Industrial hemp poised to become NC’s newest legal crop

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The News & Observer

Legalization bill will become law unless McCrory vetoes
Spring Hope has one of the only hemp processing plants in the country
Supporters battle stigma: ‘We’re for rope, not dope’

 

 

Workers do final assembly of a decortification line at the Industrial Hemp Manufacturing Company in Spring Hope, NC, on Wednesday. The facility hopes to begin full-scale operations when a bill becomes law at midnight Friday, without Gov. Pat McCrory's signature. The law legalizes industrial hemp in North Carolina. Farmers are eager to grow the crop, which can be used in textiles, oil drilling fluid and other products. It has virtually no THC, the active ingredient in marijuana that is smoked. This group of machines separates the outer fibers from the inner core. The outer fibers are used in the textile industry, the core fibers are used by the oil and gas industry. The plant currently processes kanaf, a plant similar to hemp. It is used to make door panels in cars and trucks. Chris Seward cseward@newsobserver.com

 

 

By Colin Campbell

ccampbell@newsobserver.com
 

Farmers in North Carolina are likely to wake up Saturday morning with a new option for growing crops: Industrial hemp production is expected to become legal at the stroke of midnight.
Lawmakers passed the legalization legislation in September, in the final days of the session. The proposal hadn’t previously been made public, and some conservative groups worry that questions about the plant’s connections to its cousin, marijuana, didn’t get answered.
The bill has been on Gov. Pat McCrory’s desk for weeks, and unless he vetoes it, it will become law without his signature at midnight Friday.

Lee Edwards of Sugar Hill Farms in Kinston is among the farmers eager to add industrial hemp to their fields.

“Hemp really gives us a crop during the summertime that is a viable cash crop to us,” he said. “We’re in a perfect geographical location for the production of hemp with our climate.”

 

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Goodbye Middle Class: 51 Percent Of All American Workers Make Less Than 30,000 Dollars A Year

End Of The American Dream

The American Dream Is Becoming A Nightmare And Life As We Know It Is About To Change

By Michael Snyder, on October 20th, 2015

We just got more evidence that the middle class in America is dying.  According to brand new numbers that were just released by the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all workers in the United States make less than $30,000 a year.  Let that number sink in for a moment.  You can’t support a middle class family in America today on just $2,500 a month – especially after taxes are taken out.  And yet more than half of all workers in this country make less than that each month.  In order to have a thriving middle class, you have got to have an economy that produces lots of middle class jobs, and that simply is not happening in America today.

You can find the report that the Social Security Administration just released right here.  The following are some of the numbers that really stood out for me…

-38 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.
-51 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.
-62 percent of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.
-71 percent of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year.

That first number is truly staggering.  The federal poverty level for a family of five is $28,410, and yet almost 40 percent of all American workers do not even bring in $20,000 a year.

If you worked a full-time job at $10 an hour all year long with two weeks off, you would make approximately $20,000.  This should tell you something about the quality of the jobs that our economy is producing at this point.

And of course the numbers above are only for those that are actually working.  As I discussed just recently, there are 7.9 million working age Americans that are “officially unemployed” right now and another 94.7 million working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force”.  When you add those two numbers together, you get a grand total of 102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.

So many people that I know are barely scraping by right now.  Many families have to fight tooth and nail just to make it from month to month, and there are lots of Americans that find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into debt.

If you can believe it, about a quarter of the country actually has a negative net worth right now.
What that means is that if you have no debt and you also have ten dollars in your pocket that gives you a greater net worth than about 25 percent of the entire country.  The following comes from a recent piece by Simon Black…

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Numerous States Prepare Lawsuits Against Obama’s Climate Policy

New York Times

By CORAL DAVENPORTOCT. 22, 2015

Photo

 

Empty coal gondolas in a rail yard in Danville, W.Va. Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia's attorney general, said President Obama's climate change regulations would have "devastating impacts" on families in his state. Credit Luke Sharrett for The New York Times 

 

WASHINGTON — As many as 25 states will join some of the nation’s most influential business groups in legal action to block President Obama’s climate change regulations when they are formally published Friday, trying to stop his signature environmental policy.

