The "official" unemployment rate in the United States has been at nine and a half percent or above for 14 consecutive months, and today it takes the average unemployed American about 35 weeks to find a job. However, the "official" unemployment rate is misleading, because it does not include workers that have quit looking for work or that have had their hours cut back to part-time. According to 60 Minutes, when you add those "discouraged workers" and "underemployed workers" into the equation the actual rate is about 17 percent, and in the state of California the actual rate is about 22 percent.

Meanwhile, foreign nations are using sovereign wealth funds to buy up staggering amounts of US infrastructure. America is quite literally for sale in 2010. All across the United States, highways, ports, toll roads and even parking meters are being gobbled up by foreign powers. We have shipped massive amounts of wealth and jobs to other nations, and now those very same countries are turning around and buying huge amounts of US infrastructure with the gigantic piles of dollars that they have accumulated.

Widespread long-term chronic unemployment was something that America was never supposed to see again. Our leaders promised us that the US financial system was so strong that we would never have another "Great Depression" in our lifetimes. But then the financial crisis of 2008 happened. Unprecedented numbers of Americans started losing their jobs and the US Congress did something that it had never done before. Congress decided to extend unemployment benefits all the way out to 99 weeks.

Doing that has cost US taxpayers approximately $100 billion dollars to this point, but we were promised that it was a "temporary" fix and that it would give displaced US workers a chance to find new jobs. Surely any industrious American worker could get another job within 99 weeks, right?

Wrong.

Today, there are at least 1.5 million "99ers" - those Americans that have completely exhausted all 99 weeks of unemployment benefits and that still do not have jobs.

60 Minutes recently did a report on some of these "99ers". Many of them are very highly educated and very highly qualified. If you have not seen this 60 Minutes report yet, you have got to take few minutes to sit down and watch it. This video is so shocking that many of you will have your jaws on the floor by the time you finish watching it...

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/CwpdGyIY2fQ

Last year, some 1,103 cities worldwide joined Benedict XVI, Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the custos of the Holy Land, and Archbishop Fouad Twal, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, to participate in the prayer for peace. It is being supported by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and responds in a special way to the call for prayer from the recent Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops.

The organizers noted that this event "is a way to commit for and to concretely live a day of profound prayer and intercession." The 24 hours of continuous prayer will begin in conjunction with the 5th Extraordinary Prayer of All Churches for Reconciliation, Unity and Peace Beginning in and Proceeding from Jerusalem as well as the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in Jerusalem.

So at Greece's request, the EU took the unprecedented step on Tuesday of agreeing to deploy border guards to help the country police its land border. "We could not handle this situation alone anymore," says Christos Papoutsis, Greece's Minister of Citizen Protection. "We don't have the centers to house the people, we don't have the staff to help them."

But in its quest to get a handle on the flood of illegal immigrants, Greece also has an EU rule called the Dublin Regulation adding to its troubles. Under the law, countries can send asylum seekers back to the country through which they first entered the EU - and these days, in most cases, that's Greece. Stavros Lambrinidis, a Greek member of the European parliament who works on asylum and border issues, and other EU leaders are calling for changes to the regulation that would, among other things, stop the practice of sending asylum seekers back to already overwhelmed countries such as Greece.

Lambrindis and Papoutsis also hope neighboring Turkey will help the Greeks break up the human-trafficking rings that smuggle people into Europe. But in the meantime, Greeks are focusing on the immediate problem - stopping illegal migration across their land border - before increasingly fragile relations between migrants and citizens deteriorate further. "Greeks are already worried about jobs, the decreasing quality of their lives in this bad economy," says Papoutsis. "They are afraid. And I don't want the xenophobes in this country to exploit that."

In a bid to restart the stalling recovery, the US Federal Reserve is next week expected to unveil a second round of quantitative easing (QE) of as much as $500 billion, on top of the $1.2 trillion already completed. In typically robust comments, Mr Gross said the Fed had run out of other options but warned that more QE would in the long-term mean "picking the creditor's pocket via inflation and negative real interest rates".

