Hiring is BACK!

Hiring is back in a big way on many college campuses, one of several signs a recovery in the U.S. jobs market is gaining traction. After four years during which many students graduated to find no job and had only their loans to show for their studies, most college campuses are teeming with companies eager to hire.

A survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found 2012 hiring is expected to climb 10.2 percent, above a previous estimate of 9.5 percent.

Companies such as General Electric, Amazon, Apple and Barclays Global are looking for new staff, even if some firms remain below the pre-recession levels of new hiring. In another sign of the recovery, some first-time job seekers are receiving multiple offers.

At University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the career service office has seen up to now a 7.4 percent increase in the number of interviews of students by potential employers from last year and the number of companies seeking to recruit for full-time jobs is up 9.2 percent.

Undergraduate business majors reporting full-time job offers is up about 10 percent.

Career experts at a dozen of U.S. schools said they have seen an increase of 15 to 30 percent in the number of companies attending campus career fairs. At University of Florida, the fall career fair garnered 15 percent more companies in attendance than in 2010.

And 150 companies asked to conduct interviews versus about 100 in recent years, said Ja'Net Glover, associate director of employer relations at the school.

The increase in demand was so significant that it was the first time in years the school had to use both the first and second floors of the school's basketball facility for interviews.

Hedge Funds buying stocks at fastest rate in two years!!!

Hedge funds trailing the Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) Index for the last five months are giving up on bearish bets and buying stocks at the fastest rate in two years.

A gauge of hedge-fund bullishness measuring the proportion of bets that shares will rise climbed to 48.6 last week from 42 at the end of November 2011, the biggest increase since April 2010, according to data compiled by the International Strategy & Investment Group. The Bloomberg aggregate hedge fund index gained 1.4 percent last month, lagging behind the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by 2.65 percentage points.

GE’s New U.S. Jobs

General Electric Co. (GE) Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt says he’s returning refrigerator-production work to the U.S. from Mexico to boost profitability in appliances. Investors say a bigger reason may be his leadership of President Barack Obama’s jobs panel.

Immelt was in Louisville, Kentucky, yesterday to say that he’s bringing back 600 jobs under an $800 million investment in its manufacturing complex there. Welcomed by local officials, the new positions add to GE’s existing Louisville workforce of about 4,000.

Light at the end of the tunnel and its not a train!!!

The Fed said yesterday that strains in global financial markets have eased and the labor market is gathering strength. In a separate statement, the U.S. central bank said 15 of the nation’s largest 19 banks could maintain adequate capital levels even in a recession scenario. Data later today may show Indian wholesale prices rose 6.7 percent last month, near the slowest pace in two years, based on economists surveyed by Bloomberg
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“It is just a continued pattern of relatively strong U.S. economic data,” said Shane Oliver, Sydney-based head of investment strategy at AMP Capital Investors Ltd., which oversees about $100 billion. “Overall it’s fairly a positive sign for the U.S. financial sector, banks in particular. It shows how much things have turned around from the situation three years ago.”

it’s going to be a good year! :-)

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rallied 0.8 percent as of 11:12 a.m. in Tokyo, climbing for the third time in four days. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.2 percent. The yen weakened 0.2 percent to 108.44 per euro and New Zealand’s dollar appreciated 0.4 percent to 82.16 U.S. cents. Oil traded near the lowest level in a week in New York.

U.S. retail sales rose 1.1 percent in February, the most in five months, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg, reducing the likelihood the Federal Reserve will add to stimulus measures today. The Bank of Japan is also forecast to keep policy unchanged today. European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said he was confident EU leaders would reach an agreement on increasing the size of its crisis- fighting funds this month.

“We’re starting to feel more confident and it’s going to be a good year, particularly in equities,” Kirk West, Sydney- based executive director of international investments at Principal Global Investors, manager of about $215 billion in assets, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “‘In the U.S., it’s all about jobs. Jobs growth has continued and will ultimately lead to further consumption and that’s a virtuous cycle.”

Jobs Jobs Jobs

Employers added more than 200,000 workers to their payrolls for a third straight month in February, a sign the economy was strengthening and in less need of further monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve.