In August, the president announced in a White House ceremony that the Environmental Protection Agency rules had been completed, but they had not yet been published in the government’s Federal Register. Within hours of the rules’ official publication on Friday, a legal battle will begin, pitting the states against the federal government. It is widely expected to end up before the Supreme Court.

“I predict there will be a very long line of people at the federal courthouse tomorrow morning, eagerly waiting to file their suits on this case,” said Jeffrey R. Holmstead, a lawyer for the firm Bracewell & Giuliani who represents several companies that are expected to file such suits.

 

While the legal brawls could drag on for years, many states and companies, including those that are suing the administration, have also started drafting plans to comply with the rules. That strategy reflects the uncertainty of the ultimate legal outcome — and also means that many states could be well on the way to implementing Mr. Obama’s climate plan by the time the case reaches the Supreme Court.

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Many Low-Income Workers Say ‘No’ to Health Insurance

MSN News

Many Low-Income Workers Say ‘No’ to Health Insurance

The New York Times

By STACY COWLEY 6 hrs ago

 

© Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times An employee at Golden Corral taking clean cups from the kitchen. Some Golden Corral restaurants began offering health insurance to employees, but few have…

 

 JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — When Billy Sewell began offering health insurance this year to 600 service workers at the Golden Corral restaurants that he owns, he wondered nervously how many would buy it. Adding hundreds of employees to his plan would cost him more than $1 million — a hit he wasn’t sure his low-margin business could afford.
His actual costs, though, turned out to be far smaller than he had feared. So far, only two people have signed up.

“We offered, and they didn’t take it,” he said.

Evidence is growing that his experience is not unusual. The Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, which requires employers with more than 50 full-time workers to offer most of their employees insurance or face financial penalties, was one of the law’s most controversial provisions. Business owners and industry groups fiercely protested the change, and some companies cut workers’ hours to reduce the number of employees who would be eligible.

But 10 months after the first phase of the mandate took effect, covering companies with 100 or more workers, many business owners say they are finding very few employees willing to buy the health insurance that they are now compelled to offer. The trend is especially pronounced among smaller and midsize businesses in fields filled with low-wage hourly workers, like restaurants, retailing and hospitality. (Companies with 50 to 99 workers are not required to comply with the mandate until next year.)

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Hundreds of outraged Air France staff stormed a meeting where Company plans to cut 2,900 jobs were being discussed. Execs had shirts torn from their backs as they escaped the angry mob

No need to get shirty! Air France executive is forced to climb a fence after staff attack him and rip off his shirt when he announces 2,900 job losses

• Air France executives attacked after staff stormed company headquarters
• Company plans to cut 2,900 jobs and 14 aircraft from its long-haul fleet
• HR vice president and long-haul flights deputy had their shirts torn off

Published: 08:46 EST, 5 October 2015 | Updated: 13:17 EST, 5 October 2015

Air France managers have been forced to flee the company's headquarters after being attacked by a baying mob of workers that tore their clothes off.

Hundreds of angry staff stormed the Air France building at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Roissy, near Paris, after the company announced plans to cut 2,900 jobs on Monday.

Two senior executives, Xavier Broseta, Vice President for Human Resources, and Pierre Plissonnier, deputy of Air France long-haul flights, both had their shirts ripped off their backs as they were evacuated through the crowds.

Under attack: A shirtless Xavier Broseta, Executive Vice President for Human Resources at Air France, is evacuated by security after employees interrupted a meeting with representatives staff at the Air France headquarters building at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Roissy, near Paris

Shortly before the attack, Mr Broseta and Air France Chief Executive Frederic Gagey had outlined a drastic cost cutting plan, which would see 2,900 jobs cut by 2017.

The cuts include 1,700 ground staff, 900 cabin crew and 300 pilots, as part of efforts to lower costs, two union sources said.

Air France also confirmed in the meeting that it plans to shed 14 aircraft from its long-haul fleet, reducing the business by ten per cent, and that it wants to cancel its order for Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

This outraged staff, who are already at loggerheads with the company, and hundreds stormed the building, interrupting the meeting.

