Closures will cost the FDIC $2.384 billion.

By Hibah Yousuf, CNNMoney.com staff reporter Last Updated: December 4, 2009: 7:22 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The nation’s tally of 2009 bank casualties hit 130 Friday when regulators shuttered a large Ohio bank, an Illinois bank, a Virginia bank and three small Georgia banks.
The largest bank to fail was AmTrust Bank in Cleveland.
Regulators also closed Benchmark Bank in Aurora, Ill., and Greater Atlantic Bank in Reston, Va. More

Secret meetings to stop using dollars for oil trading

Comunicas.- Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

Dollar to be dropped as the oil currency by 2018

quote:
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

by John Buell
The Obama administration faces the midterm elections in the vortex of forces that might impale it. Does President Obama recognize the magnitude of the risks?
Even if the great recession is statistically over, unemployment will likely continue to exceed 10 percent for many months. More…

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The tally of U.S. bank failures reached 124 so far this year as regulators seized a small Florida bank on Friday.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said Commerce Bank of Southwest Florida, based in Fort Myers, Florida, was closed and that Central Bank of Stillwater, Minnesota, will assume all of the deposits.

Almost one in five Black men 20-years-old or older are without a job, according to figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this month.

__________________________________________________________

OCTOBER 2009 UNEMPLOYMENT DATA*
(U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS)
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT: 10.2% [Analysis]

A year earlier, the number of unemployed persons was 10.2
million, and the jobless rate was 6.6 percent. [BLS]
White                                  9.5%
African American    15.7%
Hispanic                          13.1%
Asian**                               5%
Men 20 years and over         10.7%
Women 20 years and over    8.1%
Teen-agers (16-19 years)     27.6%
Black teens                                   41.3%

Officially unemployed    15.7 million

HIDDEN UNEMPLOYMENT
Working part-time because can’t find a full-time job:      9.3 million
People who want jobs but are not looking so are not counted in official statistics (of which about 2.4 million** searched for work during the prior 12 months and were available for work during the reference week.)      6.0 million
Total: 31.0 million (19.4% of the labor force)

Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

**Not seasonally adjusted.
*See Uncommon Sense #4 for an explanation of the unemployment measures.
In addition, millions more were working full-time, year-round, yet earned
less than the official poverty level for a family of four. In 2008, the latest
year available, that number was 17.8 million, 17.1 percent of full-time, full-year workers (estimated from Current Population Survey, Bur. of the  Census, 2009).
In September, 2009, the latest month available, the number of job
openings was only 2.5 million, according to the BLS, Job Openings and
Labor Turnover Estimates, November 10, 2009.+ Thus there are more than 12 job-wanters for each available job.[Numbers are not comparable with previous months as methods have been revised.]

Edwardsville, IL (PRWEB) November 19, 2009 — In January 2009, there were 6 closures. In September, there were 11 closures. In October, a total of 20 band failures were reported. All-in-all, there have been 123 reported bank failures so far in 2009!

Wall St’s image needs years to rebound

Thu Nov 19, 2009 5:33pm EST
By Joe Rauch
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street’s image, battered by the financial crisis, may take years to recover as its executives themselves are the first to acknowledge.
Executives from a range of financial companies — both on and off Wall Street — told the Reuters Global Finance Summit in New York that the recent economic crisis has shaken outsiders’ faith in the industry.

Fewer people lived in poverty in the Twin Ports in 2008 compared to 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau reported this week, although St. Louis County’s rate remains above the national average.
The Census Bureau data show nationally, 39.1 million Americans lived below the government’s threshold for poverty, about 13.2 percent of the nation’s residents. That’s up a bit from 38 million and 13 percent in 2007.

County poverty rate at 16.8 percent
By JIM SECKLER/The Daily News

Friday, November 20, 2009 12:33 AM CST

KINGMAN – About 33,000 Mohave County residents lived in poverty in 2008, according to newly released federal estimates.

The U.S. census released data Wednesday on the poverty rates in the country. Nationwide, the poverty rate was 13.2 percent, a slight jump from 13 percent the year before. The poverty rate is considered a household making $14,489 a year or less.

It’s shameful that millions go hungry in the land of plenty

By David A. Love, November 19, 2009
We need to wipe out hunger in America. It’s a sin that it not only exists but is actually increasing in the richest nation on Earth.
Tens of millions of Americans are unable to feed their families. Because of widespread poverty, they simply cannot afford adequate nutrition. With the current recession and crippling joblessness, this is a crisis that requires our immediate attention.