Menu

A new national poll shows strong support for "for-profit" education in this economic decline. The poll conducted by Lake Research Partners for Americans For Democratic Action Education Fund surveyed 1,000 adults with oversamples of 500 African Americans, 500 Latino/as, and 250 lower-income whites. The poll shows that "for-profit education empowers minority groups, and does not hinder them. People believe higher education is more critical now than ever to get ahead and support for-profit education as a way to make Obama's goal of increasing college graduates possible."

Looking ahead to 2010, Jeffrey Nichols, Senior Economic Advisor to Rosland Capital, made the following comments on the outlook for the price of gold based on a series of key fundamentals trending into the New Year, including U.S. monetary policy, strong central bank and investment demand and declining mine production.

Windows 7 has been touted as the easy-to-use upgrade to Vista. But IT professionals say that user "hand-holding" may be the biggest challenge for small businesses making the transition, according a survey of 200 small business IT professionals conducted by Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, Inc. and MarketTools.

Employers took 1,797 mass layoff actions in November that resulted in the separation of 165,346 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

In October 2009 the working day and seasonally adjusted current account of the euro area recorded a deficit of EUR 4.6 billion. In the financial account, combined direct and portfolio investment recorded net inflows of EUR 18 billion (non-seasonally adjusted).

The extraordinary remedial actions taken by central banks and governments since late last year have been successful in restoring confidence in, and improving the resilience of, financial systems around the world. Financial system support measures have been addressing the funding challenges of key financial institutions and have bolstered their capital positions. These measures, together with sizeable macroeconomic policy stimuli, set in motion a mutually reinforcing process between financial system conditions and real economic performance, fostering improving business cycle prospects, as well as a fading of systemic risk.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index™ (LEI) for Germany increased 0.6 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index™ (CEI) decreased 0.3 percent in October.

Consumer confidence in the overall economy remained level in December, while confidence in consumer electronics (CE) and technology declined from last month’s record high, according to figures released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)® and CNET.

First Advantage Corporation, a global risk mitigation and business solutions provider, announced the release of its first Screening Benchmark Report for the Retail Industry. The report provides employers in the retail industry with an overview of the employment screening results for the first three quarters of 2009 for many of the nation's top retailers, and serves as a potentially insightful tool to assist retail employers in the evaluation of their own employment screening programs.

Consumer delinquency rates for bankcards, first mortgages and home equity lines of credit again rose month-to-month in November, according to Equifax Inc.'s monthly Credit Trend Report.