  

Mr Broseta and Mr Plissonnier were aided by security as they tried to escape the baying mob

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102.6 million working age Americans without jobs right now. That is not an economic recovery – that is an economic depression .

...

Unemployment Line  -  Wikipedia.org

The Economic Collapse

Right Now There Are 102.6 Million Working Age Americans That Do Not Have A Job

By Michael Snyder, on October 4th, 2015

 

The federal government uses very carefully manipulated numbers to cover up the crushing economic depression that is going on in this nation.  For the month of September, the federal government told us that 142,000 jobs were added to the economy.  If that was actually true, that would barely be enough to keep up with population growth.  Sadly, the truth is that the real numbers were actually far worse than that.  The unadjusted numbers show that the U.S. economy actually lost 248,000 jobs in September and the government added more than a million Americans to the “not in the labor force” category.  When I first saw that number I truly believed that it was inaccurate.  But you can find the raw figures right here.  According to the Obama administration, there are currently 7.9 million Americans that are “officially unemployed” and another 94.7 million working age Americans that are “not in the labor force”.  That gives us a grand total of 102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.

That is not an economic recovery – that is an economic depression of an almost unbelievable magnitude.

This is something that my friend Mac Slavo pointed out the other day.  I encourage you to read his analysis right here.  If we measured unemployment the way that we did decades ago, we would all be talking about how similar Obama’s economy is to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
But instead we let the feds get away with feeding us this completely fraudulent “5.1 percent” unemployment number and most of us believe the mainstream media when they tell us that everything is just fine.

Read More Here

102.6 million working age Americans without jobs right now. That is not an economic recovery – that is an economic depression .

...
Unemployment Line  -  Wikipedia.org

The Economic Collapse

Right Now There Are 102.6 Million Working Age Americans That Do Not Have A Job

By Michael Snyder, on October 4th, 2015

 

The federal government uses very carefully manipulated numbers to cover up the crushing economic depression that is going on in this nation.  For the month of September, the federal government told us that 142,000 jobs were added to the economy.  If that was actually true, that would barely be enough to keep up with population growth.  Sadly, the truth is that the real numbers were actually far worse than that.  The unadjusted numbers show that the U.S. economy actually lost 248,000 jobs in September and the government added more than a million Americans to the “not in the labor force” category.  When I first saw that number I truly believed that it was inaccurate.  But you can find the raw figures right here.  According to the Obama administration, there are currently 7.9 million Americans that are “officially unemployed” and another 94.7 million working age Americans that are “not in the labor force”.  That gives us a grand total of 102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.

That is not an economic recovery – that is an economic depression of an almost unbelievable magnitude.

This is something that my friend Mac Slavo pointed out the other day.  I encourage you to read his analysis right here.  If we measured unemployment the way that we did decades ago, we would all be talking about how similar Obama’s economy is to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
But instead we let the feds get away with feeding us this completely fraudulent “5.1 percent” unemployment number and most of us believe the mainstream media when they tell us that everything is just fine.

Read More Here

Fed blames 94 million Americans out of work for simply not wanting a job

October 2, 2015 2:18 PM MS

Kenneth Schortgen Jr

Finance Examiner

Wall Street

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

It has been a long time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published the real unemployment numbers for all Americans who fit the criteria of being able to work in the economy, but have not been able to find a job for one reason or another. Instead, the BLS has simply changed their data models numerous times since 1980, and now we have reached the point where there are actually more people between the ages of 16-54 who don't have a job versus those in that same age range who do.
And with the Federal Reserve using these BLS numbers as the catalyst for whether to raise interest rates after nine years of them being pushed down to near zero, one regional central bank on Oct. 2 laid the blame for there being over 94 million Americans out of work and not counted in the unemployment models as simply 'not wanting to get a job'.

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There Are Not Enough Jobs, And Austerity Is To Blame

The September jobs report is spooking even the optimists.

 

Daniel Marans Reporter, The Huffington Post

The especially poor September jobs report reinforces what many economists have been saying for months: The six-year recovery from the Great Recession has been too weak to create enough jobs for America's growing population, let alone restore significant wage growth. 

