KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Thursday October 9 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

The Recovery That Left Out Almost Everybody - (finance.yahoo.com) If they were judging the economy by the monthly jobs report, working Americans would be popping champagne corks. Total employment has risen every month for more than four years. According to the Current Population Survey, more than eight million jobs have been created since the trough, while the number of unemployed has been cut by nearly six million. The unemployment rate has declined to 6.1% from 10%, and the number of Americans enduring long-term unemployment (27 weeks or more) has fallen to three million from 4.3 million in the past 12 months. Yet average Americans remain gloomy about the current economy and anxious about its future. According to a Pew Research Center report released this month, only 21% rate current conditions as excellent or good, versus 79% fair or poor. Only 33% say that jobs are readily available in their communities; when asked about good jobs, that figure falls to 26%. Only 22% believe the economy will be better a year from now; 22% think it will be worse, while fully 54% think it will be the same. More than five years after the official end of the recession, the Public Religion Research Institute finds, only 21% of Americans believe the recession has ended.

State Department orders 5,000 BODY BAGS and 160,000 hazmat suits for African Ebola outbreak - (www.dailymail.co.uk) The U.S. Agency for International Development ordered 5,000 body bags from a Florida company last month as part of its planned response to an outbreak of the Ebola virus in western Africa. And as President Obama prepares to enlarge America's aid to affected countries, a company that makes protective clothing says the State Department, which oversees USAID, has invited bids for 160,000 hazmat suits. The body-bag purchase came on August 19, just after the World Health Organization said the epidemic had killed 1,000 people. That death toll is now greater than 2,400. The size of the contracts indicates how seriously governments are taking the threat, especially considering that all 5,000 body bags were destined only for Liberia – one of three countries whose citizens have been hammered with new disease cases and paralyzed with fear. And the purchase says nothing about what resources might be coming as part of other nations' contributions.

German Business Confidence Drops for Fifth Month - (www.bloomberg.com) German business confidence fell more than analysts forecast in September as economic and political risks in the euro area increase. The Ifo institute’s business climate index, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, dropped to 104.7 from 106.3 in August. Economists predicted a decline to 105.8, according to the median of 36 estimates in aBloomberg survey. The index is now at its lowest since April 2013. Europe’s largest economy contracted in the second quarter and euro-area growth stalled as international political tension and stubbornly high unemployment sapped sentiment.

How the U.S. Screwed Up the Fight Against Ebola - (www.businessweek.com) Could a large stockpile of ZMapp have halted the spread of Ebola? No one can say. What’s certain is that the U.S. government hasn’t done a good job taking the idea behind ZMapp and turning it into a treatment. The technology for antibody cocktails such as ZMapp has “been around for a few decades,” says Robert Garry, a professor of microbiology at Tulane University. “This is something that, given the emergency, the government could have moved a little faster on, quite honestly.” He’s more right than he knows. The treatment came into the hands of a little-known Pentagon agency in late 2010, and, Bloomberg Businessweek has learned, ZMapp sat there dormant, waiting for a contract, for two years. There are, broadly speaking, two ways to spend money on biological defense: on gloves or on drugs. A response to any attack requires a public health infrastructure, things like gowns, boots, masks, and gloves to prevent the spread of infection, training for doctors and nurses, and field hospitals that can be moved to the site of an outbreak. Or a threat can be met with what the federal government calls a “medical countermeasure,” a vaccine to prevent infection or a therapeutic to aid in recovery.

Venezuela Opens Gold Vault for BofA Analyst to Count Bars - (www.bloomberg.com) He’d been itching to take a peek for years and now was the time to ask. With the government’s bonds sinking toward prices that indicate investors are bracing for the possibility of default, the country’s $15 billion of gold bars are crucial to ensuring debt payments are met. His first impression once inside the vaults? Those bars don’t take up a lot of room. “You picture that amount of money requiring a lot of space when, in reality, it all fits in five small cells that were not even full to the top,” Rodriguez, a Venezuela native who covers Andean economies for Bank of America Corp. in New York, said in a telephone interview yesterday. He said he started counting frantically in his head, summing up figures scrawled out on signs near each pile of the metal. By his quick math, the gold was all there.

OTHER STORIES:

German Factory Growth at 15-Month Low in Sign of Uneven Economy - (www.bloomberg.com)

Euro Area Suffers Unexpected Slowdown From Factories to Services - (www.bloomberg.com)

Manufacturing Rebound Relieves Growth Concerns in China: Economy - (www.bloomberg.com)

China Beige Book Shows Economy Stuck in Low Gear - (www.bloomberg.com)

Brazil Growth Slowing as Lula China Policy Sows Doubts - (www.bloomberg.com)