According to a survey by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, the New York State wine industry is thriving during the current recession:A survey of 169 wineries conducted by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, found that the state wine industry not only has weathered the recession but also has exploded in size.pressconnects.com has the full story here.More wineries have opened around the state since 2000 than in the previous 170 years, the survey determined.
And the expansion is unabated.
"In the seven months since the surveys were mailed in March, 33 new wineries have been licensed, bringing the state total to 273, and of course those new wineries weren't included," said Jim Trezise, president of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation.
The latest study by Palo Alto Networks raises that question. Everybody seems to be on Facebook or Twitter instead.People using Twitter to get the word out about their company, sales and promotions jumped more than 250% from this past spring, according to a study done by Palo Alto Networks, a maker of firewall technology. The number of companies using facebook for such tasks grew by 192%, the sudy found. The report said that workers are using social networks as promotional vehicles both with and without management knowledge.Thank god Palo Alto Networks is willing to spy on people so we can track the rise of Web 2.0. But sometimes you just have to wonder if we'd be better off making automobiles rather than promotional vehicles. The full story is here.
Economist Mark Thoma thinks so. In a CBS MoneyWatch posting, Thoma argues that, while cyclical unemployment should drop similarly to other recession, structural unemployment could stay quite high for quite a while:We had too many resources in housing, finance, and automobile production, and it will take time for the economy to make the necessary structural adjustments. When this is combined with continuing globalization, as well as the higher savings rate and correspondingly lower consumption expected from households in the future, both of which cause structural change within the economy, the expectation is that the new target rate of unemployment will rise above the 4 percent level it was at before the recession. Exactly how much it will rise and for how long is hard to say. A 5 or 6 percent rate, or even somewhat higher is certainly imaginable. . . .The Wall Street Journal reports that economist David Rosenberg has an even gloomier outlook:
The full post is here.
“There are serious structural issues undermining the U.S. labor market,” he said in a note to clients Wednesday, emphasizing that the surge in unemployment resulting from the Great Recession is only part of the problem.
He points out that beyond those who are counted as officially unemployed, “there are the record number of people [about nine million] who got furloughed into part-time work,” plus many more who have dropped out of the labor force altogether. . . .
“If it weren’t for the drop in the labor force participation rate… the unemployment rate would be testing the post-WWII high of 10.8% right now,” he writes. “The business sector has a vast pool of resources to draw from before they start tapping into the ranks of the unemployed.”
“Hence the unemployment rate is going to very likely be making new highs long after the recession is over — perhaps even years,” he writes. “This will undoubtedly be a major political issue.”
Oh boy.
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