Domestic fiscal austerity, not recent global volatility, is primarily to blame for the inadequate job growth, these economists argue.

The U.S. economy created 142,000 jobs in September, bringing average monthly job growth to 198,000 this year -- way down from the monthly rate of 260,000 in 2014. Average hourly wages decreased slightly in September, meaning pay has risen just 2.2 percent in the past 12 months. 
In addition, the percentage of the population working or looking for work has dropped to 62.4 percent, the lowest it has been during the Obama presidency. The progressive Economic Policy Institute estimates that we need 2.6 million more jobs to keep up with population growth.

Economic Policy Inst ‏@EconomicPolicy 11h11 hours ago

 

 

To keep up with population growth, we still need 2.6 million more jobs. http://on.epi.org/1L8D7mk 

 

 

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US workers’ pay plummeted 4% over the past 5 years – report

RT

Published time: 4 Sep, 2015 03:52

 

© Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

600217

Despite nearly 250,000 jobs being created monthly in the US economy, the majority of Americans saw real wages plummet 4 percent over the past five years, when adjusted for inflation, according to new report by the National Employment Labor Project.

“Stagnant wages have become a fact of life for nearly all of America’s workers, but workers in lower-paying occupations are finding it especially tough to keep up with the rising cost of living,” said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a research and advocacy group, in a statement.
“Not only are their paychecks not growing, but their purchasing power has shrunk considerably, and to a far greater extent than that of higher-wage earners.”
The report looked at the percentage change in hourly wages for 785 occupations from 2009 to 2014, and then divided those jobs into five classifications. While hourly wages declined across all occupations, the hardest hit workers were those in lower- and mid-wage fields.


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French economy contracts while rest of eurozone keeps expanding

Bloomberg

French Recovery Fades as Manufacturing, Services Contract

By Mark Deen May 22, 2014 2:20 AM CT

Photographer: Balint Porneczi/Bloomberg

An employee removes excess felt from berets inside the factory of 174-year-old... Read More

French manufacturing and services unexpectedly shrank this month, highlighting President Francois Hollande’s struggle to revive the euro area’s second-largest economy.

A Purchasing Managers Index of factory activity dropped to 49.3 from 51.2 in April, while a services gauge fell to 49.2 from 50.4, Markit Economics said today in London. Economists had forecast readings above 50, the level that divides expansion from contraction.
Hollande is grappling with an economy that stagnated in the first quarter as both investment and consumer spending fell. After two years in office, his government has yet to achieve two consecutive quarters of expansion, a performance that has driven jobless claims to an all-time high of 3.3 million and his own popularity to a record low.


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French economy contracts while rest of eurozone keeps expanding

 

The headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Germany.

Colm Kelpie – Published 23 May 2014 02:30 AM

The strong pace of growth in the eurozone's private sector eased very slightly this month, with drastic price cuts preventing any further slowdown, surveys showed yesterday.

Slower growth in activity at factories took the shine off an unexpected pickup in the service industry, although the bloc's recovery appears to be gaining traction.
"This doesn't change the picture of the eurozone having one of its best growth spells in the past three years. It's broad-based – with the one exception being France," said Rob Dobson, senior economist at survey compiler Markit.
Markit's Composite Purchasing Managers' Index, based on surveys of thousands of companies across the region and seen as a good indicator of growth, edged down to 53.9 from April's near three-year high of 54.0, matching the forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts.


