That was the dire warning from Providence Mayor Angel Taveras during a Thursday morning news conference at City Hall. With five months left before the end of the fiscal year and the capital set to run out of cash by the start of summer, the city still faces a roughly $30 million deficit in its budget for this fiscal year, which ends June 30.

The budget shortfall was projected at $110 million last March, when Taveras declared a “category five” financial emergency in Providence. It was reduced after he negotiated new contracts with unions, laid off workers, cut spending and won increased state aid.

Read more: http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/local_news/providence/wpri-wpri-providence-mayor-angel-taveras-budget-crisis-nek

The new carrier, launched by Tucows Inc. (TCX: 0.75, -0.01, -1.04%), takes a different approach with its plans than the major mobile phone carriers, billing separately for minutes, text messages, and data.

For instance, if you rarely make voice calls, but can’t resist the temptation to grab your iPhone every time you hear that new mail “ding,” a $3 voice package of 100 minutes, along with 4000 text messages ($11) and 2GB of data ($42), might suit you better than the one-size-fits all plans offered by the major carriers.

Compare that to Verizon Wireless, for example, whose lowest-tier voice plan starts at $39.99 and does not include data (starting at 2GB for $30 for smartphones) or text messages (starting at $10 for 1000).

Ting also handles billing differently when customers go over (or even under) their allotted plans. “If customers use less of any [minutes, data, or text messages] than they anticipated, they are credited at the end of the month. If they use more, they are simply billed the appropriate additional amount, without onerous penalties or premiums,” the company said in a press release.

However, unlike the larger companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, Ting requires customers to buy Ting-issued devices to use its network (you cannot activate your existing phone with the service). The devices are also unsubsidized (though they’re contract-free), unlike the major carriers, so they are pricier. There is a pretty full range of price points on the devices Ting offers, with smartphones costing between $105 and $545 and feature phones (often called “dumbphones”) starting at $45.

Ting devices (many of which are 4G) run on Sprint’s nationwide 3G/4G network.

Read more here: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2012/02/03/new-mobile-carrier-ting-offers-truly-customizable-smartphone-plans/

To put this in perspective, the actual survey data says that 111.9 million people had full time jobs in January. That compares with a peak level of 119.3 million in January 2008. They call that a “recovery?”

Read the whole story and see the graphs here: http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/deconstructing-massive-beat-employment-data

“A little more than 10 years ago, Verizon served between 6.7 to 6.8 million phone lines in New Jersey,” said Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczynski in an interview. “Today, the company serves 2.5 million phone lines, so the business has seen a dramatic drop…this is how the telecommunications industry has evolved in the last 10 years.”

The company, which in October moved its headquarters from Eden Prairie to Arlington, Va., has about 2,700 employees in Minnesota.

Patriot Coal announced Thursday that it will stop production at the Big Mountain Mining Complex near Wharton and Van.

About 250 miners have been notified that they will be laid off.

Population estimates for the household survey are developed by the U.S. Census Bureau. Each year, the Census Bureau updates the estimates to reflect new information and assumptions about the growth of the population during the decade. The change in population reflected in the new estimates results from the introduction of the Census 2010 count as the new population base, adjustments for net international migration, updated vital statistics and other information, and some methodological changes in the estimation process. The vast majority of the population change, however, is due to the change in base population from Census 2000 to Census 2010.

The adjustment increased the estimated size of the civilian noninstitutional population in December by 1,510,000, the civilian labor force by 258,000, employment by 216,000, unemployment by 42,000, and persons not in the labor force by 1,252,000. Although the total unemployment rate was unaffected, the labor force participation rate and the employment-population ratio were each reduced by 0.3 percentage point. This was because the population increase was primarily among persons 55 and older and, to a lesser degree, persons 16 to 24 years of age. Both these age groups have lower levels of labor force participation than the general population.

The Zero Hedge site suggests this is a deliberate revision to make the unemployment rate appear lower than it is:

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million.

Except that these people weren’t showing up in any other category in the figures of previous months; pretend the BLS discovered a city of 1.5 million people that it had previously overlooked. But that city is probably a… Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/290070/bureau-labor-statistics-lost-city

1.2 million people driven out of the workforce in a single month!