Friday's Labor Department report, which showed nonfarm payrolls increased 227,000 last month, also bolstered President Barack Obama's chances for re-election.

The jobless rate held at a three-year low of 8.3 percent even as people flooded back into the labor force to hunt for work, and 61,000 more jobs were created in December and January than previously thought.

People working again = what a concept....

Employers in the U.S. boosted payrolls more than forecast in February, capping the best six month streak of job growth since 2006.

Intelligent Design or Natural Selection you decide on Keystone XL (New & Improved)

TransCanada Corp said on Monday it will build the southern leg of its $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline first.

Building the portion of the contentious pipeline that would run to Texas refineries from the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub before the northern section would help remove a pinch-point that has led to deep price discounts for U.S. and Canadian crude and forced refiners to rely more heavily on imports.

TransCanada said it wants the $2.3 billion southern leg in service by mid- to late 2013. It said construction would create 4,000 U.S. jobs.

The company also wrote to the U.S. State Department on Monday detailing plans to refile an application shortly for the remainder of line running to Steele City, Nebraska, from the Canada-U.S. border.

The BULL runs...

The S&P 500 is on pace for a third month of gains, the longest streak in a year, amid better-than-estimated economic and corporate reports. It has risen 4.2 percent this month. The index trades at about 14.1 times reported earnings, compared with the average since 1954 of 16.4 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Bull Market Defined...

The MSCI All-Country World Index of shares in 45 nations completed a 20 percent rally from its October low yesterday, meeting the definition of a bull market. The S&P 500 yesterday closed 1 percent away from its peak nine months ago of 1,363.61, which was the highest level since June 2008. It had risen 7.3 percent this year through yesterday amid better-than-expected economic data and corporate profits.

JOBS kinda what good govt is all about....creating a vibrant middle class!!!

Fewer Americans than forecast filed first-time applications for unemployment benefits last week, easing concern that post-holiday firings were on the rise.

Claims plunged by 50,000 to 352,000 in the week ended Jan. 14, the lowest level since April 2008, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 41 economists in a Bloomberg News survey projected 384,000. A Labor Department spokesman said the decrease reflected volatility seen during this time of year. The four-week average, which smoothes out fluctuations, decreased to 379,000 last week from 382,500.

Republicans aim to bust Unions in Indiana

A clash over labor rights in Indiana is taking shape in the state Capitol as House Democrats try to stop a measure that would prohibit union contracts from requiring that workers pay dues, a top priority for Governor Mitch Daniels and fellow Republicans.



When the legislative session opened yesterday in Indianapolis, Democrats remained in caucus, preventing the House from conducting business. The opening-day maneuver recalled last year’s session, when the Republican-dominated House shut down for five weeks after Democrats fled the state in opposition to bills restricting union rights. It extends battles over unionism throughout the Midwest to a new arena: private businesses.


While the House is scheduled to convene today, Democratic leader Patrick Bauer said yesterday his members would return if public hearings on the bill are held throughout the state, not just in the Capitol in Indianapolis.

“We refuse to let the most controversial public policy bill of the decade be railroaded through and the public denied fair and adequate input,” Bauer said in a statement.


“There is no urgency to schedule this bill for passage so quickly,” he said.

The measure, which prohibits contracts at private work sites from requiring workers to contribute to a union, is scheduled for a committee hearing tomorrow.

GOP Cornered by their own BILE...

To understand how House Republicans have backed themselves into a corner on extending the payroll tax cut, two Senate Republicans running in some of the most competitive contests next year are distancing themselves from the House GOP.

“The House Republicans’ plan to scuttle the deal to help middle-class families is irresponsible and wrong,” said Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who most likely will run against Democrat Elizabeth Warren in 2012. “The refusal to compromise now threatens to increase taxes on hard-working Americans and stop unemployment benefits for those out of work.”

And Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), who will run against Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, added: “What is playing out in Washington, D.C., this week is about political leverage, not about what’s good for the American people. Congress can work out a solution without stopping the payroll tax-cut extension for the middle class.”

Bottom line: You know where the politics on this issue are when Brown and Heller are for/against something. Two other veteran senators, Richard Lugar and Olympia Snowe, also both up for re-election in states carried by President Obama in ‘08, have joined the chorus of Republicans asking the House GOP to simply vote out the Senate bill.

