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Thursday March 19, 2015

// March 19th, 2015 // Comments Off on Thursday March 19, 2015 // Daily News

US weekly jobless claims total 291,000 vs 292,000 estimate

The Associated Press

People line up for a job fair at a new Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company facility in Long Beach, California, March 7, 2015.
The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits basically held steady last week, as the job market continues to outpace broader economic growth.
The Labor Department says weekly applications for unemployment aid rose slightly by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 291,000. Jobless claims have been subdued for the past two weeks after winter storms caused them to spike at the end of February due to closed schools and construction sites.
The four-week average, a less volatile measure, increased 2,250 to 304,750. That average has dropped 7.5 percent over the past year.
Weekly applications are a proxy for layoffs. When employers keep their workers, it is generally a sign that they expect continued economic growth and will likely increase hiring. Applications below 300,000 are typically consistent with healthy job gains.

Today’s Inspiration

A Wounded Heart

by Joyce Meyer – posted March 19, 2015

For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded and stricken within me.
—Psalm 109:22

Is it wrong to have a wounded heart? No, a wounded heart is not wrong, but you need to get it healed and go on. In Old Testament days, if a priest had a wound or a bleeding sore, he could not minister. I think today we have a lot of wounded healers. By that I mean that there are a lot of people in the body of Christ today who are trying to minister to other people but who themselves still have unhealed wounds from the past. These people are still bleeding and hurting themselves.

Am I saying that such people cannot minister? No, but I am saying that they need to get healed. Jesus said that the blind cannot lead the blind; because if they do, they will both fall into a ditch. There is a message in that statement. What is the use of my trying to minister victory to others if I have no victory in my own life? How can I minister emotional healing to others if I still have unresolved emotional problems from my past?

In order to minister properly, we need to go to God and let Him heal us first. I think we need to wake up and realize that God is not looking for wounded healers. He wants people with wounds that He can heal who will then go and bring healing to others. God loves to use people who have been hurt and wounded because nobody can minister to someone else better than one who has had the same problem or been in the same situation as that person.

I am not saying that we have to have everybody’s problem in order to minister to them. My point is that if we are still bleeding and hurting from our own wounds, we are not going to be able to come against other people’s problems with the same kind of aggressive faith we would have if we had already worked through that problem ourselves.

The bottom line is that we need to let God heal us so He can use us to bring healing to other people.

Tuesday March 17, 2015

// March 17th, 2015 // Comments Off on Tuesday March 17, 2015 // Daily News

First rate hike now likely in August: CNBC Fed Survey
Steve Liesman | @steveliesman
1 Hour Ago
CNBC.com

The Fed has run out of patience.
So say respondents to the CNBC Fed Survey, more than two-thirds of whom see the Fed dropping the word from the policy statement in March. The word has been used by the central bank to signal no rate hike for at least two meetings.
“The FOMC is ready to answer the question: ‘Does the economy still warrant zero interest rates?’ with a resounding ‘NO,'” wrote John Donaldson of Haverford Trust.
The 38 respondents, who include economists, analysts and money managers, also now see the first rate hike coming in August, a month ahead of the prior survey, and it forecasts a somewhat steeper rate of interest rate increases over the next several years.
But rates are still forecast to rise gently, peaking at 3.04 percent in this cycle by the fourth quarter of 2017, a quarter earlier than the survey in January. “It will take the Fed years to normalize rates,” said Scott Wren of Wells Fargo Advisors. “This cyclical bull market still has room to run.”
But Wall Street thinks the Fed is behind the curve, with 54 percent saying the Fed is “too accommodative,” the first time the percentage has been above 50 percent. The 32 percent who say policy is “just right” represents an all-time low and a 15 point drop from January.
James Paulsen of Wells Capital Management thinks foreign economies could strengthen more than expected, prompting increases in commodity and oil prices. “If this happens as wages begin accelerating and as the U.S. unemployment rate nears 5 percent, Wall Street will increasingly fear the Fed is far behind the curve,” he wrote in response to the survey.
Read More Fed fear factor, ECB could keep markets turbulent
Yet, there were some contradictory findings in the survey. The chance of recession in the next 12 months jumped more 3 points to 16.4 percent, from an all-time survey low to the highest it’s been in a year. Respondents also shaved their growth forecast for this year to 2.7 percent, from 2.8 percent, further from the Fed’s 3 percent forecast. The combination of lower oil prices and a strong dollar has respondents pushing down their core inflation forecast to just 1 percent this year, further away from the Fed’s 2 percent target.
“We see the first rate hike in September as we think the Fed may want to see core PCE inflation finding a floor, which is unlikely before the summer,” said Thomas Costerg of Standard Chartered Bank.
Global economic weakness and slow wage growth in the U.S. are seen as the biggest threats to the U.S. economy, with the threat from Europe itself far lower than it was late last year.
The sense of a reduced threat from Europe comes at a time when there are greater fears Greece will leave the euro zone. Respondents judge there’s a 41 percent chance that will happen in the next three years, compared with just 13 percent for Portugal and 9 percent for Italy.
Little overall concern about Europe amid a high probability of a Greek exit could be a measure of success for the European Central Bank’s new trillion euro quantitative easing policy.
Markets are divided over whether the QE program is big enough to get inflation back up to 2 percent, with about a third saying it’s sufficient and 36 percent saying it’s not big enough.

Today’s Inspiration

Are You Lovable?

by Joyce Meyer – posted March 17, 2015

God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us.
—Romans 5:8

When you read the title on this page— Are You Lovable?—you may have immediately thought, “No, I’m not!”

I would have probably responded the same way before I came to understand the true nature of God’s love and His reason for loving me.

How can God love you as imperfect as you are? He loves you because He wants to. It pleases Him. God loves you because that is His nature. God is love (see 1 John 4:8). If He were otherwise, He wouldn’t be who He is.

God may not always love everything you do, but He does love you. His love is unconditional—it is based on Him, not you.