“Recessions” on The Daily Caller

China’s July manufacturing data were the weakest in more than a year as the government clamped down on property speculation and investment in polluting and energy- intensive factories. (more)

Ben Bernanke threw a curveball in his midterm report to Congress this week. The Fed view of the economy has been downgraded since it last reported in February. Although the official Fed forecast for 2010-11 is still 3 to 4 percent real growth, Bernanke sounded particularly gloomy when he characterized the economy as “unusually uncertain.” And he indicated that the majority view of the Fed Board of Governors and Reserve Bank presidents is that the risks to growth are “weighted to the downside.” (more)

The fallout from the worst recession since the 1930s means U.S. contractions will be more frequent and severe, according to Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse in New York. (more)

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The risk of a double-dip recession is getting a lot of attention, but even that grim prediction could prove a little too optimistic. (more)

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The limitations imposed by the role of the states in the U.S. unemployment insurance system are the reason why a majority of workers are not protected and why even insured workers receive inadequate protection. Steven Attewell writes: “Our reconstruction of the unemployment insurance system should start from three basic principles. First, unemployment is a national problem for our single, national economy, and requires a nation-wide system to respond to it. Second, in order to protect the entire workforce from the sudden shock of wage loss and the economy from the sudden shock of consumer spending collapse, all workers need to be inside the system, contributing and protected. Third, unemployment benefits should be set at a sufficient level to keep individuals and families from falling into poverty and should be automatically extended in periods of economic decline in job losses, when normal expectations that people can find new jobs no longer apply.” (more)

WASHINGTON — A wave of census layoffs cut the nation’s payrolls in June for the first time in six months, while private employers added a modest number of jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent, its lowest level in almost a year. (more)

June 30 (Bloomberg) — More than half of U.S. workers were either unemployed or experienced reductions in hours or wages since the recession began in December 2007, according to a private report. (more)

The “Keep Austin Weird” campaign must have worked, because the Texas capital is among the country’s oddball cities that bucked the downturn. (more)

Rep. Kanjorski of Pennsylvania’s 11th District might have offended the people he was trying to help while speaking about the financial regulation bill during a committee meeting Wednesday. (more)

Rising unemployment has left Americans with more spare time on their hands. But those free hours are largely being frittered away, a new government survey finds. (more)

SINGAPORE — The wealth of rich Asians has surpassed Europe’s millionaires for the first time as the region’s stock and property prices rebounded from the global recession, a report showed Wednesday. (more)

The economy’s silver lining instead may be a bolt of lightening. That is the ominous message the latest jobs report seems to be offering. While it seems incongruous with the many economic indicators showing an end to the recession, it was entirely consistent with the many hurdles facing the economy’s return to pre-recession levels. The biggest of these obstacles may be our own expectations. (more)

Earlier this week, Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank president Thomas Hoenig said it is time for the fed funds rate to be moved to 1% by the end of this summer, up from its current range of 0-0.25%. (more)

In Stanley Kramer’s hit ensemble comedy “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” a troupe of early 1960’s mid-level comedy stars are sent racing across the Mojave Desert after learning of buried treasure from a dying roadside accident victim. That victim, played by Jimmy Durante, told the assembled group that a fortune lay buried beneath a “big W” on a San Diego beach just before he literally kicked the bucket. The ensuing scramble to be the first to locate the treasure provided the plot vehicle that permitted the director to wreck airplanes, service stations and cars aplenty in an epic comedic genre that later spawned movies like “1941” and “The Blues Brothers.” (more)

Some conservatives say people who are out of work shouldn’t be able to collect jobless benefits for almost two years. Liberals, meanwhile, want Congress to pay for a New Deal-style program in which the federal government would send money to states and localities, which would then directly hire people. (more)

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Unemployment rates fell in a majority of states last month as improved economic conditions spurred hiring. (more)

There were 4,612,700 people unemployed in the country at the end of March, the national statistics agency INE said. (more)

The Golden State has borrowed $8.8 billion so far to cover jobless benefits during a recession where the national unemployment rate crested above 10 percent. It is not alone. More than 30 states have had to take out similar, albeit smaller, federal loans to keep their unemployment benefit systems afloat. (more)