Set for Life with an Unemployment Check, a Can of Natural Ice and a Phillies Blunt Cigar

Chillin with My Check

It seems 424K Americans are heading into Memorial Day weekend with at least some cash in their pockets. Perhaps it’s just enough for the casino bus to Atlantic City, where they hope they might turn a government handout into a jackpot to set them up for life.

Our founder earned clients a 23% average annual return over five years as a stock analyst on Wall Street. "The Greek" has written for institutional newsletters, Businessweek, Real Money, Seeking Alpha and others, while also appearing across TV and radio. While writing for Wall Street Greek, Mr. Kaminis presciently warned of the financial crisis.

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Set for Life with an Unemployment Check, a Can of Natural Ice and a Phillies Blunt Cigar

The Department of Labor reported Weekly Initial Jobless Claims rose again last week, to 424K; that’s 10K more than the prior week’s revised count. It’s not a good sign after plenty other bad signs throughout the month of May, a dark period that saw tornadoes run wild and unemployment insurance claims re-establish themselves above the 400K mark. The four-week moving average can attest to that, sitting now at 438,500.

I suppose the lull in hiring, which we assume paralleled the increase in jobless claims, was the result of damaged consumer confidence and its result, lighter consumer spending. This article is being published ahead of the government’s Personal Income & Outlays data, due out Friday morning. We’ll receive some sort of color on consumer spending with that release. Though the report will cover April, while these weekly jobless claims announcements reach the wire fresh. Even so, economists surveyed by Bloomberg are looking for the pace of spending to slow to +0.4%, versus the 0.6% pace set in March. What is supposed to accelerate is the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, the Core PCE Price Index, which is seen rising 0.2%, against the 0.1% increase in March.

Cue Snoop Dog CD here...

It was rising prices this past month that stalled consumers, especially gasoline, which touched $4 a gallon. That’s high enough to keep Americans planted in their backyards with a can of Natural Ice. That’s the cheap beer of the day; you old timers can liken to Milwaukee’s Best, or The Beast, as it’s known among serious beer connoisseurs. You can grab a six pack of Natural Ice for less than $5, and it goes well enough with a Phillies Blunt cigar, the poor man’s Partagas. Heck, sitting on a stoop with the two of those and the gang, listening to a baseball game on a sultry summer night, well it just doesn’t get much better… You can keep your stuffy Midtown bar and your vain, superficial, ravenous foreign lady. I’ll take my American girl and my American game.

Supposedly, insured unemployment fell by a tenth of a point, to 2.9% in the lagged May 14 period. In case you were counting reality, the number of Americans collecting on some sort of UI program numbered 7,739,572 in the May 7 period, which is quite a bit more than 2.9%. And that don’t include the poor saps who have given up, and the poorer of spirit saps who are swallowing their pride waiting tables or writing to the ether-world. Though, at least the poor saps have time to spend with The Beast.

We always like to give you the skinny on regional unemployment so here it is:

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending May 7 were in Alaska (5.5 percent), Puerto Rico (4.3), Oregon (4.2), Pennsylvania (4.0), California (3.9), Nevada (3.7), New Jersey (3.7), Connecticut (3.6), Illinois (3.6), Idaho (3.4), Rhode Island (3.4), and Wisconsin (3.4).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending May 14 were in Florida (+1,340), Georgia (+747), New Mexico (+415), Idaho (+282), and Hawaii (+236), while the largest decreases were in California (-6,828), Michigan (-6,740), New York (-2,569), Alabama (-2,093) and Wisconsin (-2,079).



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Please see our disclosures at the Wall Street Greek website and author bio pages found there. This article and website in no way offers or represents financial or investment advice. Information is provided for entertainment purposes only.

The Moral Consequences of Political Rhetoric

Questioning What's Right

As I watched Sheriff Dupnik discuss the moral con- sequences of political rhetoric after the Arizona shooting of US Representative Gifford, I found myself nodding and agreeing vehemently. There are certain things you read or hear that just ring true, and Dupnik was spot on. So I felt compelled to weigh in on a subject that has been bothering me for quite some time.

Our founder earned clients a 23% average annual return over five years as a stock analyst on Wall Street. "The Greek" has written for institutional newsletters, Businessweek, Real Money, Seeking Alpha and others, while also appearing across TV and radio. While writing for Wall Street Greek, Mr. Kaminis presciently warned of the financial crisis.

