Life is good.
Yes, there was that recent blip in the stock market and that subprime mess caused by bankers carelessly ”“ perhaps deviously ”“ handing out money, but Americans are still doing well. Housing slump? Not here.
It”™s summertime and the livin”™ is easy.
Jobs are plentiful and consumer confidence is at a six-year high. Take that, Dem naysayers Hillary, Barack, John, et al.
The Consumer Confidence Index, rebounded to 112.6, its highest level since August 2001 when it recorded a 114.0 reading, according to The Conference Board. As a footnote, it should be stated the survey of 5,000 households nationwide was completed before the aforementioned stock market drop. Who cares, we”™re on a roll; just listen to
Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center in Manhattan.
She offered this take on the months ahead: “Consumers are more upbeat about short-term economic prospects, mainly the result of a decline in the number of pessimists, not an increase in the number of optimists. This rebound in confidence suggests economic activity may gather a little momentum in the coming months.”
Happy days are here again.
The Mets are still holding a three-game lead and the Yankees are climbing back up, just a half-dozen behind those surprising Beantown boys. Gas prices are holding steady. U.S. manufacturing is still expanding, albeit slowly, despite a falloff in workers. Retail sales were up for the first three weeks of July, but employment numbers were down probably due to more consumers buying online.
Americans are going out and eating and drinking. The latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor show that food services and drinking establishments added 35,000 jobs in June. Over the year, employment in this industry has risen by 387,000.
Eat, drink and be merry.
Â
And if you get hurt, someone is there to help you. Health-care jobs went up by 30,000 in June, with gains in hospitals and in nursing and residential-care facilities, the Labor Department numbers show. Over the year, health-care employment expanded by 371,000. The social assistance industry was up by 13,000, adding 84,000 jobs in the last year.
Government jobs continued their rise ”“ 40,000 ”“ in June. Over the 12 months, labor stats show state and local governments together added 347,000 jobs.
And to take care of all those workers once they”™ve put in their time, states have pension funds. New York has a pension fund of $140.45 billion ”“ that”™s of March 31, 2006! ”“ and rising by the minute. From a year earlier, it grew 11.4 percent from $126.08 billion.
Unsurprisingly, it”™s one of the three largest public pension funds in the nation.
State and local government workers rejoice!
Enter state Sen. Jeffrey Klein.
Major buzzkill alert. Or perhaps not.
“We”™re sending men and women overseas to fight the war on terror,” Klein told staff writer John Golden in a front-page story this week. But, the state Senate”™s deputy minority leader says, “We”™re not using the most important weapon, I think, in our arsenal, which is financial resources.”
He cries “Divest!” from the companies doing business with nations identified as state sponsors of international terrorism. The Senate adopted a bill requiring the state comptroller to drop those companies hooking up with the likes of Iran, Sudan, Syria, North Korea and Cuba.
“This is something that”™s got to be done quickly,” he says of Assembly action on his bill.
Klein”™s staff took a hard look at the annual report on the state”™s Common Retirement Fund and found $12 billion of the $75 billion in equity assets are invested in companies that do business with nations tied to terrorism.
Klein is not blind to the fact that the state comptroller has to answer to the nearly 1 million pension fund members, including 342,245 beneficiaries and retirees. He knows these people are counting on financial recompense, but not at the cost of thousands of soldiers.
He suggested that discretion be used by the comptroller in convincing companies to change their business practices and in determining which investments should be divested.
“I understand that any manager of a pension fund has a fiduciary duty to the pensioners. I”™m not expecting these pension funds to bankrupt themselves.”
He is also considering his staff take a look at the investments of labor unions to see if they too are inadvertently supporting terror nations.
Great idea. Let”™s see if the unions get on board.
Â