2012 bodes to be banner year for US Equities.

The U.S. received its highest rating from international investors in more than two years, with 41 percent saying in a Bloomberg poll conducted Dec. 5-6 that the country would be among top performers in 2012.

When did size not matter??? (and what about that payroll tax cut extension; and American Jobs Act....)

The Federal Reserve may lend $1 trillion to central banks as Europe’s crisis roils markets and erodes confidence in the region’s lenders, Anthony Sanders, a George Mason University finance professor, told Congress.



Such a level would exceed the program’s peak of $586 billion reached in December 2008, when the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. spurred foreign banks to obtain emergency dollar funding. Under the so-called swap lines, the Fed lends dollars to foreign central banks so they can pass on the money to their local lenders.


The swaps program may “get to the $1 trillion level, or perhaps even higher,” said Sanders, a former director of mortgage-bond research at Deutsche Bank AG. (DBK) He spoke today before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s subcommittee on financial-services bailouts, led by Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican.


Loans on the swaps program jumped to $54.3 billion as of Dec. 14 from $2.3 billion a week earlier, Federal Reserve data show. Draws by the European Central Bank surged after the Fed on Nov. 30 announced it would cut rates on the program. The Federal Reserve’s overall balance sheet stands at $2.9 trillion.


Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke yesterday told a closed-door gathering of Republican senators that the Fed won’t provide more aid to European banks beyond the swap lines and the discount window -- another Fed program that provides emergency funds to U.S. banks, including U.S. branches of foreign banks.

Size Estimates

European financial companies led by Royal Bank of Scotland Plc were borrowing about $538 billion directly from the Fed when the central bank’s emergency loans to all banks peaked at $1.2 trillion on December 2008, according to a Bloomberg News examination of data released by the Fed under last year’s Dodd- Frank Act and earlier this year under court-upheld Freedom of Information Act requests.


The Fed hasn’t provided any estimates of how large the swap lines might get, said David Skidmore, a Fed spokesman. He declined to elaborate.

Republicans we only care for the poor and middle class if we can make the rich richer!!!

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are poised for a collision next week of their bids to extend or expand a payroll tax cut for workers.


House Republicans rallied yesterday behind a plan Boehner is preparing that would pair an extension of the current payroll tax cut with eased restrictions on some industrial emissions and expedited approval of an oil pipeline from Canada. Reid is focused on expanding cuts to the worker payroll tax and using a surtax on annual income exceeding $1 million to pay for it.

The biggest fights likely will center on a Republican demand that the bill include language that would expedite the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline in Canada. The proposed TransCanada Corp. (TRP) pipeline would carry oil from Canada to the U.S. The Obama administration has put off a decision on the pipeline until 2013. An independent study concluded that the pipeline would create no meaningful new jobs and pose an unacceptable risk to the USA’s environment as well as contributing to Canada becoming the largest GHG emitter per capita due to the extraction and processing methods used in the oil sands.

“House Republicans’ bill is a partisan joke that has no chance of passing the Senate,” the Nevada Democrat said in a press release. “Instead of playing political games, Congress should work to find common ground.”

If Exxon & others paid taxes; we'd have the $2 trillion to put into US infrastructure; and guess what... employment problem solved!!!

The United States is falling dramatically behind much of the world in rebuilding and expanding an overloaded and deteriorating transportation network it needs to remain competitive in the global marketplace, according to a new study by the Urban Land Institute.


Burdened with soaring deficits and with long-term transportation plans stalled in Congress, the United States has fallen behind three emerging economic competitors — Brazil, China and India, the institute said.

“Over the next five to 10 years, public concerns will grow over evident declines in the condition of infrastructure,” the report says. “At some attention-getting point after infrastructure limps along, platforms for reinvesting in America could gain significant traction and public support.”

The report is the latest in a series of studies to conclude that the nation will face dire long-term consequences if major investment in transportation revitalization is postponed.

“Infrastructure should be part of the larger conversation about ‘what do you want government to do and how do you want to pay for it?’ ” said Jay Zukerman of Ernst & Young, which conducted the institute’s study.

