Nation’s Mayors Support Gay Marriage But Complain About Unemployment

DC, Washington, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Conference of Mayors wrapped up its winter meeting Friday in Washington, D.C., with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel stepping into controversies on same sex marriage and education.

Emanuel joined about 80 other mayors from across the nation in endorsing laws to give legal recognition to same sex marriage, along with the tax breaks and other benefits spouses can share.

The mayors signed on to a statement that said, “Our cities derive great strength from their diversity and gay and lesbian families are a crucial part. Studies have shown what we know through our hands-on experience that cities that celebrate and cultivate diversity are the places where creativity and ideas thrive.”

Emanuel supported the Illinois Legislature’s effort last year to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples.

He said New York did “a good thing” last June when state lawmakers legalized gay marriage.

In separate comments Friday, Emanuel discussed his plan to turn Chicago’s community colleges into training institutions for the city’s employers.

Currently, Chicago’s City Colleges have a graduation rate of about 7 percent and job prospects for graduates that are “not as high,” Emanuel said.

His plan calls for each of the city’s seven community colleges to operate with specialties, such as health care, transportation, hospitality and manufacturing.

In addition, employers would be brought in to develop curricula that would train the students to become their employees.

“I want it to have economic value” to attend college, Emanuel said at the downtown Washington hotel where about 250 mayors were meeting.

Turning colleges into job training institutions is controversial among some academics, who say a well-rounded education requires liberal arts courses that include literature, history and the arts.

Nevertheless, job creation and recovery from the economic disaster of the Great Recession were dominant themes throughout the meeting this week.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report that said the nation’s metropolitan areas will struggle for five more years to regain jobs lost during the recession that started in September 2008.

“The recovery is very uneven across U.S. regions, with the southeastern and southwestern metro [areas that] were the most affected by the housing bubble looking ahead to years of recovery,” the report says.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls will grow about 1.3 percent this year, which is unlikely to reduce the unemployment rate below 8 percent, according to a report by IHS Global Insight.

The report predicts the nation will regain nearly half the jobs lost during the Great Recession by the end of 2012.

The mayors used the economic report to try to prod Congress to approve legislation that would create more jobs.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, president of the Conference of Mayors, said “Congress has jumped ship” in its obligation to stimulate the economy and employment.

However, Villaraigosa acknowledged cities will have a hard time squeezing money out of Congress at a time the federal government is trying to reduce its deficit by cutting spending.

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The Nation’s Housing: Energy credits prove troubling for the IRS

By KENNETH R. HARNEY The Nation’s Housing by Kenneth R. Harney: Fraud seen with IRS’s energy credits Read more on NewsOK.com

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Germany lifts labor restrictions on Eastern European nations

Berlin, Germany (AHN) – Germany on Sunday finally opened the doors to workers of eight eastern European nations, seven years after they joined the European Union bloc in 2004.

The move to lift labor market restrictions will allow workers from Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia to apply for jobs in Europe’s largest economy. Germany’s neighbor Austria also lifted the restrictions on labor movement.

The EU made its enlargement in 2004 and Britain, Ireland and Sweden immediately opened their labor markets to new members. Italy lifted labor bans two years later, followed by the Netherlands and France in 2007 and 2008 separately.

However, Germany continued the ban, largely to prevent its then-fragile economy and job market from the influx of foreign job seekers.

The unemployment rate in Germany has also fallen to 20 years low since companies keen to employ workers to fulfil orders from home and abroad. “We’re not running out of jobs, (but) we’re running out of workers,” German Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen said earlier. “Now we’re expecting good, well-qualified people who want to work,” he added.

Recently, Economy Minister Rainer Bruderle told the media that Germany needs more than 66,000 IT specialists to boost its leading industries.

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World Bank: slow growth in developed nations, rapid growth in developing nations

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Global growth will slow for developed nations in 2011 while developing nations with emerging markets will experience faster growth and account for half of all global economic growth, Word Bank officials say.

The 187-nation institution World Bank outlined its expectations for global growth in its Global Economic Prospects issued on Wednesday.