A frantic White House exploded into damage-control mode, as a deeply shaken President Obama retreated into his chambers. Nervous spokesmen fanned across the airwaves to stammer apologies, search for silver linings among the storm clouds, offer campaign boilerplate about “hope and change,” and desperately search for some way to blame George Bush for an absolute unemployment disaster that occurred over three years after he left office…

What’s that, you say? You didn’t see that headline? Well, of course not, silly. All you’re seeing in the headlines is good news, because the official, heavily-massaged U-3 unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. Fewer people in the workforce means the percentage of unemployed people in the workforce drops.

ZeroHedge is incredulous:

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million.

No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation.

As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.

Now, I suspect that while a lot of people dropped out of the workforce last month, part of what we’re seeing here is some numerical mutation that caused an abnormally large chunk of the labor-force reduction from the past year to be piled into a single month. There was some decent overall job creation in January, with about 243,000 jobs added to non-farm payrolls, and a nice 50,000 job bump in the manufacturing sector. That total is good enough to modestly outpace current population growth. With the usual backwards adjustment to previous months, it looks like the final quarter of 2011 pretty much kept pace with population growth.

However, the fact remains that even as we get back to the (dismal) 8.3 percent U-3 unemployment we last saw in February 2009, the work force is about half a million people smaller in absolute numbers… Read more: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=49280

Take out the unemployed, and that ratio declines even further.

This figure, called the unemployment-population ratio, stood at 58.5 percent in December — a 6.6 percent drop from 2007.

Credit Suisse’s Neal Soss and Henry Mo recently wrote a paper discussing what effect this decline will have on GDP.

A long stretch of low employment-population ratio suggests that the economy loses the productivity that would have come from those “idle” workers. This syndrome reduces potential GDP, the only ultimate wellspring of fiscal solvency and economic well-being.

Why is the emp-pop rate falling?

They first point out that population has been aging significantly. Due to these structural factors, the rate’s been declining since 1996.

But the Great Recession has put the decline on steroids.

The authors found that only one-third of the ratio’s recent acceleration can be chalked up to shifting demographics (ie aging population). The rest results were brought on by cyclical factors (ie plummeting demand from a weak economy).

Soss and Mo believe the only way to address this problem is with counter-cyclical policies, which leads to the author’s final prediction: QE3 remains likely.

The FOMC’s decision to push its forward guidance on exceptionally low rates from “at least through mid-2013” to “at least through late 2014” underscores members’ sense of urgency in taking more counter-cyclical policy. In our view, QE3 is still likely. We expect a program to commence in the next few months with a heavy emphasis on buying mortgage-related securities.

Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-02-01/markets/31011984_1_decline-gdp-ratio

Source: Panasonic
Panasonic, posting quarterly results, said it was headed for a loss of 780 billion yen ($10.24 billion) for the year to March, dwarfing expectations for a loss of around $6.2 billion. The loss was almost entirely due to restructuring charges and writedowns, including to its Sanyo Electric unit.

Panasonic, which is in the process of shedding 17,000 jobs by end-March, also missed third-quarter market forecasts, diving to a loss of 197.6 billion yen from a profit a year earlier.

Its grim outlook follows forecasts from Sony and Sharp for combined losses of $6.7 billion, highlighting the impact on Japanese consumer electronics firms of fierce competition from foreign rivals such as South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, weak demand and a strong yen.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/46244352/Panasonic_Forecasts_Record_10_Billion_Annual_Loss

Until recently United Retail Group, which operates plus-size women’s apparel retailer Avenue.com, was owned and operated by Redcats USA, No 33 in the Internet Retailer Top 500.

But in a new bankruptcy petition filed by United Retail with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, the company says it is being sold by Redcats in order to reorganize and sell its assets to Versa Capital Management, a private equity firm, or another buyer. “We are happy to have found a buyer and are confident in Versa’s plan to continue re-energizing the Avenue brand,” says Redcats USA executive vice president John Heaney. “This sale was part of a strategic decision by Redcats USA to focus its business online moving forward, and we are pleased to have found a company that can continue the turn-around process we envisioned from the beginning.”

The solar wafer business is expected to incur a “significant loss due to the sharp decline in demand and continued price collapse since last spring,” Sumco said in a business plan released today.

