But more encouraging, the performance last month is up 9.9% from January 2011. The data compared well the market analyst expectations of around 645,000 to 671,000 for the month of January. The pick-up in residential construction augurs well for the sector. They were at levels of 702,000 in November 2011.

The numbers are still far below the peak three years back. In October 2008, the start-up housing projects were at 777,000. The break-up of category shows in the single-family column, housing starts were at a rate of 508,000, actually down 1.0% from December 2011, but up 16.2% from January’s figure last year.

New projects with at least five units rose 14.4% to a rate of 175,000 in January, continuing the surge in creation of apartment buildings. The average rate of starts over November, December and January in this category was 188,000, compared with 122,000 in the prior year’s period a gain of 54%.

Building permits offered a similar story of steady improvement. Permits were at a rate of 676,000 for January, 0.7% above December and 19.0% above the January 2011 figure. Despite some gains, analysts note that housing data remains at relatively low levels, and the market faces a lengthy recovery.

Many attributed the growth to the unusually mild weather last month. ”The weather impact will eventually unwind, though not necessarily this month,” said Stephen Stanley at Pierpont Securities. “If we pan out sufficiently to gain a better perspective, 500K single-family starts is still a disastrously depressed number.”

Confidence among home builders is the highest in more than four years, but remains less than desired.  According to a report from RealtyTrac, an online marketplace of foreclosure properties, there are signs that the foreclosure process is beginning to get back to normal after a slowdown.

Love is in the air from the U.S. Postal Service. (PRNewsFoto/U.S. Postal Service)

“We are excited to bring this colorful new stamp to our customers in time for them to mail their Valentine’s Day greeting cards and letters,” said Stamp Services Manager, Stephen Kearney. “We will continue selling the Garden of Love stamps too.” The official dedication ceremony for Love Ribbons will be heldFeb. 14 in Colorado Springs, CO.

Evoking images of romance and elegance, this year’s Love stamp features a graphic design of satin ribbons that spell out the word “Love” in a graceful, cursive script.

Like stamps, ribbons often adorn special packages to friends and family. Attached to floral arrangements, boxes of candy, and gifts of all kinds, ribbons beautify and embellish gestures of romance, friendship and caring. Silk, satin, taffeta and organdy ribbons often are used to enhance the beauty of bridal bouquets and invitations for weddings and other special celebrations for friends and loved ones.

Graphic designer Louise Fili worked with art director Derry Noyes on this stamp.

The Love Ribbons stamp is being issued as a Forever Stamp in self-adhesive sheets of 20. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price. At the time of issuance, the Love Ribbons stamps are being sold at a price of 45 cents each, or $9 per sheet.

]]> http://folks.co.in/business/2012/02/06/u-s-postal-service-announces-new-love-ribbons-forever-stamp/feed/ 0 http://folks.co.in/business/2012/02/06/us-job-growth-improves/ http://folks.co.in/business/2012/02/06/us-job-growth-improves/#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:37:38 +0000 Team Folks http://folks.co.in/business/?p=338 Washington (USA) – According to an analysis conducted by Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth improved in January with 243,000 jobs added to non-farm payrolls. In January, women gained 95,000 jobs (almost 40 percent, above their share for the past year) and men gained 148,000.

The unemployment rate remained steady from December to January for women aged 16 and older (8.3 percent), but fell for men (from 8.7 percent to 8.3 percent). Some of the apparent improvement for men is due to workers ending their job search and no longer being counted among the unemployed. Overall, the male civilian labor force (men aged 16 and older employed or unemployed and actively seeking work) shrank by 303,000 between December and January. While women were leaving the labor force in the last three months of 2011, the female labor force grew by 812,000 in January compared with December.

November and December’s job totals were revised upwards by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in January. The revised jobs numbers for November and December are much more favorable for men: an additional 81,000 new jobs in the two months for women were reported compared with an additional 448,000 new jobs for men. With these revisions, of the 809,000 total jobs gained in the last four months (October–January), women gained 33 percent (265,000) while men gained 67 percent (544,000).