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Eurozone's 18-month-long recession may be over, economic surveys suggest

Economists say rise in manufacturing output PMI points to flat GDP and 'light at the end of the tunnel'

• Phillip Inman and Graeme Wearden
• 
  
• The Guardian, Wednesday 24 July 2013 14.16 EDT

The Osram factory in Molsheim. French factories returned to growth with their strongest performance in 17 months. Photograph: AFP/Getty

Hopes of a recovery in the eurozone were lifted after private sector firms across the region reported a rise in output for the first time in 18 months, leading to predictions that the single currency bloc is on the cusp of exiting recession.
A strong performance by German manufacturers and a halt to the headlong decline in French business activity gave the eurozone a much needed boost after the area slipped into reverse last year.
With the US manufacturing sector expanding at a faster pace in July, the main blot on the global economic recovery was a decline in manufacturing output in China that some economists have warned could force Beijing to renew its stimulus spending or risk a hard landing.
China's manufacturing sector tempered the eurozone data, slowing to an 11-month low as new orders faltered and the job market darkened.
The flash HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 47.7 this month from June's final reading of 48.2, marking a third straight month below the 50 threshold between expansion and contraction for China.
As if to highlight concerns that global growth is slowing, Caterpillar, the US construction and mining business that is considered a bellwether of global business activity, downgraded its forecast for the pace of the global recovery this year and next.
Alexandra Knight, an economist at National Australia Bank, said the weak Chinese PMI posed a problem for countries that relied on exports to China.
"It adds to the concern about the outlook for demand, and brings into question just how strong Chinese commodities demand will be," she said.

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Related articles

• French Economy Shrinks as Businesses Hold Off on Investment - Bloomberg
• French business activity shrinks underlining risk to euro zone
• Hollande Jobs Pledge Undermined by Weak French Recovery
• French GDP Shrinks as Hollande Faces Job Cuts, Recession Risk
• French Industrial Output Tumbles as Recession Looms - Bloomberg
• French Joblessness Climbs to Record, Adding Pressure on Hollande - Bloomberg
• French economy contracts while rest of eurozone keeps expanding
• Euro-Area January Factory Output Expands More Than Forecast
• Eurozone's 18-month-long recession may be over, economic surveys suggest

UK - Self-employed earn fifth less than in 2008, and 40% less than typical employee

Collapse in pay lies behind Britain’s return to work: Self-employed are hidden victims of recession, report warns

Andy Mcsmith

Tuesday 06 May 2014

More than a quarter of people now classed as self-employed are hidden victims of the recession struggling by on low pay, a new report reveals.

The study by the Resolution Foundation think tank reveals the dark side of the sharp growth in self-employment, which has helped the Government to maintain its boast that unemployment is falling as more and more people find work.
Since the start of the recession five years ago, the number of self-employed has risen by 650,000 to 4.5 million. They now represent 15 per cent of the active workforce.
But the new analysis reveals that the average weekly income of someone in self-employment is 20 per cent lower than in 2008.  As a result, a typical self-employed worker now earns 40 per cent than a typical employee.  An Ipsos-Mori survey commissioned as part of the report also found that 27 per cent of those who became self-employed in the past five year do so because they had no other choice - up from 10 per cent five years ago.
Gavin Kelly, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said: “Self-employment is often a highly precarious existence which isn’t that well supported by public policy. High levels of self-employment seem likely to be here to stay and policy-makers have some catching up to do.”
The grim truth about pay and living standards in some the regions of the UK has also been highlighted by official EU figures showing that parts of Britain are effectively poorer that countries from  former communist countries in Eastern Europe.
People in Cornwall and the Welsh Valleys are worse off than residents of Estonia and Lithuania, according to Eurostat figures comparing wealth across the EU using a measure known as “purchasing power standards” - which takes into account GDP per person and cost of living.
In addition, Durham and the Tees Valley, in the north east of England, are poorer than those in the wealthiest regions of Bulgaria and Romania, the two most deprived countries in the EU.
By contrast, the Eurostat figures show that London is the richest place in Europe.
According to the Resolution Foundation report, self-employed people are more likely than people in full time employment to complain of being under employed.

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Pension fears for rising number of self-employed

The Resolution Foundation said the increase in self-employment also presented a “worrying picture of the security and vulnerability of self employed people”, who have traditionally saved less for retirement than employees. Photo: PA

By Szu Ping Chan

6:00AM BST 06 May 2014

Higher levels of self employment have become a permanent feature of the UK economy as a result of Britain’s ageing workforce and a greater desire for Britons to “work for themselves”.

The number of people who are self employed has grown by 650,000 since the 2008 financial crisis, to 4.5m, meaning one in seven workers is now self employed.