Sumco forecast a full-year loss of 85 billion yen ($1.1 billion) and asked Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd., which owns a 28 percent stake, to buy preferred shares. The company took a charge of 58.2 billion yen for the restructuring.

“This is the first Japanese casualty manufacturer from plummeting global solar costs,” said Jenny Chase, chief solar analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “Other diversified players in the country are feeling the pinch too.”

The Tokyo-based company will dissolve and liquidate its subsidiaries, Sumco Solar Corp. and Minamata Denshi Co., according to a separate statement. Sumco Solar makes solar wafer, and Minamata Denshi processes raw materials for the solar business.

“We are acutely aware that these decisions will affect many employees,” CEO David Brennan said, “and we will strive to support our people as we implement these changes.” He’s had to utter similar words repeatedly in recent years; the company has announced a series of restructuring moves that shrank the company payrolls by at least 21,000. Most recently, AstraZeneca said it would shed 1,150 more jobs from its U.S. sales operations. Currently, it has 61,000 employees.

The number includes 13,000 employees who joined the stoppage, declared illegal by court order, after they failed to return to work by yesterday’s deadline, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement today. The strike is costing Impala about 3,000 ounces of platinum daily, the equivalent of $4.9 million in sales a day.

The Rustenburg operation, northwest of Johannesburg, accounts for half of Impala’s total production and about two- thirds of its profit. The mine produced 941,200 ounces in Impala’s last fiscal year. South Africa is the world’s largest producer of the metal used in car components and jewelery.

This is the largest absolute jump in ‘Persons Not In Labor Force’ on record…and biggest percentage jump in 30 years!

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Chart here shows it all…

Read more: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/record-12-million-people-fall-out-labor-force-one-month-labor-force-participation-rate-tumbles-

However, the search giant failed to assuage lawmakers’ privacy concerns stemming from the company’s controversial plans to step up the cross-referencing of data generated by consumers who use its popular online services, says Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., who arranged the closed-door briefing.

Pablo Chavez, Google’s public policy director, and Michael Yang, its deputy general counsel, outlined how the company supplies consumers with a number of tools to protect their privacy. Lawmakers questioned whether tools that Google makes available to help consumers control their privacy were user-friendly and effective.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, says Chavez and Yang “danced around actual details, and instead spoke in generalities, highlighting their efforts to ‘enhance the user experience’ — but at what cost?”

Bono Mack said she expects Google to proceed with its planned March 1 change.

“I don’t know that I got any more clarity than what I’ve been reading in the press,” says Bono Mack. “There’s a big concern in Congress about privacy, on both sides of the aisle.”

Public hearings on Internet privacy are planned for this spring, she says. And Google spokesman Chris Gaither says: “We’re happy to discuss our updated privacy policy with Congress.”

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-02-02/google-privacy-hearing/52939786/1

Employers last month said they planned to cut 53,486 positions, compared with 41,785 job cuts announced in December. The January job cuts were 39 percent higher than during the same period a year earlier, when employers said they planned 38,519 cuts, the lowest first-month cuts on record.

Retailers and financial firms saw the greatest cuts, losing 12,426 and 7,611 jobs, respectively. Challenger said the retail job losses were not related to seasonal hiring, and instead were the result of restructurings, store closings, and other cost-cutting measures.

The company is grappling with sinking advertising revenue and a recent change in the top management after losing CEO Janet Robinson, who received a multimillion dollar severance package.

They said it continued to add subscribers for its digital products in the fourth quarter.

The company’s loss was blamed on the terminal decline in print advertising. The problems plaguing newspaper companies are well known.

Readers have ditched print for digital, causing circulation and advertising revenue to plummet.

The company, which rolled out an online pay system last year for digital subscribers, said paid digital subscribers of The Times and the International Herald Tribune rose 20 per cent from the third quarter to about 390,000.

The digital subscription strategy helped circulation revenue to grow five per cent to $241.6 million in the fourth quarter.

Chief Financial Officer James Follo said: ‘We are confident that our plan to sustain momentum through the rollout of a series of new features, functions and content will enable us to steadily build our digital progress to date.’

The Times Company is also planning on selling more of its stake in the Boston Red Sox.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095599/New-York-Times-loses-40million-2011.html

The 27-year-old founder and chief executive officer of Facebook is the company’s top stakeholder as it prepares to go public, with 533.8 million shares, or 28.4 percent, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. Investment firms Accel Partners and Digital Sky Technologies own a combined 16.8 percent.