The report lends global perspective to an issue addressed last fall by a panel of 80 experts led by former transportation secretaries Norman Y. Mineta and Samuel K. Skinner. That group concluded that as much as $262 billion a year must be spent on U.S. highways, rail networks and air transportation systems.

Congress has failed to approve the two major bills that allow for long-term funding and planning for aviation and transportation. The Federal Aviation Administration has been operating under a funding bill that expired in 2007 and has been extended 18 times. The surface transportation act, which provides the balance of federal transportation funding, expired in 2009 and has been extended seven times.

As Congress debates how much should be spent and where to find the money, China has a plan to spend $1 trillion on high-speed rail, highways and other infrastructure in five years. India is nearing the end of a $500 billion investment phase that has seen major highway improvements, and plans to double that amount by 2017. Brazil plans to spend $900 billion on energy and transportation projects by 2014.

The United States, the institute report concludes, needs to invest $2 trillion to rebuild roads, bridges, water lines, sewage systems and dams that are reaching the end of their planned life cycles.

The report says the desire of Congress to curtail spending will push costs onto “budget-busted” state and local governments. It points to highways and water treatment plants, built with federal funds 40 to 50 years ago, that will become financial burdens to local governments as the time comes for replacement.

“We’re seeing less federal support and less local revenues because of unemployment,” said Maureen McAvey, executive vice president of the institute, a non-profit group that analyzes policies and programs. “Some of the ambitions some growing cities had just a few years about are being cut back or put on hold.”

US$ 447 bn to create employment; a no brainer.....

Some 9.1% of Americans are currently out of work (nearly 43% of them have now been out of work for more than six months), an issue that is expected to dominate the election campaign. For this reason last September 8th President Obama unveiled the American Jobs Act, his latest stimulus plan, this time majorly intended to create jobs but also to spur the economy. Nearly all of the plan is made up of ideas that have been supported by both Democrats and Republicans. Now the plan (which at the moment it is just a President’s proposal) needs to be passed by the Congress (expected to be done yesterday).

The purpose of the American Jobs Act is according the White House: “to put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans – without adding a dime to the deficit.” The proposal includes more than $248 billion in tax incentives for small businesses and employers, according to administration estimates. The rest of the money would be devoted to infrastructure spending, state aid, unemployment insurance, and neighborhood rehabilitation. Overall, the bill would deliver roughly $450 billion in job creation measures, a majority of which would come in the form of tax breaks. Because the bill is mostly focused on 2012, it is similar in scale to the 2009 recovery act.


President Barack Obama’s jobs package could lift economic growth by one to three percentage points in 2012, add well over one million jobs and lower the unemployment rate by at least half a percentage point, judging by early estimates.


The American Jobs Act has five key components:


1. Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow: new tax cuts to businesses that provide immediate incentives for firms to hire and invest. These tax cuts would be available to all businesses, regardless of size, but are designed to target their impact towards the smallest businesses.


Measures:
- A payroll tax cut to businesses, with a focus on small employers.

- A complete payroll tax holiday for new jobs or wage increases.

- Extend 100 percent business expensing through 2012 ($5 billion).


- Help entrepreneurs and small businesses access capital and grow.


■Changing the Way the Government Does Business with Small Firms.

■Reducing Regulatory Burdens on Small Business Capital Formation.

■Helping Small Businesses Compete for Infrastructure Projects.

■Passing Patent Reform.

2. Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America: the purpose is to put Americans back to work in key areas that are central to America‘s future competitiveness. Repairing and modernizing classrooms across the country and making sure that teachers who have been laid off because of budget cuts can be brought back to work. It will take on the fact that the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) awarded the United States a ‘D’ for the overall condition of its infrastructure. Both to modernize the nation‘s roads, railways, airports and schools and to put hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.


Measures:
- A Helping Hand for Veterans.


- Preventing Teacher Layoffs and Keeping Police Officers and Firefighters on the Job ($35 billion).

- Modernizing At Least 35,000 Public Schools – From Science Labs and Internet-Ready Classrooms to Renovated Facilities ($30 billion).
■Safer, Healthier, and Technologically-Advanced Schools of the Future.

■A Focus on Schools in Need.

