appalling attacks against innocent civilians, fire deadly rockets at diplomats merely trying to do their jobs and threaten Iraqi troops and police," Biden said.
"But Iraqi security forces have been well-trained, prepared and you are fully capable of meeting the challenges," he said.
The vice president also alluded to the threat of neighboring Iran, which U.S. officials have repeatedly accused of financing Shiite militias who then attack American troops and diplomats. In what appeared to be a warning to Iran ? perhaps Iraq as well ? Biden described the Iraqi spirit as "independent."
"The Iraqi people will not, have not, and will not again yield to any external domination, and they would never abide another nation violating their sovereignty by funding and directing militias that use Iraqi terrain for proxy battles that kill innocent Iraqi civilians," he said.
___
Associated Press Writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report from Baghdad.
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) ? The assumption that high jet steam wind speeds in the upper atmosphere correspond to high wind power has now been challenged by researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. Taking into account that the high wind speeds result from the near absence of friction and not from a strong power source, Axel Kleidon and colleagues found that the maximum extractable energy from jet streams is approximately 200 times less than reported previously. Moreover, climate model simulations show that energy extraction by wind turbines from jet streams alters their flow, and this would profoundly impact the entire climate system of the planet.
Jet streams are regions of continuous wind speeds greater than 25 m/s that occur at altitudes of 7-16 km. Their high speeds seem to suggest an almost unlimited source of renewable energy that would only need airborne wind energy technology to utilize it. Claims that this potential energy source could "continuously power all civilization" sparked large investments into exploitation of this potential energy resource. However, just like any other wind and weather system on Earth, jet streams are ultimately caused by the fact that the equatorial regions are heated more strongly by the sun than are polar regions. This difference in heating results in large differences in temperature and air pressure between the equator and the poles, which are the driving forces that set the atmosphere into motion and create wind. It is this differential heating that sets the upper limit on how much wind can be generated and how much of this could potentially be used as a renewable energy resource.
It is well known in meteorology that the high wind speeds of jet streams result from the near absence of friction. In technical terms, this fact is referred to in meteorology as "geostrophic flow." This flow is governed by an accelerating force caused by pressure differences in the upper atmosphere, and the so-called Coriolis force arising from Earth's rotation. Because the geostrophic flow takes place in the upper atmosphere, far removed from the influence of the surface and at low air density, the slow-down by friction plays a very minor role. Hence, it takes only very little power to accelerate and sustain jet streams. "It is this low energy generation rate that ultimately limits the potential use of jet streams as a renewable energy resource," says Dr. Axel Kleidon, head of the independent Max Planck Research Group 'Biospheric Theory and Modelling'. Using this approach based on atmospheric energetics, Kleidon's group used climate model simulations to calculate the maximum rate at which wind energy can be extracted from the global atmosphere. Their estimate of a maximum of 7.5 TW (1 TW = 10^12 W, a measure for power and energy consumption) is 200-times less than previously reported and could potentially account for merely about half of the global human energy demand of 17 TW in 2010.
Max Planck researchers also estimated the climatic consequences that would arise if jet stream wind power would be used as a renewable energy resource. As any wind turbine must add some drag to the flow to extract the energy of the wind and convert it into electricity, the balance of forces of the jet stream must also change as soon as energy is extracted. If 7.5 TW were extracted from jet streams as a renewable energy source, this would alter the natural balance of forces that shape the jet streams to such an extent that the driving atmospheric pressure gradient between the equator and the poles is depleted. "Such a disruption of jet stream flow would slow down the entire climate system. The atmosphere would generate 40 times less wind energy than what we would gain from the wind turbines," explains Lee Miller, first author of the study. "This results in drastic changes in temperature and weather."
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/sYXYCPbX0Io/111130100013.htm
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TLC
Teen Deshonte is in big trouble with his mother.
By Anna Chan
Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when mama comes for you?
"COPS" it isn't, but TLC's upcoming new reality show, "DUI," reveals what can happen when drivers get behind the wheel after one too many drinks. Or in the case of one teenager, what happens when the police?detect the scent of?marijuana emanating from the vehicle.
In a sneak peek, officers pull over a car after noticing one of the headlights is out and learn that the teen driver, Deshonte, and his passengers were enjoying some weed in the vehicle. But rather than cuff the young man (who was on the way to get some food, naturally), the police call his mother instead.
And boy, is she angry. "Deshonte, this is not your $&%*#&^ car! ... What if they would've towed my car? What if you'd have went to jail?! *smack!*"
Check out the clip, but beware of adult (bleeped) language:
"DUI" premieres at 9 p.m. on Dec. 1 on TLC.
Do you think the show can help reduce the number of DUIs? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.
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It hurts to be rejected or excluded. Even rejections that might objectively seem impersonal and inconsequential can be upsetting. For example, if you play a ball-tossing game online with two other people and those two others start tossing only to each other and excluding you, that?s upsetting.
In experiments using that ball-tossing game, no one is using real names or photos, and there are no rewards or punishments involved. Still, getting ostracized is unnerving.
Just thinking about a time when you felt excluded or rejected can hurt, too. It can make you feel as though your social needs are not being fulfilled. In a just-published study, people who were asked to write about a time when they experienced rejection or exclusion (compared to those who wrote about something innocuous ? what they did when they woke up the previous day), felt more disconnected, less good about themselves, less powerful, and more like they did not even exist than they had just before writing about their experience.
Lassie to the rescue! The people who participated in the study were all pet owners. What if, after writing about their experience of feeling ostracized, they then wrote about their favorite pet and why they liked that pet? Would that protect them from feeling badly about themselves? How would that compare with writing about their best (human) friend and what they like about that friend? How would it compare to doing something irrelevant, like drawing a map of campus?
Drawing the map was useless, as predicted. It was just included as a comparison (control) condition. The people who drew the map were the ones who felt more powerless, disconnected, and so forth than they had before writing about their experience of being rejected.
The people who wrote about their pets and what they liked about them ? they had entirely different experiences. They felt no more disconnected, or badly about themselves in any other way, after they wrote about feeling rejected than they had before. Writing about their pets spared them from those bad feelings.
So what about the people who wrote about their best friends? They were protected from bad feelings, too ? but not any more so than the people who wrote about their pets!
Power to the owners of pets! (True confession: I?m not one, though I have been in the past.)
References:
The pet study is Study 3 in this article:
?McConnell, A. R., Brown, C. M., Shoda, T. M., Stayton, L. E., & Martin, C. E. (2011). Friends with benefits: On the positive consequences of pet ownership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 1239-1252.
The online ball-tossing research is described here:
?Williams, K. D. (2007). Ostracism. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 425-452.
For a variety of unapologetic perspectives on single life, check out the feeds at Single with Attitude.
Bella DePaulo (Ph.D., Harvard; Visiting Professor, UC Santa Barbara), an expert on single life, is the author of several books, including "Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After" and "Singlism: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It." Dr. DePaulo has discussed singles and single life on radio and television, including NPR and CNN, and her work has been described in newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and magazines such as Time, Atlantic, the Week, More, the Nation, Business Week, AARP Magazine, and Newsweek. Visit her website at www.BellaDePaulo.com.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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APA Reference
DePaulo, B. (2011). The Power of Pets. Psych Central. Retrieved on November 30, 2011, from http://blogs.psychcentral.com/single-at-heart/2011/11/the-power-of-pets/
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Source: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/single-at-heart/2011/11/the-power-of-pets/
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