Facebook said in its prospectus that it plans to raise as much as $5 billion in an IPO. The Menlo Park, California-based company is discussing a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, two people familiar with the matter said last week. At the top end of that range, Zuckerberg will own stock worth $28.4 billion. His command of the company goes beyond stock — he controls 56.9 percent of the voting power.

“It looks from this as if Zuckerberg is maintaining a lot of control,” said Rebecca Lieb, an analyst at Altimeter Group in New York. “He’s shown a great deal of wisdom and maturity in bringing the company to this level of stability and profitability before going public.”

By comparison, Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page are each worth more than $15 billion based on their ownership of that company’s shares. Ellison, 67, owns stock worth about $31 billion in Oracle, the software company he founded in 1977.

In the decision, Carnahan wrote “At a bare minimum Honda was aware … that by the time Peters bought her car there were problems with its living up to its advertised mileage.” He went further, indicating that he found Honda to have committed fraud, but not intentional fraud.

According to a report in the Associated Press, Honda’s EPA certification engineer said Honda “was required to post a sticker with the Environmental Protection Agency’s estimate of the highest mileage the car could get.” (In a previous report from Automotive.com he was characterized as saying that “automakers had no option but to adhere to the federal testing procedures.”) While that claim was shot down by earlier precedent where it was shown that automakers had cited lower fuel economy numbers than the EPA in their advertising and marketing, it will be interesting to see whether this line in Carnahan’s decision comes up again: “Honda’s own testing should be the guideline for how it advertises its vehicles’ mileages, not the generalized work … done by the EPA.”

And we can be certain it will since Honda has already stated its intention to appeal. And because the appeal will be held in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the way has been cleared for Honda to get its lawyers in the courtroom.

This gives other plaintiffs in the class action suit over Civic Hybrid mileage an option as to how to proceed. The last day to sign onto the settlement of that earlier suit is February 11, however, even if that case remains unfinished; a judge in San Diego won’t rule until March on whether that settlement, which would see plaintiffs get a $100 to $200 and $1,000 discount on a new Honda and trial attorneys get $8.5 million, is fair.

Calling the situation “unsustainable,” the central bank leader pointed out that surging health-care costs, along with the high level of government spending used to pull the economy out of recession, are creating fiscal hazard.

“Having a large and increasing level of government debt relative to national income runs the risk of serious economic consequences,” Bernanke told the House Budget Committee. “Over the longer term, the current trajectory of federal debt threatens to crowd out private capital formation and thus reduce productivity growth.”

Total public debt subject to limit Jan. 30 15,313,699
Statutory debt limit 16,394,000
Total public debt outstanding Jan. 30 15,356,140
Operating balance Jan. 30 158,596
Interest fiscal year 2012 through December 62,662
Interest same period 2011 56,780
Deficit fiscal year 2012 through December 321,735
Deficit same period 2011 368,960
Receipts fiscal year 2012 through December 555,437
Receipts same period 2011 531,797
Outlays fiscal year 2012 through December 877,173
Outlays same period 2011 900,757
Gold assets in January 11,041

Staff at Yellow Media in Montreal said fewer than 700 people would be let go across the country as the company moves to consolidate its two operations by eliminating duplication.

The company plans to issue only one yellow phonebook in each city, but the Canpages online directory will live on, said staff.

Staff at the Canpages headquarters in Burnaby, just east of Vancouver, were still picking up the phone Wednesday morning but no one at the company was willing to talk publicly. Nobody was answering the phone at the Victoria office, which is closed.

The political factors that aligned in Indiana were so unique, and it is unlikely the same thing could happen in other states — at least for now.

Gov. Mitch Daniels’ signature Wednesday on the bill that made Indiana the nation’s 23rd right-to-work state was the end of a contentious two-year political battle that included partisan bickering, lawmaker walkouts, legislative stall tactics and union protests. In the end, Indiana marked the first win for national right-to-work supporters who tried in vain last year to push the measure despite a Republican sweep of statehouses nationwide in 2010.

