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Germany has become the first nation after the Japan fallout to announce a complete shut down of Nuclear Power Plants by 2022.

Way to go Germany. You deserve a standing applause!

Nuclear Energy which was once thought to be a blessing for Power generator has became an headache since its origin.  In the span of 50 years, we came across so many Nuclear related accidents . But still the world leaders chose to be mum.

The Earthquake that rattled the Super power Japan with almost destroying the country and leading it to recession has finally  made the world leaders to see sense.

Germany Environment Minister Takes the Call

Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen said the seven oldest reactors – which were taken offline for a safety review immediately after the Japanese crisis – would never be used again. An eighth plant – the Kruemmel facility in northern Germany, which was already offline and has been plagued by technical problems, would also be shut down for good.

Six others would go offline by 2021 at the latest and the three newest by 2022, he said.

Mr Rottgen said: “It’s definite. The latest end for the last three nuclear power plants is 2022. There will be no clause for revision.”

Mr Rottgen said a tax on spent fuel rods, expected to raise 2.3bn euros (£1.9bn) a year from this year, would remain despite the shutdown.

In the image below, the number of reactors and their schedule closure is listed in it.

Whats your reaction on Germany’s brave move? Do you want your nation to follow Germany’s path? Share with us your views.

Japan is officially in recession. The devastating Earthquake and Tsunami has pushed Japan into worst stage of recession.

The technology boom Japan was the one of the few countries that  battled out the 2008/2009 recession thereby giving hope for the other countries to battle out recession.

However, Japan has become the first country to enter Recession this year 2011.

According to the Cabinet Office, Gross domestic product shrank 0.9% in the first three months of the year,  giving an annualised rate of contraction of 3.7%. The contraction in the first three months of this year was bigger than expected, with most analysts expecting the annualised rate would show a contraction of about 2%.

“Japan’s economy is expected to remain weak for the time being,” said Japanese Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano on Thursday.

However, Mr Yosano said that supply constraints were easing and reconstruction demand was likely to spur growth.

“The economy has the strength to bounce back,” Mr Yosano said.

Img Src:  telegraph.co.uk

US unemployment rate has been continuously falling down as per authorities. From 8.9% this feb, it has gone down to 8.8% last month that is March 2011. However, it is unfortunate to report that most job seekers have been pushed to elect the low paying jobs for their livelihood.

According to the US Department of Labor, Employers created 216,000 jobs in March, higher than market expectations.

Most of the new jobs were created in the private sector, in factories, shops and health care, as well as in education and several professional and financial services.

David Sloan of IFR Economics said: “This [the jobs report] suggests the recovery is continuing.”

The new private sector jobs offset job losses in the public sector, mainly resulting from cuts by local government.

“The numbers are obviously good and one can hope that we will continue to see the market rise in continuing months,” said Bernard Baumohl, managing director and chief global economist of Economic Outlook Group.

If employers keep on creating jobs at this pace, as many economists expect, there will be a further 2.5 million new jobs in the US by the end of the year.

“The steep decline in the jobless rate and the solid employment growth in recent months are encouraging,” said the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Austan Goolsbee, in a post on the White House blog.

That will do little, however, to alleviate widespread concerns that the economic recovery in the US is failing to create enough jobs to make up for the 7.5 million lost during the recession.

“As long as millions of people are looking for jobs, there is still considerable work to do to replace the jobs lost in the downturn,” Mr Goolsbee acknowledged.

Are you an American? Whats your stand in this whole Unemployment  falling report?

How do i claim back my money? If this is your question then i say we possibly have an answer for that.

Its been estimated by US government officials that there is about $32 billion dollars left unclaimed by its respective owners.

Holy cow, back in 09′s and 10′s, people lost everything they had thanks to recession and here we find so much money that is unclaimed yet. Spooky!

Lets try and figure out ways to claims your uncleared money

1. Check the federal government’s savings bond database

Start your search by visiting the  Treasury Department’s savings bonds website and navigate to a special page called TREASURY HUNT. To get to the Treasury Hunt page, click on the tab for “Individuals,” then on the tab for “Tools” — or just go to Google and search for the term “Treasury Hunt.”

Once you’ve reached the Treasury Hunt page, you’ll find a big blue button two-thirds of the way down marked “Start Search.” Click on it, type in your Social Security number, and you’ll instantly be informed whether or not they are holding bonds in your name. The whole search should only take you a few minutes.

