Friday Afternoon Linkfest: Required Reading

1. Big Pharma Loving Obama's Healthcare Bill. Big giveaways to drug companies in exchange for their support of the Healthcare bill.

2. Lobbyists Loving Obama's Healthcare bill.

3. Is the FDIC still solvent? Asks Karl Denninger.

4. How Raising Taxes Cannot Get The U.S. Completely Out of Our Budget Hole. From the NYTimes.

5. Public Spending's Day Of Reckoning. The government's profligacy could spell doom for the U.S.

6. Another Reason Australia Is So Awesome. Is the Australia central bank a model for popping bubbles?

7. Reserve Bank of Australia will have to raise the benchmark interest rate.

Happy Reading :)

Cap and Trade Fails To Pass In Australia

According to Bloomberg:

Australia’s Senate rejected the government’s climate-change legislation, forcing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to amend the bill or call an early election.

Senators voted 42 to 30 against the law, which included plans for a carbon trading system similar to one used in Europe. Australia, the world’s biggest coal exporter, was proposing to reduce greenhouse gases by between 5 percent and 15 percent of 2000 levels in the next decade.

Australia is the only developed country to my knowledge has not gone into recession during this economic crisis. Read about Australia's good economy here.

Quarter Million Jobs Lost In July

The latest jobs report came out today. 247,000 jobs where lost in July; this number could be upwardly revised in the coming months. Economists had expected 320,000 job cuts.

The civilian labor force participation rate declined by .2 percentage points in July to 65.5%. People who drop out of the labor force because they can't find work are not included in the unemployment number.

A normal U.S. economy would be producing at least 125,000 per month. Australia, with a population about 7% as large as the U.S. added 32,200 jobs last month. That would be the equivalent of the United States adding over 400,000 jobs in a month. However, 247,000 jobs were lost in July. This is an improvement in the rate of decline from June when 443,000 jobs were lost. So things are still getting worse in the U.S. just at a slower rate.

Some good news in the report, "In July, the average workweek of production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 0.1 hour to 33.1 hours."

By sector in July:

Construction -76,000 jobs
Manufacturing -52,000 jobs
Retail Trade -44,000 jobs
Professor and Business Services -38,000 jobs
Transportation and Warehousing -22,000 jobs
Financial Activities -13,000 jobs
Health Care +20,000 jobs (only segment that gained).

The Only Developed Country With A Decent Economy

The Australian economy unexpectly adds 32,200 jobs in July. Unemployment in Australia holds steady at 5.8%.

According to The Age of Melbourne, Australia:

The Australian dollar held fast above 84 US cents on Thursday after the jobs report for July showed a surprise jump in employment, fuelling speculation local interest rates may rise even before December.

The dollar bounced to a high of $US0.8462 after data showed employment rose by 32,200 in July, confounding expectations for a drop of 20,000. Unemployment was steady at 5.8 per cent.
...

"Today's figures suggest that at worst Australia is experiencing the mildest of recessions," said Riki Polygenis, an analyst at ANZ.