Shock: More Americans Work for the Government than in Manufacturing, Farming, Fishing, Forestry, Mining and Utilities Combined.

We’ve Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers

By STEPHEN MOORE

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Read the rest here.

This guy has good cool-aid

Full article – Money News.com

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s two-year fight to shield crisis-squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans protected a lender to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing-cooperative financier and a company part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya.

Read the rest here.

Full story – PressTV

Full article – PressTV

Full article – PressTV

Full article – PressTV

Revenue surpassed $2.5 billion.

Prices paid on ISM 85, Prior 83

“An unprecedented number of investment banks are vying to underwrite a record amount of junk bonds as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke succeeds in driving cash to the neediest U.S. borrowers.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) led 42 firms helping companies to issue speculative-grade debt this year, up from 39 in the first quarter of last year and 14 in the first three months of 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. High-yield bond sales have reached about $88.3 billion in 2011, on pace to exceed last year’s record $287.6 billion, the data show.”

Full article – Bloomberg

Full article – Business Insider

How frivolous…

”

I took my sweet time to check if this was an April Fools joke to be put on our exhaustive 2011 list, but it appears to be as real as can be.

Larry Klayman, a renowned American activist, former Justice Department prosecutor, former U.S. Senate candidate and book author,says he has sued both Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg forover $1 billion after the social networking giant failed to remove a page calling for a third intifada against Israel’s Jewish population swiftly enough.

The suit was filed yesterday in Washington by Klayman, himself of Jewish origin. The complaint is embedded below.”

Full article – TechCrunch

“DowJones Venture Source has released its quarterly data on venture-backed exists and its appears that M&A activity has dropped in Q1 2011 despite the momentum that venture-backed exits gained throughout 2010.

In the first quarter of 2011, 104 U.S.-based venture-backed companies achieved liquidity, netting $9.8 billion, according to VentureSource. That represents a 21% decrease in exits and a 17% increase in capital raised from the first quarter of 2010 when 131 exits raised $8.4 billion.

So why is M&A activity down?”

Full article – TechCrunch

“Shoppers don’t distinguish between online and mobile. They think of mobile as an extension of their everyday activities,” Glasgow said. “Mobile’s clearly having an impact on e-commerce.”

Full article – CNET News

“Google is reportedly considering a push for standardization of its Android 3.0 hoping the new strategy will help resolve the drawbacks of the operation system; meanwhile, Google may also negotiate with ARM over the possibility of implementing standardization for ARM architecture products, according to sources from notebook players.

Currently, Android 3.0-based tablet PCs have several drawbacks over their user interface as well as a lack of supporting applications. Although Google’s Android Market has about 250,000 applications available for download, since most of the softwares designed for smartphones, only a limited number of applications are able to run on the bigger screen devices such as tablet PCs.”

DigiTimes System article on anti-fragmentation

“Rumors, misinformation and speculation are spreading like wildfire across the industry today following recent reports about Android anti-fragmentation efforts and what this means for processor architecture openness. Will Google’s anti-fragmentation initiatives for Android code impact providers of microprocessor architectures such as MIPS, Intel and ARM? Does anti-fragmentation mean that Google is standardizing Android for any specific architecture? As someone who has been deeply involved with MIPS’ Android efforts, here’s my take on separating some of the fact from fiction.”

Q&A on Android anti-fragmentation

Full article – Digitimes

Full article – DigiTimes

“Taiwan-based LED chip makers Formosa Epitaxy and Epistar expect their second-quarter 2011 revenues to grow 20-30% on quarter, while LED packaging houses Everlight Electronics and Unity Opto Technology look to sequential growth of about 30%, according to industry sources.”

Full article – DigiTimes

Full view – MSN.com

Gapping Up

CXDC +11.3%, CREG +11.2%, SCEI +8.8%, AERL +8.6%, SPU +4.3%, EFOI +2.5%, NYX +10.7%, AIB +19.2%, BCS +3.1%, RBS +2.7%, HBC +0.8%, DB +0.8%, YZC +4.5%, AU +2.6%, GFI +2.5%, HMY +1.2%, BP +1.9%, STO +1.6%, VLO +1.4%, CHK +1.4%, RIG +1.1%, SD +1%, MGM +2.6%, LVS +2.0%, WYNN +1.8%, XPRT +78.6%, ALEX +7.3%, EBIX +4.7%, ANH +1.1%, NFLX +0.9%

Gapping Down

ATRN -27.6%, CDTI -21.5%, IFON -19.4% , LOGI -19.2%, KKD -11.9%, CNAM -10.4%, XRTX -9.5%, EXFO -9.1%, DMAN -8.1%, MED -6.3%, GPN -3.1%, CBK -3.2%, SKYW -3.1%, NDAQ -1.4%, ICE -2.2%, OMER -38.1%, ASTI -16.4%, AVII -15.6%, ODP -7.1%, FUR -6.9%, ASTI -5.2%, AONE -3.6%, PEB -3.2%, USAT -3.2%, CLNY -1.2%, NVS -0.8%, NOK -0.8%, ALL -0.8%