society

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SACRAMENTO - On Thursday, July 31, California’s Republican Governor Schwarzenegger signed an executive order cutting the pay of up to 200,000 state employees to the federal minimum of $6.55/hour and firing over 10,000 part time and temporary workers until the state’s budget impasse is resolved. The order exempts public safety agencies but will have an immediate effect everywhere else: Hiring, overtime and contracting will be halted, and tens of thousands of employees will feel the squeeze. It covers 22,000 retired state employees who work under contract, temporary and part-time workers such as those who fill in at the Department of Motor Vehicles, seasonal employees and student assistants. The order affects the approximately 10,000 state employees in San Diego and Riverside counties. They work at Department of Motor Vehicles offices, highway offices, state parks and beaches, unemployment offices, fish hatcheries and agriculture inspection stations.

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WASHINGTON - The White House predicted yesterday that President Bush would leave a record $482 billion deficit to his successor, a sobering turnabout in the nation's fiscal condition from 2001, when Bush took office after three consecutive years of budget surpluses.

The worst may be yet to come. The deficit announced by Jim Nussle, the White House budget director, does not reflect the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential $50 billion cost of another economic stimulus package, or the possibility of steeper losses in tax revenues if individual income or corporate profits decline.

The new deficit numbers also do not account for any drains on the national treasury that might result from further declines in the housing market. The White House forecast was prepared before passage of the huge housing assistance package that Bush has promised to sign. That legislation would put taxpayer money at risk in numerous ways, especially if housing prices continue to decline.

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China now has the world's largest net-using population, say official figures. The news comes from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which stated that 253 million Chinese went online by the end of June of this year. The total represents a 56.2% year-on-year growth - up by 91 million from June of last year, and up 43 million from December. The figure is higher than the 223 million that the US mustered in June, according to Nielsen Online.

Net penetration in the US stands at 71% compared to 19% in China suggesting it will eventually vastly outstrip the US. The development is significant because the US has had the largest net-using population since records of how many people were online started to be kept.

"This is the first time the number has drastically surpassed the United States, becoming the world's number one," said a statement from the CNNIC, the nation's official net monitoring body.

The 2008 figure is up 56% in a year, said CNNIC. Analysts expect the total to grow by about 18% per annum and hit 490 million by 2012.

About 95% of those going online connect via high-speed links. Take up of broadband has been boosted by deals offered by China's fixed line phone firms as they fight to win customers away from mobile operators. China's mobile phone-using population stands at about 500 million people.

Despite having a greater number of people online, China's net economy still has a long way to go to match or exceed that of the US or even that of South Korea.

Breaking it down further, 214 million of those on the Internet in China accessed via a broadband Internet connection.

The percentage of the population in China on the Internet now stands at 19%, still way below that of the United States, at 71%.

Comparing this to previous numbers, just in 2006 alone, there were 137 million Internet users in China. This shows that the number of people in the Internet in the country continues to grow at a rapid pace.

People under the age of 30 in China make up 69% of the total Internet users.

Figures from Analysys International said China's net firms reported total revenues of $5.9bn in 2007. By contrast net advertising revenue alone for US firms in 2007 stood at $21.2bn.

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Photos courtesy of dBTechno, AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, and DanWei.org

Original Source: dBTechno and BBC News

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Wall Street ended a volatile week with a moderate rebound Friday after better-than- expected economic data at least temporarily eased the worries of investors concerned about housing and the financial sector. Financials fell again on continued worries about the health of balance sheets, while technology stocks advanced. A day after a sharp drop in existing-home sales aided in pushing stocks sharply lower, economic news helped buoy the market on Friday.

The Commerce Department reported that factory orders for big-ticket manufactured goods, such as cars, appliances and machinery, rose by 0.8 percent in June, the strongest gain in four months and well ahead of Wall Street's expectations. But outside demand for defense equipment, orders would have been up only 0.1 percent. Another Commerce Department report showed that new-home sales dropped by a smaller-than-expected 0.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 530,000 units; the market expected sales to total 505,000. Although it marked the seventh decline in the past eight months, it stirred some hope that the housing market could be finding a bottom. Orders for durable goods rose 0.8% last month, far better than the 0.4% decline expected.

And there was good news about consumers, whose spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. The Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment for the first part of July came in at 61.2, while economists forecast a reading of 56.4. The reading was a slight rebound from a 28-year-low last month. "This is a market that's looking for any good signs," said John Massey, a fund manager at AIG SunAmerica Asset Management. "People are trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel."

