Friday, November 7, 2014

US jobless lowest since 2008; Top ship fuel supplier goes bankrupt; The rise of unreason

1 US jobless lowest since 2008 (Heidi Moore in The Guardian) The US unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since 2008 on Friday, in a move hailed as a sign of progress by economists despite 9 million people remaining out of work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the unemployment rate fell to 5.8%, as employers added 214,000 jobs in October. The industries that added the most jobs were “food services and drinking places, retail trade, and health care” the BLS said.

In its report, the BLS said that the number of unemployed has fallen by 1.2 million this year and the number of long-term unemployed has fallen by 1.1 million. Justin Wolfers, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for international economics, called the jobs numbers “a great report” and publicly hailed one of the BLS’s data points, the household survey, which suggested that 683,000 people found new jobs in October.

Others were sceptical of the household survey. “These data, remember, are much less reliable than the payroll numbers, and can’t be taken seriously month-to-month,” wrote Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics. Others warned about embracing too much optimism. The National Women’s Law Center, similarly, objected that most of the gains were jobs gains were in low-paying minimum-wage jobs.

One measure that economists put emphasis on is the “labor force participation rate,” which measures how many Americans are working as a percentage of the overall labor force. That percentage, a very low 62.8%, is nearly the lowest since the recession of 1978. Joblessness also shows stark differences by ethnic group. The black unemployment rate, at 10.9%, is more than double the white unemployment rate of 4.8%.


2 Top ship fuel supplier goes bankrupt (BBC) The world's largest ship fuel supplier, OW Bunker, has filed for bankruptcy after alleged fraud. The company's troubles came to light earlier this week when it discovered suspected fraud by senior employees in a Singapore-based subsidiary. OW Bunker is Denmark's third-largest company and supplies 7% of the world's bunker fuel, used in shipping.

Shipping lines were trying to find alternative suppliers in the wake of the news. The company owes 13 banks $750m and says it cannot survive without new credit. OW Bunker's chairman, Niels Henrik Jensen, said in a statement: "It is now clear that such facilities will not be made available. Nor is a sale as a going concern a realistic option."

The company said it had discovered fraud by senior employees in its Singapore-based subsidiary, Dynamic Oil Trading. OW Bunker only became a public company this year when it joined Copenhagen's Nasdaq in March. Its float was a market highlight, the second biggest initial public offering of shares since 2010.

In October it published figures estimating a trading loss of $24.5m, but has now increased that to $150m. The alleged fraud at DOT is potentially one of the biggest financial market scandals to hit Singapore in 10 years.


3 The rise of unreason (Pervez Hoodbhoy in Dawn) Some 300 years ago the age of reason lifted Europe from darkness, ushering in modern science together with modern scientific attitudes. These soon spread across the world. But now, running hot on its heels is the age of unreason.

India’s prime minister recently proclaimed that the people of ancient India had known all about cosmetic surgery and reproductive genetics for thousands of years. Here’s his proof: “We all read about Karna in the Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realise that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb.”  And a staggering number of Pakistanis believe that everything from quantum mechanics to black holes and genes were anticipated 1,400 years ago.

Once evidence becomes irrelevant, everything becomes possible. Take, for example, the question of whether Ram Janmabhoomi is actually the birthplace of Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu. Is this located precisely where Emperor Babar built the now-demolished Babri mosque? No conceivable archaeological evidence can adjudicate the matter. In fact it is impossible to establish on physical grounds the existence of Rama, much less the coordinates of his birthplace. But, the tragic events of Dec 6, 1992, owed to this belief. The scars of that terrible carnage have yet to heal.

It is not just South Asia where unreason is on the rise. The US, the centre of high science, is now struggling with various crackpot anti-science movements. However, determined opposition has kept astrology, creationism, UFOs, magnetic therapy, etc. away from the mainstream.

India has a strong Nehruvian past and Indian rationalists have strongly opposed so-called Vedic mathematics and cosmology, and revamping school curricula. The price has not been small. For example, Dr Narendra Achyut Dabholkar was murdered in Pune almost a year ago. He had helped draft the Anti-Jadu Tona Bill (Anti-Black Magic Bill) which political parties like the BJP and Shiv Sena opposed, claiming it would adversely affect Hindu culture, customs and traditions.

But nowhere in the world has unreason grown faster, and become more dangerous, than in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Polio workers here have shorter lives than soldiers in battle. More importantly, with schools, colleges, and universities actively working to crush young minds rather than enlighten them, this fight against unreason is surely going to be a much tougher one.


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