In the last year, from January 2011 to January 2012, of the 2.1 million jobs added to payrolls, 643,000 or 31 percent were filled by women and 1,438,000 or 69 percent were filled by men. Since October of 2009, when men’s and women’s total jobs numbers were virtually equal, women have gained 545,000 jobs, whereas men have gained 2,359,000. The gap between women’s and men’s employment in January is 1.8 million.

Women have regained about one out of four  (752,000 or 28 percent) of the total jobs they lost in the recession (2.7 million from December 2007 to the trough for women’s employment in September 2010, which occurred more than one year after the recession officially ended). The picture looks somewhat better for men, who have gained more than 40 percent (2.4 million) of the jobs they lost since December 2007 (6.0 million). Men are recovering more quickly than women, but 12.8 million workers remain unemployed as of January.

Meanwhile, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said the organization needed an additional $500 billion to help resolve the European debt crisis. However, the source of the money remained unclear. At the close of trading Tuesday the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 33.07 points or 0.26% at 12,675.75.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 2.47 pointsd or 0.09% at 2,786.64.  The Standard Poor’s 500 was down 1.35 points or 0.10% at 1,314.65.  On the earnings front, US chemical company Dupont reported better-than-expected earnings in the fourth quarter last year, but its revenue missed expectations.

Meanwhile, investors are paying close attention to the Federal Reserve’s two-day monthly monetary meeting, beginning Tuesday. Investors expect the Fed to keep its monetary policy unchanged at this meeting.  The U.S. dollar was slightly stronger against most currencies although the British pound edged higher.

Around the New York close Tuesday the euro was a fraction lower at 1.3024.  The Japanese yen dropped sharply (by more than a yen) to 77.72.  Sterling was higher at 1.5610, while the Swiss franc sagged to 0.9284. The Australian dollar fell below the crucial 1.05 level to 1.0485. The Canadian dollar edged down to 1.0094. The New Zealand dollar remained in demand despite being down a few basis points at 0.8111.

India must try to curtail growth of subsidies if it wishes to achieve its targeted nine per cent growth in the 12th five year plan, Deputy chairman of the Planning commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said here today.

“Attempts should be made to curtail growth of subsidies to achieve nine per cent growth. We are trying to achieve nine per cent growth. Though there are major challenges like global slowdown, we will achieve the target,” he said at a seminar on ‘Approach to 12th five year plan’ at St Teresa’s college here.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia

He said there was a time when the growth rate was around 3.5 per cent. “But in the last 10 years, we are close to eight per cent. We need not be unduly worried and should focus on what we can do better in the coming days”, he said.

The focus of the plan,he said,is to achieve a much faster substantive and inclusive growth in the country.

“There is a need to pull more people out of the agricultural sector and focus on non-agricultural activities such as manufacturing’, he said, adding if a large section of people were left in such low productive sectors like agriculture, they would be deprived of benefits of higher growth rate.

He said creation of more employment opportunities, skill development of labour force, access to quality education and infrastructure development, among others, are needed for achieving inclusive growth.

Kerala should focus more on tourism and knowledge driven sector, rather than on agriculture, he said

The Reserve Bank’s decision to cut cash reserve ratio (CRR) by half a percentage point will boost the economic growth by increasing liquidity in the system and reducing cost of fund, the Finance Ministry said today.

“CRR cut ensures that fair amount of money is available, the cost of fund is reduced … All these things are good to create a growth enhancing impression,” Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan told reporters here.

He said the third quarter monetary policy also indicates that the interest rate cycle has peaked and there is a recognition that growth has to be now fostered.

The CRR, the amount of deposits banks are required to keep with RBI in cash, has been reduced to 5.5 per cent from 6 per cent with effect from January 28, releasing Rs 32,000 crore in the system to ease the liquidity problems.

RBI expects the economic growth to be 7 per cent this fiscal, but Gopalan said the third quarter GDP numbers, which are yet to be released, would give an idea about the growth for whole 2011-12 fiscal.

“The (GDP) numbers should give us an idea of what the growth for whole year is going to be,” he said. The third quarter economic growth figures would be released next month.

The economic growth slowed down to 6.9 per cent in the second quarter of the fiscal from 8.4 per cent in the same period last fiscal.

On the year-end inflation, Gopalan said it is likely to be 7 per cent or even slightly lower than thatTerming the RBI’s policy action a “wise decision”, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan said given the fact that headline inflation has come down, some signal has to go out. In this regard, the RBI has chosen to use the CRR measure for giving a signal.