Some experts said, however, that trading is likely to be uneven in the coming days as Wall Street awaits Friday's July employment report. Linda Duessel, equity market strategist at Federated Investors, said economic figures such as the durable-goods numbers are important because they reveal continued demand from abroad, which could help U.S. companies continue to rake in profits even if the U.S. economy isn't running at full steam. "That's good news for market participants as we try to find a footing in the market because we really don't want to see our weakness leak outside the U.S.," she said.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 21.41 points Friday, to 11,370.69, rebounding slightly from Thursday's decline of more than 280 points. Broader stock indicators also rose. The Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 5.22, to 1257.76, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index jumped 30.42, to 2310.53. For the week, the Dow fell 1.1 percent and the S&P 500 lost 0.2 percent. Friday's tech rally left the Nasdaq up 1.2 percent for the week. Oil fell $2.23 to settle at $123.26 a barrel. Crude prices have fallen more than $20 in recent weeks, alleviating some of Wall Street's concerns about the impact of inflation on consumers' ability to spend.

The stock market's volatility during the week—rallying Tuesday and Wednesday only to erase those gains Thursday—illustrates tentativeness behind some of the bets investors are making, said Hugh Johnson, chairman and chief investment officer of Johnson Illington Advisors. He said the market tends to react to the latest headlines. "It's just news sensitive, and the real question is, 'What's the next news going to be? Good or bad?' That means that the market doesn't have a trend or a direction. It depends entirely on whether the news is going to be good or bad on any given day and that doesn't give you, as an investor, a lot of confidence."

For the second consecutive session, financial-services stocks were hard hit, with Dow components Bank of America losing 3.5 percent and Citigroup falling more than 1 percent. For the year, each is down more than 28 percent.

Europe gains: European stocks posted their first back-to-back weekly gains since May as better-than-estimated earnings and lower oil prices fueled a rally in carmakers, and banks climbed on speculation credit-market losses will abate. Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index increased 0.4 percent this week, extending its rebound from a three-year low on July 15 to 5.7 percent.

Asia falls: In Asia, stocks fell the most in six weeks, snapping a four-day rally. The MSCI Asia-Pacific index lost 2.8 percent. The index rallied 5.9 percent in the first four days of this week as concerns eased that bank losses will expand and oil tumbled.

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Photos courtesy of AFP, AP Photo/Ed Ou & Bebeto Matthews, and Independent.ie

Original Source: Chicago Tribune and NY Daily News

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*Update*: Who is Dr. Ron Paul? Ron Paul was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Gettysburg College and the Duke University School of Medicine, before proudly serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force during the 1960s. He and his wife Carol moved to Texas in 1968, where he began his medical practice in Brazoria County. As a specialist in obstetrics/gynecology, Dr. Paul has delivered more than 4,000 babies. He and Carol, who reside in Lake Jackson, Texas, are the proud parents of five children and have 17 grandchildren.

(CNN)— Former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is moving forward with plans for his own rally during the Republican National Convention —and is moving his location to a larger arena to accommodate the unprecedented response.

The three day event called ‘Rally for the Republic’ will officially launch Paul’s new political action group: the ‘Campaign for Liberty.’ When planning for the event began earlier this year, it was originally scheduled to take place at the University of Minnesota, but due to a “strong initial response,” it was moved to The Target in Minneapolis, which can house up to 18,000 people. The GOP holds its convention across the river in St. Paul.

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Pope Benedict XVI recalled the natural beauty he observed during his 20-hour flight to Sydney, saying he felt "a profound sense of awe," and denounced "insatiable consumption" as a threat to the world's environment.

The pope made his first major appearance on his Australia tour Thursday before an estimated crowd of 150,000 people at World Youth Day. The event is believed to be the world's largest Christian gathering and dubbed "the Catholic Woodstock."

He delivered his homily in several languages to people representing 70 countries, lamenting "erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption." In his address, Benedict warned that mankind's "insatiable consumption" has scarred the Earth and squandered its resources, telling followers that taking care of the planet is vital to humanity — striking a theme that has earned him a reputation as the "green pope."  read more »

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Jul 14 Bastille Day - the French Revolution begins with the fall of the Bastille Prison

Jul 14 Bastille Day - the French Revolution begins with the fall of the Bastille Prison, 1789
Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops storm and dismantle the Bastille, a royal fortress and prison that had come to symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs. This dramatic action signaled the beginning of the French Revolution, a decade of political turmoil and terror in which King Louis XVI was overthrown and tens of thousands of people, including the king and his wife Marie-Antoinette, were executed.

Built in the 1300s during the Hundred Years’ War against the English, the Bastille was designed to protect the eastern entrance to the city of Paris.
The formidable stone building’s massive defenses included 100-foot-high walls and a wide moat, plus more than 80 regular soldiers and 30 Swiss mercenaries standing guard. As a prison, it held political dissidents (such as the writer and philosopher Voltaire), many of whom were locked away without a trial by order of the king.

Causes of the French Revolution

Despite inheriting tremendous debts from his predecessor, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette continued to spend extravagantly, such as by helping the American colonies win their independence from the British. By the late 1780s, France’s government stood on the brink of economic disaster.  read more »