2. Check the Banks

It so happens that we may forget to check out the bank account which was opened by our parents when we were kids. Ask yourself whether you cashed  it out or not? If not then my first stop would be the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA) website, which provides links to the individual databases of all 50 states listing unclaimed assets.

I’d also visit missingmoney.com, a one-stop-shop for finding unclaimed property that is operated by a private company for NAUPA. What distinguishes both these websites is the huge amount of data they can access — and the fact that both of them are FREE.

There are also unclaimed-asset sites that will charge you to do a search. A typical example is unclaimed.com. But please go to the correct site, unclaimed.org. Take the FREE approach first. The other sites charge up to $18 per search.

3) Check With the IRS

IRS is the best place to begin the search. You go online to the IRS website and you click on the link labeled “Where’s My Refund?” You then input some basic information about yourself (Social Security number, filing status, and the amount of refund you’re due) and the site will tell you the status of your refund. If you don’t have access to the Internet, you can phone the IRS toll-free at (800) 829-1040 and ask them if they’re holding a tax refund for you. Since 2004, taxpayers have used the “Where’s My Refund?” tool more than 24 million times. If you think there’s even a remote chance that you never got a refund you were supposed to get, you should join this crowd.

Now here’s the big catch. The IRS has a rule that you have to claim your refund within three years from the time your return was due or they get to keep the money. If you have a refund coming to you for 2007 or later, you still have a chance to get your money.

DISCLAIMER:

Although we feel the above mentioned information will be useful for your search on  unclaimed money. We do not guarantee you its success. And in any such case of you not being able to find your missing money, we are NOT RESPONSIBLE for that.

We would encourage you to keep the post as an alternative in your search for money and also we insist you to find out your own ways to claim your money, if  any has been left unclaimed

With US unemployment rate over 9% a new disturbing trend seems to be followed among recruiters. Many recruiters make it clear that they do not want the unemployed to apply for a job opening. A New disturbing trend that is rise among US recruiters.

If this continues we can only watch the unemployment rate continue to increase.

In 2008, Michelle, a 53-year-old Illinois resident with 19 years experience in information technology, became another casualty of the Great Recession. More than a year later, after a long and fruitless job search, she finally heard from a headhunter who thought she sounded like a great fit for a post he was looking to fill.

But when Michelle told him how long she had been out of work, the headhunter turned apologetic: His client, he said, wouldn’t accept people who had been unemployed for more than six months. Michelle would go on to stay jobless for so long that she ultimately exhausted all her unemployment benefits, and, for the first time in her life, was forced to apply for food stamps and welfare.

Sony Ericssion itself made one such listing, asking only for candidates who are currently employed to apply for a job opening. But later they just called it a “Mistake”.

Job-placement professionals say that over the last year, more and more employers have made it clear they won’t consider job candidates who aren’t working. “A lot of our recruiters have had clients who have come across this,” Matt Deutsch of TopEchelon.com, which brings recruiters together to collaborate in finding jobs for candidates, told The Lookout, calling the practice “unfortunate.”

“At a moment when we all should be doing whatever we can to open up job opportunities to the unemployed, it is profoundly disturbing that the trend of deliberately excluding the jobless from work opportunities is on the rise,”Christine Owens, who runs the National Employment Law Center, told the EEOC.

I don’t really see how the government can reduce the unemployment rate with companies not willing to hire the unemployed. This is like a linear process that could only lead to more unemployment.

Rising unemployment and foreclosure rates, particularly in the South Atlantic and Mountain states, has raised the economic difficulties of the nation in November, according to a monthly anlysis of The Associated Press.

A month after the economic stress has reached the age of 18 months at the national level low, it increased in three quarters of 3141 counties in PA andanlyzed in 39 states. Unemployment and foreclosures rose slightly more than two-thirds of the States. Bankruptcies rose in half the states.

Florida, in particular, is struggling. His recovery has lagged behind those of other states that have also been ravaged by the housing crisis, such as Arizona and California, because Florida’s economy is less diversified.

And Colorado, Idaho and other mountain states have suffered a loss of drilling, tourism and construction jobs.

The AP index to calculate a score from 1 to 100 based on unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy rates. A higher score signals more stress. Under a rule of thumb, a county is considered stressed when its score exceeds 11.