A “Right-to-work” law is a statute that prohibits agreements between labor unions and employers that make membership, payment of union dues, or fees a condition of employment, either before or after hiring.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46216384

Officials with the region’s dominant health system say UMass Memorial has excess capacity, is spending more on free care, writing off more bills that patients cannot pay and facing pressure from insurers and employers to address the escalating cost of medical care.

“We need to operate more efficiently, and we need to do more, better, cheaper,” said John G. O’Brien, UMass Memorial chief executive.

Officials spoke this morning with representatives from the unions representing workers at UMass Memorial and were alerting all workers at noon to the coming changes. Most layoffs will take place in the next few weeks at the University, Memorial and Hahnemann campuses in Worcester, Mr. O’Brien said.

Read more: http://www.telegram.com/article/20120201/NEWS/120209989/1116

Microsoft said the layoffs were prompted by overlapping responsibilities of the Redmond, Wash., company’s central marketing team and its various business divisions, which also conduct marketing activities. The move will rationalize and define job responsibilities a company spokesman said.

“We’re taking steps to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our marketing, and to strengthen career paths for marketers at Microsoft,” a company spokesman said in a statement. The changes “better align our resources with our business needs and clarify roles across the marketing function.”

The layoffs, which affect a small portion of the company’s marketing work force, come nearly a year into the tenure of Chris Capossela, who became chief marketing officer last spring. Capossela, a 20-year veteran of Microsoft, previously served as senior vice president of the Office business, responsible for marketing business-to-business products such as Office and Visio.

The changes come amid a sharp change in the way customers purchase technology.

The document revealed plans to lay off “up to 240 selling, general and administrative personnel worldwide” by September. “No studios are a part of this,” they told Joystiq. “It’s administration and publishing offices worldwide.”

Still, you’ve got to worry when the CEO, Brian Farrell, is taking a 50% pay cut for the next year, as well as a 66% cut to the money he’d receive if he stepped down. The other members of the company’s board of directors have also elected to take 50% pay cuts for a year.

Highest unemployment rates December 2011:

El Centro, Calif. 26.8
Yuma, Ariz. 23.1
Merced, Calif. 18.7
Yuba City, Calif. 18.1
Visalia-Porterville, Calif. 16.2
Fresno, Calif. 16.2
Modesto, Calif. 16.1
Stockton, Calif. 15.9
Hanford-Corcoran, Calif. 15.3
Ocean City, N.J. 15.1

Lowest unemployment rates December 2011:

Bismarck, N.D. 3.2
Lincoln, Neb. 3.6
Fargo, N.D. 3.7
Burlington, Vt. 3.8
Logan, Utah 3.9
Midland, Texas 3.9
Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, La. 4.3
Sioux Falls, S.D. 4.3
Ames, Iowa 4.3
Iowa City, Iowa 4.3

“In the last three years, we’ve worked hard to get out of this mess and we’ve made some remarkable progress,” the first lady told a group of about 135 supporters at a private campaign event for her husband. She listed President Obama’s accomplishments on healthcare reform, the removal of troops from Iraq and the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” among other items on the list of “promises kept” touted by Obama’s reelection campaign.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/207885-michele-obama-cites-remarkable-progress-on-the-economy-

Sources familiar with the plan said they company plans to announce the cuts during a meeting Wednesday morning in Fort Worth.

It is estimated that 1,000 of those jobs to be cut will be at the company’s maintenance base at Alliance Airport in north Fort Worth.

After the company presents the plan they will begin negotiating with unions, so the final numbers of lost jobs lost may change.

Hong Kong-listed Esprit intends to focus on “finding one or more license partner” to maintain the brand’s presence in North America, said Patrick Lau, head of investor relations and mergers and acquisitions, in an e-mailed statement. The U.S. and Canadian subsidiaries haven’t decided on whether to file for Chapter 11 or equivalent Canadian proceedings.

“Esprit is cutting losses in a tough market that it hasn’t been able to break into,” said Andrew Sullivan, principal sales trading at Piper Jaffray Asia Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong. “Retailers in the U.S. all face a difficult moment since U.S. consumer spending continues to shrink.”

The company also reported lower fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, but adjusted earnings topped expectations.

Lexmark has been phasing out printers targeted at the consumer market in recent years and is now focused on selling to corporate clients that print more pages and consume more supplies such as ink and toner.