More than 824,000 Americans file for unemployment as economy slowly rebounds, Charisse Jones, USA TODAY

blah blah 824,542 blah blah

USA TODAY is now using non-seasonally adjusted jobless claims numbers because the Labor Department has switched to a different method to adjust the data based on seasonal factors, such as school workers losing jobs in June. The old method resulted in adjustments that dramatically inflated the number of claims filed during the global health crisis.

In the week ending September 19, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 870,000, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 6,000 from 860,000 to 866,000. The 4-week moving average was 878,250, a decrease of 35,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 1,500 from 912,000 to 913,500.

... The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending September 12 was 12,580,000, a decrease of 167,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up 119,000 from 12,628,000 to 12,747,000. The 4-week moving average was 13,040,750, a decrease of 478,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 29,750 from 13,489,000 to 13,518,750.

   UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 824,542 in the week ending September 19, an increase of 28,527 (or 3.6 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected an increase of 23,891 (or 3.0 percent) from the previous week. There were 175,394 initial claims in the comparable week in 2019. In addition, for the week ending September 19, 52 states reported 630,080 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending September 5 was 26,044,952, a decrease of 3,723,513 from the previous week. There were 1,488,601 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2019. [Unfortunately there's a 2 1/2 week lag in this statistic. The week ending Sept 5 is the latest there is for this -Progree]

David Legates, a University of Delaware professor of climatology who has spent much of his career questioning basic tenets of climate science, has been hired for a top position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Legates confirmed to NPR that he was recently hired as NOAA's deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. The position suggests that he reports directly to Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the agency that is in charge of the federal government's sprawling weather and climate prediction work.

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In 2007, Legates was one of the authors of a paper that questioned previous findings about the role of climate change in destroying the habitat of polar bears. That research was partially funded by grants from Koch Industries, the lobbying group the American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil, according to InsideClimate News.

(snip)

Legates also appeared in a video pushing the discredited theory that the sun is the cause of global warming. In testimony before the U.S. Senate in 2014, Legates argued that a climate science report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change erroneously stated that humans are causing global warming.

(snip)

Michael Mann: "At a time when those impacts are playing out before our very eyes in the form of unprecedented wildfires out West and super-storms back East, I cannot imagine a more misguided decision than to appoint someone like Legates to a position of leadership at an agency that is tasked with assessing the risks we face from extreme weather events."

Amazon Drivers Are Hanging Smartphones in Trees to Get More Work, Bloomberg 9/1/20

A strange phenomenon has emerged near Amazon.com Inc. delivery stations and Whole Foods stores in the Chicago suburbs: smartphones dangling from trees. Contract delivery drivers are putting them there to get a jump on rivals seeking orders, according to people familiar with the matter.

Someone places several devices in a tree located close to the station where deliveries originate. Drivers in on the plot then sync their own phones with the ones in the tree and wait nearby for an order pickup. The reason for the odd placement, according to experts and people with direct knowledge of Amazon’s operations, is to take advantage of the handsets’ proximity to the station, combined with software that constantly monitors Amazon’s dispatch network, to get a split-second jump on competing drivers.

That drivers resort to such extreme methods is emblematic of the ferocious competition for work in a pandemic-ravaged U.S. economy suffering from double-digit unemployment. Much the way milliseconds can mean millions to hedge funds using robotraders, a smartphone perched in a tree can be the key to getting a $15 delivery route before someone else.

... An Uber-like app called Amazon Flex lets drivers make deliveries in their own cars. For many with other jobs, it’s a way to earn extra money in their spare time. But with joblessness rising and unemployment payments shrinking, competition for such work has stiffened, and more people rely on it as their primary income source. Adding to the pressure, fewer people are using ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, so more drivers have to deliver online shopping orders to make money. As a result, some Whole Foods locations have come to resemble parking lots at Home Depot Inc., where day laborers have long congregated to pick up home repair gigs.