World Bank officials said developed nations would see slower growth but more stable growth of around 3.3 percent, versus the 3.9 percent in 2010, which likely will not be enough to reduce unemployment rates significantly. Emerging markets will likely growth of around 6 percent in 2011 after experiencing growth of around 7 percent in 2010.

“On the upside, strong developing-country domestic demand growth is leading the world economy, yet persistent financial sector problems in some high-income countries are still a threat to growth and require urgent policy actions,” said Justin Yifu Lin, the World Bank’s chief economist and senior vice president for development economics.

The World Bank also said that the gross domestic product in most developing countries had regained the levels those countries would have seen without a “boom-bust cycle.”

However, the World Bank also said that the recovery of economies in “emerging Europe and Central Asia and in some high-income countries is tentative. Without corrective domestic policies, high household debt and unemployment, and weak housing and banking sectors are likely to mute the recovery.”

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Slow economic growth in EU nations

Brussels, Belgium (AHN) – Revised figures show that economic growth in the 16 nations that use the euro was only 0.3 percent during the July-to-September period last year, which was less than the 0.4 percent previously estimated by the European Union’s Eurostat office.

Much of the slowdown in third quarter growth resulted from Germany’s drop in growth from 2.3 percent in Q2 to 0.7 percent in Q3.

Analysts say that the revised figures expose not only the fragility of Europe’s economic recovery but also its heavy reliance on Germany to pull the region up.

There are 27 nations in the EU, but only 16 of them use the euro. However, economic growth was also slow in the other 11 EU nations, which grew at only 0.5 percent in Q3. Both regions had 1.0 percent growth in Q2.

Household consumption fueled what economic growth there was in both regions during Q3. But analysts worry that growth could slow further because of continued high unemployment rates coupled with higher prices for oil, commodities and food, which are cutting into consumer’s purchasing power.

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Florida led nation’s worst year for bank failures since 1992

Times staff and wires Thursday, December 30, 2010

More banks failed in the United States this year than in any year since 1992, during the savings-and-loan crisis — and Florida led the way.

As 2010 winds to a close, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has so far reported 157 bank failures, up from 140 in 2009. As recently as 2006, before the bubble burst, there were none.

Two weeks ago, Bank of Miami failed, pushing Florida to 29 bank failures for the year. No. 2 is Georgia, with 21 failures.

Put together, the adjacent Southern states, both hard hit by the real estate downturn and lingering recession, accounted for nearly a third of the failures nationwide.

And more are on the horizon.

The FDIC’s list of “problem” banks — those whose weaknesses “threaten their continued financial viability”— stood at 860 as of Sept. 30, the highest since 1993. Historically, about a …

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EU Pledges Climate Aid Projects In Developing Nations

Cancun, Mexico (AHN) – In the wake of a pledge made at the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen last year, the European Union has disclosed plans to start several climate aid projects in poorer nations.

EU’s chief negotiator, Artur Runge-Metzger, made the announcement in the Mexican city of Cancun where world leaders have gathered to discuss the climate issue.

Under the plan, most of the projects would have poor nations take the funds on loans instead of earning grants, a move vehemently criticized by environmentalists.

Defending use of loans for many clean energy projects, which require immense initial investments, Runge-Metzger said that this would actually save money over time.

“There’s a lot of actions that in actual fact, if you implement them,… improve the overall efficiency of your economy,” the EU negotiator said, adding that using a grant for such a situation would be a waste of money because the investment pays for itself.

The EU negotiator said the financial aid would also focus on fighting greenhouse gas emissions rather than helping poor nations deal with climate change effects.

On the second day of climate talks, Runge-Metzger said that the EU had already signed up $2.9 billion out of $9 billion in pledges of what the media dubbed “fast-start” financing.

The participating nations will also discuss what amount of aid rich nations should give to developing countries to help them in their efforts to tackle climate change.

The Cancun Climate summit began Monday and will run until Dec. 10. In last year’s Copenhagen summit, rich nations promised to grant $30 billion to poor nations by 2012, but poor nations only received half of the promised money so far.

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