The average score of the county in November was 10.3, compared to 9.9 in October. It was the highest reading since August of 10.3 points.

Nearly 40 percent of counties were considered stressed, up from just over a third in October.

Nationally, the unemployment rate increased slightly to 9.8 percent in November from 9.7 percent in October. In December, the rate rose to 9.4 percent. For all of 2010, the economy added about 1.1 million jobs – many fewer than are normally established after a severe recession.

Many economists expect twice as many net new jobs being created this year. But most think the unemployment rate will remain around 9 per cent by year-end. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week it could take up to five years of unemployment to fall to historically normal rate of about 6 percent.

States that have been particularly hard hit during the bursting of the housing bubble – California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada – will probably continue to suffer. One important reason is the loss of construction jobs that are not coming back.

“We’re not looking for a high rise,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York.

Nevada has been made with the stress score highest monthly because it has surpassed Michigan in March 2008. The AP index dates to October 2007. In November, the economic pain has worsened in Nevada, which posted a score of 21.96.

Nevada was followed by Florida (17.14) and California (16.42). Among the five most-stressed states, Michigan (14.83) and Arizona (14.6) saw some easing of economic distress.

North Dakota (4.05) was again the least-stressed state in November. It was followed by the South Dakota (5.17), Nebraska (5.27), Vermont (6.29) and New Hampshire (7.11). But all the healthiest states except Nebraska has suffered more stress from October to November.

Over the last three months, Florida has experienced the largest increase in economic pain. He passed the California and Michigan to become the second most stressed by the State based on the index of the PA. Florida has also experienced the third largest increase in stress over the last 12 months, exceeded only by the hill states of Colorado and Utah.

“This is the housing crisis, combined with a lack of manufacturing and other industries,” David Denslow, an economist at the University of Florida, said disorder of the state.

Colorado, Idaho and other mountain states into recession later than most of the country has once mining jobs evaporated, construction, tourism has declined and markets for second homes is long fire.

“Late in, out late,” said Richard Wobbekind, an economist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “We have not seen the van yet.”

Fewer people are migrating to Idaho, for example, leads to a decrease of more than 21,000 construction jobs, said Bob Fick, a spokesman for the Idaho Department of Labor. Other industries such as electronics manufacturing, has also suffered losses from the recession. Their problems have contributed to a decline of almost 6 percent in Idaho work force employed in the past three years.

“In 2007, when everything was starting to look like there was a recession, we still buy houses here Californians, like it was nobody’s business,” says Fick. “The bottom does not really fall later. ”

The counties with high concentrations of workers in the hotel and catering and real estate experienced the greatest increase in stress in November. Among those with at least 25,000 inhabitants, Imperial County, California (33.15), less successful. Following were Yuma County, Arizona (26.91), Lyon County, Nevada (26.75), Nye County, Nevada (25.21) and Yuba County, California (24.18).

In contrast, stress decreased the most in counties where many workers in wholesale trade, transportation, financial services, insurance and employment support. Ward County, ND (3.29) was considered the healthiest in November. It was followed by Sioux County, Iowa (3.71), Buffalo County, Nebraska (3.74), Brown County, SD (3.96), and the County of Brookings, SD (3.98).

Schneider reported from Orlando, Florida Crutsinger in Washington.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

US, a country that was drastically shaken down by recession has started to recover back to its old ways of spending.

The 2009 recession saw US consumers to stop spending on goods that almost killed the US economy.

Well, the past is past for us now, as the Consumer department has reported that, things are getting back to a steady rise in consumption.

“Consumer spending in November and October is consistent with stronger economic growth during the fourth quarter,” said the department’s acting deputy secretary, Rebecca Blank.

Analysts were also cheered by the figures.

“The spending numbers are good for the economy, no question about it,” said Joel Naroff at Naroff Economic Advisers.

“Consumers are shopping until they are tired, they are not shopping until they drop.”

Spending rose 0.4% against the previous month, the Commerce Department said, roughly in line with analysts’ forecasts. Consumer incomes rose 0.3%.

Now this means a steady 5 month increase, not bad eh?

However, the Unemployment issue is still a major problem for the Obama Administration.

I must say, the President has really worked hard to deliver his promise. But i will be most satisfied if he stops  triggering a massive bloodshed and stops making false war against nations in the name of terror.