More: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-drivers-hanging-smartphones-trees-125150039.html

Warren Buffett's favorite stock market indicator reaches internet bubble extreme , Yahoo Finance, 8/20/20

The ‘Buffett Indicator’ as it’s called in Wall Street circles — which takes the Wilshire 5000 Index (viewed as the total stock market) and divides it by the annual U.S. GDP — is at its highest level since before the internet bubble crash in 2000. Currently, the ratio of 1.7 is some 70% above its historical average of one.

Back before the internet stock crash, Current Market Valuation points out the ratio stood at 1.71 — or the market being 71% overvalued.

“Normally, this ratio is around 1, meaning that total market cap of all U.S. stocks generally equals annual U.S. GDP. When stocks are considered to be fundamentally overvalued, the ratio increases to 1.3 (so total stock market capitalization is 30% larger than U.S. GDP),” explains Sevens Report Research founder Tom Essaye.

More: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffetts-favorite-stock-market-indicator-reaches-internet-bubble-extreme-165447233.html

The business model for carbon capture is broken, Quartz, 8/13/20

In the months since the pandemic cratered the price of oil, the financial fallout has spread from drilling companies to refineries and oilfield maintenance companies. Now the crash has claimed another, more unlikely victim: The only system built to capture carbon emissions from a coal plant in the US, one of only two worldwide.

... But on July 28, E&E News broke the story that the facility has been shuttered since May. And while the plant’s owners have said they plan to get it running again once the economy improves, Petra Nova’s shutdown exposes the weird market dynamics that could threaten the sustainability of carbon capture facilities in progress around the world.

... The trouble is, there’s not a whole lot you can do with the CO2 after you capture it. That makes the economic case for installing a big, expensive piece of equipment a bit shaky.

... the use with the greatest market potential today is, ironically for a climate project, oil drilling. That’s what Petra Nova went after.

So-called “enhanced oil recovery” (EOR) projects inject CO2 into oil wells to shake loose the dregs stuck in subterranean rocky pores.

... In order to operate, the system requires oil prices of at least $75 per barrel. Otherwise, it’s not worth the oil company’s money to bother purchasing CO2 for EOR. Even before the pandemic, the oil price was around $60; after briefly dipping below zero in April, it’s now around $40. Few experts expect the price to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon, if ever.

These coronavirus job losses will be permanent, CNN Business, 5/5/20

... The airline (United Air Lines) is precluded from laying off staff for the next six months under terms of a US bailout that will provide it with about $5 billion, but it's preparing to cut staff as soon as October, according to a letter sent to staff in April by CEO Oscar Munoz and President Scott Kirby.

Some retailers may be too broke to file for bankruptcy

Some retailers can't afford to file until stores reopen because they need money from liquidation sales, my CNN Business colleague Chris Isidore reports. The "everything must go" blowouts help get products off shelves and fund operations through bankruptcy proceedings.

"We probably would have seen more file by now if stores were open," Reshmi Basu, an expert in retail bankruptcies at Debtwire, told Chris. "We're clearly seeing a lot of companies engage [bankruptcy] advisors. But it's not a great time."

Coronavirus In Minnesota: Gov. Walz Says He Is Worried About Lack Of Stay-At-Home Orders In Iowa, North Dakota And South Dakota, WCCO, AP, 4/4/20

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he’s worried about neighboring states that have yet to issue stay-at-home orders to try and slow the spread of COVID-19.

“I do worry about that,” Walz said, adding that he has communicated with officials in the three states that border Minnesota to the west and south, the Pioneer Press reported. “It’s probably only a matter of time before they issue those, too.”

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said at a press conference that the state has “taken significant and incremental steps” to limit the spread of the virus and a stay-at-home order is not needed yet. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem echoed those thoughts.

“We’re a low population state and a large low population state. I will use every tool at my disposal as governor to protect the lives and safety of North Dakotans,” Burgum said Friday. “But I’m only going to use those tools if it makes sense and when it makes sense.”

(S.D. Gov) Noem said a statewide order wouldn’t be worth the disruption it would cause even though she predicted that up to 70% of the state’s population might get COVID-19.

More: https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/04/04/coronavirus-in-minnesota-gov-walz-says-he-is-worried-about-lack-of-stay-at-home-orders-in-iowa-north-dakota-and-south-dakota/