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The Moral Consequences of Political Rhetoric

The latest to chime in on the impact of widely broadcast extreme political rhetoric was Sarah Palin, who called "finger pointing irresponsible," this week. That is quite funny to me, since it is a perversion of the discerning argument made by the clear thinking and wise speaking Clarence Dupnik, the now famous Sheriff of Arizona's Pima County. I agree with Palin that finger pointing is irresponsible, and that the exaggerated act of the same by Palin and too many of our leaders, pundits and reporters today is exactly the problem.

The discerning Dupnik gained the immediate attention of the nation when he said that the senseless shooting of Congressional House Member and human being (lest I remind you) Gabrielle Giffords, was the result of the angry mood of the nation. He further clarified for the frenzied fanatics watching Fox News and reading the Daily Kos, and I agree and enhance, that this manic mood has manifested mostly due to the biased and purposeful, and often senseless and illogical, political rhetoric that comes out of the mouths of politicians, reporters and pundits. It is more so the result of this refuse, better deposited in the toilet than on television, that the nation complains today more than it works to restore itself.

And when these messages reach the ears of the innocent, and redirect the naïve toward hatred and anger, do not think that those responsible have not sinned in broadcasting them. There is a finger Mrs. Palin should fear, which is a responsible one, and one to which she claims to adhere, but it is not of this earth and its foolishness. To do good is not simply accomplished by standing with a party of religious conservation, but to stand for good works and good deeds, and to do them yourself unselfishly, humbly and quietly. If anger and hatred are the fruits of your works though, then more evil is accomplished than good. I'm not only pointing the finger of blame at Sarah Palin or Republicans of any sort, but at every individual who feels obligated to speak loudly before wisely into microphones, for the sake of reaction, ratings and call backs.

And when these messages reach the ears of the unsophisticated of mind and the mentally ill, the discernment of their bias is lost, but their push is set forth. It was once said by someone wiser than I that leading the innocent to sin is far worse than sinning yourself. And don't tell me that we are not to blame for the recipient's interpretation of the message, when the message is intentionally incensed to spur reaction significant enough to bring about action. It's votes they want, but as public relations demons direct votes, they also unfortunately direct mischief, and in this case murder. So subtle is evil that we can miss it before our eyes, and if it can take the greatest of intentions to ruination, then it can certainly take the tailored tempest to tirade.

Shame on you America, for allowing this state of affairs to exist! What would Martin Luther King say about our world? Where would John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan stand on the state of politics today? They would be ashamed of us, and rightly so! Demand that our politicians stop serving evil masters while attempting to shape our minds to their liking, and insist they instead start on serving their constituents honorably by scribing solutions. In that case, and if hearts are soft, it will not matter economically, socially nor with regard to foreign affairs what political party dominates our government, since their undiluted good deeds will dictate our deliverance.

Leaders do best by example, and in these days their example has been to divide from and hate our brothers and neighbors because of party affiliation. In times I should be too young to remember, or perhaps which no man has yet seen, our leaders led us by virtue and by righteousness. That is the only admirable scenario befitting of a nation created on the greatest of ideals.



(Article interests: McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP), Pearson Plc (NYSE: PSO), John Wiley & Sons (NYSE: JW-A, NYSE: JW-B), Scholastic (Nasdaq: SCHL), Courier (Nasdaq: CRRC), Noah Education (NYSE: NED), Peoples Educational Holdings (Nasdaq: PEDH), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), Sotheby's (NYSE: BID), The Limited (NYSE: LTD), Books-A-Million (Nasdaq: BAMM), Borders Group (NYSE: BGP), HSN (Nasdaq: HSNI), Reed Elsevier NV (NYSE: RUK, NYSE: ENL), Meredith (NYSE: MDP), Dex One (Nasdaq: DEXO), Dolan (NYSE: DM), Martha Stewart Living (NYSE: MSO), Primedia (NYSE: PRM), Private Media (Nasdaq: PRVT), SmartPros (Nasdaq: SPRO), New York Times (NYSE: NYT), Washington Post (NYSE: WPO), McClatchy (NYSE: MNI), E. W. Scripps (NYSE: SSP), Media General (NYSE: MEG), Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE), Journal Communications (NYSE: JRN), Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Daily Journal (Nasdaq: DJCO), A.H. Belo (NYSE: AHC), Disney (NYSE: DIS), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS, Nasdaq: NWSA), Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK), New York Community Bancorp (NYSE: NYB), New York Mortgage Trust (Nasdaq: NYMT), New York & Co. (NYSE: NWY), Provident New York Bancorp (Nasdaq: PBNY).

Please see our disclosures at the Wall Street Greek website and author bio pages found there. This article and website in no way offers or represents financial or investment advice. Information is provided for entertainment purposes only.