The jobless rate hit a 26-year high of 9.5% last month – and many economists are betting for the jobless rate to hit 10%.

“Of the June total,” reports the Labor Department, “1,235 mass layoffs were reported in the manufacturing sector.”

“All the indicators in the real economy,” said Bill Bonner in his final speech at the Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver, “are actually getting worse.”

And is it any surprise? What exactly does America make anymore? We have been a nation of consumers for the past decade, spending and borrowing to buy the gee-gaws and gadgets that our friends in the Far East have been so busy producing. But now, consumers are saving…they aren’t buying flat-screen televisions…or new cars…or much of anything for that matter.

And it goes without saying that since the housing bubble has popped, the one sector that was actually producing – the building of residential

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Understanding changes in employment is crucial for investors.  Employment is related to consumption, to consumer confidence, and to GDP. The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides many reports.  In the Internet age, these are all backed up with online explanations -- extensive pieces on methodology.  There is plenty of opportunity for analysts to review the methods, to analyze the data, and to consider the conclusions. Doing so requires some expertise in economics and research methods.  One problem is that many observers have a focus that is too narrow. In particular, it is time to pay more attention to the dynamics of the labor market. The JOLTS Report Each month the BLS provides a report, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), that tells us much of what we want to know about the labor market.  We should consider this report in conjunction with the highly-publicized monthly ...

div align=”justify”This is the first financial crisis of the Internet age, and that has made the negative feedback loops particularly vicious and rapid compared to historical precedents, as companies and consumers are just one-click away from adjusting their inventories and portfolios in real-time. emstrongHowever convenient that may seem, in aggregate it damages the resilience of the global economic system by amplifying and propogating the ‘animal spirits’ of human behaviour that Keynes identified back in the 1930’s as “spontaneous urges to action rather than inaction”./strong/em Fear, panic and uncertainty can be dangerously contagious and self-fulfilling. Standing back from the gruesome current price action in equities, it’s worth taking some rational perspective on longer-term valuations and performance. I wrote last November in a href=”http://deadcatsbouncing.blogspot.com/2008/11/demographic-decline-and-equity-risk.html”span style=”color:#cc0000;”strongWill Demographic Decline Raise the Equity Risk Premium?/strong/span/a that em’the reverse yield gap has now turned positive in Japan, the UK and Germany, and is at the lowest …

Time magazine has again demonstrated its irrelevance in the Internet age with a fatuous feature called “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis.”

The failure here is two-fold: One, the editors’ choices of who’s to blame, and two, the reader poll ranking those choices.

Let’s start with who’s on the little list — or more to the point, who’s not.  Time did an OK job of unearthing lesser-known names who definitely bear some culpability in the disaster — such as AIG’s Joe Cassano, who did much to unleash the nightmare of credit-default swaps.

But how can anyone take this list seriously when it doesn’t include Ben Bernanke?  Yes, Greenspan (who did make the list) laid the foundation, but Bernanke built on it with abandon.  Perhaps it’s because the intelligentsia regards him a genuine scholar on monetary matters — you know, historian of the Great Depression and all that.  A far more

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Art Technology Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ARTG) specializes in e-commerce for premier brands around the world. The company offers software and platform-independent optimization services for companies looking for avenues to maximize their online business.

The company today announced that popular footwear retailer DSW Inc. (NYSE: DSW) used ATG’s Commerce Suite to power its recently launched online store at DSW.com to drive brand awareness and boost online presence in the growing Internet age.

Before the company constructed its new Website, DSW used its existing site to provide customers with general information about the retailer, as well as a “store locator” option. According to the press release, when DSW realized the need for an upgraded site, it chose ATG’s solution because of its advanced personalization capabilities, easy to use features, and positive reputation as a solid platform.

Jon Ricker, executive vice president and chief administrative officer of DSW, said the new site not only

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