While some of the shift towards self-employment has been caused by cyclical factors, the Resolution Foundation said 73pc of workers had chosen to become self-employed. “The high self-employment numbers are here to stay,” said Laura Gardiner, a senior policy analyst at Resolution Foundation.

The rise in self employment has attracted attention from the Bank of England, where policymakers have argued over whether the increase reflects structural changes in the UK economy or “disguised labour market slack” because many of these workers would prefer to be working full-time.

While the Foundation said there was less slack in the economy caused by self-employment than some policymakers believed, it said underemployment among these workers was “marginally worse than for employees”, representing a reversal of the pre-crisis trend.

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Related articles

• Resolution Foundation reveals that self-employed people are victims of the recession
• Rise of the self-employed to beat fragile jobs market
• Coalition Britain: less Dragon's Den, more a nation of odd jobbers
• Rise of the self-employed worker (but is it because there aren't enough jobs?)
• What life is really like for the thousands making the leap to self-employment
• It's not just inequality that is rising rapidly; insecurity is too
• Working 9-5 is now a vanished way of life in post-recession Wales for thousands of people
• Pension fears for rising number of self-employed

UK : Jobseekers face losing their benefits for three months or more if they refuse to take zero-hours contract roles, a letter from a Conservative minister has revealed.

Jobseekers being forced into zero-hours roles

Letter from Conservative minister reveals plans to sanction unemployed people if they fail to agree to controversial contracts

• Rowena Mason, political correspondent
• The Guardian, Monday 5 May 2014 15.31 EDT

Jobseekers queue outside a Jobcentre Plus branch at London Bridge. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

For the first time, benefit claimants are at risk of sanctions if they do not apply for and accept certain zero-hours jobs under the new universal credit system, despite fears that such contracts are increasingly tying workers into insecure and low paid employment.
Last week, the Office for National Statistics revealed the number of contracts that do not guarantee minimum hours of work or pay but require workers to be on standby had reached 1.4 million.
More than one in 10 employers are using such contracts, which are most likely to be offered to women, young people and people over 65. The figure rises to almost half of all employers in the tourism, catering and food sector.
Currently, people claiming jobseekers' allowance are not required to apply for zero-hours contract vacancies and they do not face penalties for turning them down.
However, the change in policy under universal credit was revealed in a letter from Esther McVey, an employment minister, to Labour MP Sheila Gilmore, who had raised the issue of sanctions with her.
The senior Tory confirmed that, under the new system, JobCentre "coaches" would be able to "mandate to zero-hours contracts", although they would have discretion about considering whether a role was suitable.
Separately, a response to a freedom of information request to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) published on its website reveals: "We expect claimants to do all they reasonably can to look for and move into paid work. If a claimant turns down a particular vacancy (including zero-hours contract jobs) a sanction may be applied, but we will look into the circumstances of the case and consider whether they had a good reason."
Higher level sanctions – imposed if a jobseeker refuses to take a position without good reason or leaves a position voluntarily – will lead to a loss of benefits for 13 weeks on the first occasion, 26 weeks on the second occasion and 156 weeks on the third occasion.
Asked about the issue by the Guardian, the DWP said jobseekers would not be required to take a zero-hours contract that tied them in exclusively to work for a single employer. The government is already consulting on whether to ban this type of contract altogether.
The change has been made possible because universal credit will automatically adjust the level of benefits someone receives depending on the number of hours they work. This means claimants should not face periods without the correct benefits when their earnings fluctuate or they change job.
However, critics raised concerns that the new policy will force people into uncertain employment and restrict the ability of claimants to seek better work while still placing a burden on many to increase their hours.
Labour's Sheila Gilmore said she was concerned about the situation because JobCentre decision makers already do not appear to be exercising enough discretion before applying sanctions under the old regime.
"While I don't object to the principle of either universal credit or zero-hours contracts, I am concerned about this policy change," she said. "I also fear that if people are required to take jobs with zero-hours contracts, they could be prevented from taking training courses or applying for other jobs that might lead to more stable and sustainable employment in the long term."

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