■Modernizing Community Colleges to Train a 21st Century Workforce.

- Immediate Investments in Infrastructure ($50 billion).
■Investments in Making US’ Highway Systems Safer and More Efficient.

■Repairing Transit Systems and Improving Rail Systems.

■Improving Airports.

■Opportunities in the Transportation Sector.

■Funding for Innovative Transportation.

■Expediting High Impact Infrastructure Projects.

- National Infrastructure Bank ($10 billion)
■Independent, Non-Partisan Operations Led by Infrastructure and Financial Experts.

■Broad eligibility for Infrastructure and Unbiased Project Selection.

■Addressing Market Gaps for Infrastructure Financing.

- Project Rebuild: Putting People Back to Work Rehabilitating Homes, Businesses and Communities ($15 billion).
■Focus on Distressed Commercial Properties and Redevelopment to Stabilize Communities.

■Include For-Profit Entities to Gain Expertise, Leverage Federal Dollars and Speed Program Implementation.

■Increase Support for “Land Banking”.

■Create Jobs Maintaining Properties and Avoiding Community Blight.

- Expanding Nationwide Wireless Internet Services For the Public and the First Responders, in a Fiscally Responsible Way.


3. Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs: extension of unemployment insurance to prevent 6 million Americans looking for work from losing their benefits, while at the same time reforming the system to help support programs that build real skills, connect to real jobs, and help the long-term unemployed.


Measures:
- Reform Unemployment Insurance System to Provide Greater Flexibility, While Ensuring 6 Million People Do Not Lose Benefits ($49 billion).


■Rigorous Reemployment Assistance.

■Work Sharing: UI reform to prevent layoffs.

■State Flexibility for Bold Reforms to Put the Long-Term Unemployed Back To Work.

- Tax credits for businesses that hire the long-term unemployed ($8 billion).
■An Effective, Targeted Measure.

■Rising to the Challenge of Persistent Unemployment.

- Investing in Low-Income Youth and Adults ($5 billion).
■Support for Summer and Year-Round Jobs for Youth.

■Subsidized Employment Opportunities for Low-Income Individuals Who Are Unemployed.

■Support for Local Efforts to Implement Promising Work-Based Strategies and to Provide Training Opportunities.

- Ending Discrimination Against the Unemployed.



4. More Money in the Pockets of Every American Worker and Family: put more money in the pockets of working and middle-class Americans by providing tax relief to 160 million workers – extending the payroll tax cut passed last December. Congress approved a cut in the tax for workers last year, from 6.2% to 4.2%. But that measure was due to expire in December. Mr Obama wants to continue that cut next year, lower the tax even further to 3.1% for workers, and extend a similar cut to companies, at a cost of $240bn.
Measures:
- Cutting Payroll Taxes in Half for 160 Million Workers Next Year ($179 billion)


■A Targeted Tax Cut for American Workers.

■A Boost to Economic Growth and Job Creation.

■A Tax Cut That Has Received Bipartisan Support in the Past.

■Social Security Trust Fund Would Not Be Impacted by Payroll Tax Cut.

- Helping More Americans Refinance Mortgages at Today’s Historically Low Interest Rates.

FDR stated that, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And a “Do Nothing Congress?”(LBJ)

The American Jobs Act, if enacted, would be a very different kind of stimulus than the slow-burn one implemented back in 2009. Early forecasts suggest it could deliver the kind of swift, sharp shock the U.S. economy needs.

Economists at consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers estimate the combination of tax incentives and infrastructure spending would create at least 1.3 million jobs in 2012, boosting that year's economic growth by 1.3 percentage points. For 2013, they forecast the creation of an added 800,000 jobs, bringing the total to 2.1 million. All else equal, that's enough to shave more than a percentage point off the U.S. unemployment rate, which now stands at 9.1 percent.

The economists note that their estimate could actually be on the low side, because it doesn't account for the potential effect of the payroll-tax credit included in the package. It's hard to know how many businesses are in a position to take advantage of the credit, but experience suggests it will lead to increased hiring.

President Obama has put in the hands of Congress a plan that probably represents the country's best shot at fending off recession and reinvigorating the recovery. Whatever legislators decide, they will own the result.