“But reduction of the policy rate will have to depend upon the behaviour of non-food manufacturing inflation. Unless that comes down and give definite signs of a decline, the policy rate cannot be changed. I think that’s the real message from the Reserve Bank,” he said.

However, the liquidity easing measures will have an impact on interest rates, he said.

“The improvement in liquidity conditions will automatically have an effect on interest rates. Improvement in liquidity conditions will lead to softening of interest rates,” he said.

Asked if liquidity easing measures will push up inflation going forward, he said: “There is a certain amount of tightness in the liquidity and it is not that liquidity is plenty and we are adding further to the liquidity to the system. Therefore, the action of the RBI must be seen in that particular context.”

On inflation, Rangarajan said, “I believe the food inflation would continue to fall till March.”

“In our view, optimistic sentiment and lightly traded volume are the two key technical concerns that have raised an early warning flag and indicate that the trend should soon flatten,” Ari Wald, equity analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York told the Reuters Thomson newsagency.

“Looking ahead to the coming weeks to months, we would be watchful for a new bull market high that goes unconfirmed by our indicators, or if volume on declining days begins to outpace volume on advancing days. This would be a signal for a more meaningful correction.”

At the close of trading Monday the Dow Jones industrial averages were down 11.66 points or 0.09% at 12,708.82. The Nasdaq Composite was down 2.53 points or 0.09% at 2,784.17. The Standard Poor’s 500 Index .SPX was up 0.62 of a point or 0.05% at 1,316.00. According to Reuters Thomson data, 15% of SP 500 companies have reported earnings, with 59% percent posting results above Wall Street expectations.

On currency markets the euro was being quoted at 1.3032 around 4pm Monday as equity markets closed. The Japanese yen edged up to 76.97 while the British pound strengthened to 1.5575. The Swiss franc rose to 0.9267. The Australian dollar rallied to 1.0534, as its New Zealand counterpart rose sharply to 0.8100. The Canadian dollar was stronger at 1.0077.

The company no longer sells the Rondo. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the clock-spring assembly used in the airbag system can become damaged over time and prevent the airbag from deploying.

The problem triggers the airbag warning light to go on in an affected vehicle, according to Kia, an affiliate of Hyundai Motor Co.

Drivers of cars that don’t have the warning light illuminated have a functioning airbag, according to the automaker.

Kia said it learned of the problem in November and is not aware of any accidents or injuries caused by the defect.

Clock spring problems have become fairly common across all automakers, with reports of issues as minor as the horn sporadically honking but in many cases (like the present one), the clock spring is a vital component of the driver’s side airbag system so if this issue is left unaddressed it could post some serious issues.

The good news is that although Kia has addressed several of these issues in the real world under warranty repairs, there have been no reports of injuries being caused by the airbags not opening as a result of the clock spring failure in 2006-2008 Kia Optima or 2007-2008 Kia Rondo models.

Kia is one of the fastest-growing auto brands in America. Its sales rose almost 36% last year, to 485,492 vehicles, making its U.S. sales bigger than brands like Buick, Jeep and Volkswagen.

Raju Narisetti

Currently the managing editor for The Washington Post, Narisetti oversaw digital content at Washington Post Co.’s flagship publication. The move is a return for Narisetti, who started at the Journal in 1994 as a reporter in Pittsburgh and, by 2006, was deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe. He replaces Kevin Delaney, who took a position with the Atlantic Media Co.

“Raju has done remarkable work as the digital czar at the Washington Post, integrating print and online businesses, building a successful website, and developing key relationships with the digerati,” said Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of the Journal. Narisetti joined the Post in January 2009. Before that, he served as founding editor of India’s Mint newspaper, which has an exclusive agreement to publish Journal-branded content in India.

But bottles water companies have responded by suggesting mineral water companies are the solution, not the problem. They have argued that the state should be paying the bottled water companies for distributing drinking water, which does not contain chlorine and hasn’t had to travel through many kilometres of expensive pipes.

Of the water Israel consumes, 48% goes to agriculture and 40% is used by households. Only 9% is used by industry. Nine times more water is used to flush toilets than for drinking.