In a bid to restart the stalling recovery, the US Federal Reserve is next week expected to unveil a second round of quantitative easing (QE) of as much as $500bn, on top of the $1.2 trillion already completed. In typically robust comments, Mr Gross said the Fed had run out of other options but warned that more QE would in the long-term mean "picking the creditor's pocket via inflation and negative real interest rates".

(The term "Ponzi scheme" is a widely known description of any scam that pays early investors returns from the investments of later investors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ponzi)

Meanwhile, Ireland has announced fiscal retrenchement of 15 billion euros over the next four years, twice the original plan. It is already cutting public wages by 13 percent. John Fitzgerald from Ireland's Economic and Social Research Institute said there is a risk that austerity tips the economy into a downward spiral, comparing it to an overdose of "chemotherapy" that does more harm than good.

Finance minister Brian Lenihan said the country had no choice. "The cost of borrowing is high and rising, and if we do not act soon to live within our means, people may stop lending to us. We will not fool the markets for an instant if we seek to defer any longer what evidently needs to be done now. The Irish people will have to accept cuts in public expenditures and higher taxes," he said.

In Greece, yields on 10-year bonds surged 67 points to 10.26 percent, the biggest jump since the turmoil in June. The sell-off came after permier George Papandreou warned that the country was still in danger, and threatened to call early elections.

Gavan Nolan from Markit said fears of "political instability in sovereign credits" had moved onto the radar screen, with investors now paying closer attention to whether or not governments can actually deliver on austerity plans. The test will be whether these countries can generate enough exports to trade their way out of crisis over coming years, or remain trapped in slump with rising political tensions.

Tensions are mounting ahead of a crucial meeting of European leaders this week, with Germany and France at loggerheads with both the EU executive and many other member states over their calls for further changes to the European Treaty. On Wednesday the European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding slammed a deal hashed out between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to push for CHANGES TO THE EU LAW TO ALLOW FOR THE SUSPENSION OF THE VOTING RIGHTS OF MEMBER STATES WHO VIOLATE STRICT BUDGET DEFICIT RULES.

"Coming up with illusions of new treaties looks completely irresponsible to me," Reding said in an interview with German daily Die Welt published on Wednesday. "Haven't they both understood that it took us 10 years to wrap up the Lisbon Treaty?"

Germany has threatened to block a package of reform proposals, to be presented by European Council President Herman van Rompuy at the summit this Thursday and Friday, if it doesn't get its way on alterations to the Lisbon Treaty. The irony is that Berlin supports the bulk of the reforms, which include plans to improve EU budget discipline and widen provisions for financial and political sanctions.

"Because the United States' issuance of dollars is out of control and international commodity prices are continuing to rise, China is being attacked by imported inflation. The uncertainties of this are causing firms big problems," Chen was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

Chinese officials have criticized US monetary policy as being too loose before, but rarely in such explicit language. At the G20 meeting in South Korea which ended on Saturday, Chinese Finance Minister Xie Xuren said that issuers of major reserve currencies - code for the United States - must follow responsible economic policies.

Along with posing an inflationary risk, a weak dollar also places appreciation pressure on China's yuan since its value is so closely tied to the US currency.

The disclosure by the Department for Work and Pensions raises fresh questions over how many of the 2.6 million people on the existing incapacity benefit are really incapable of being employed. The figures suggest that if they were tested to the same extent the number would fall as low as 650,000.

This would slash the 12.5 billion pounds bill for incapacity benefit to just over 4 billion pounds a year. The Government is pushing ahead with trials in Burnley and Aberdeen to re-test existing incapacity benefit claimants. If successful, the tests will be implemented nationwide. Nearly 10,000 people have applied for the ESA because they are too fat - a condition which is labelled 'endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases'. Of those applicants, just 600 were allowed to stay on sickness benefit. Of the 7,100 people that have applied to go on sickness benefits because they have said they have sexually transmitted diseases just 600 were allowed to stay on the ESA.

Hans-Rudolf Merz, Switzerland's finance minister, on Monday agreed "to begin ministerial negotiations with the aim that UK residents with Swiss bank accounts pay tax on the interest they earn", a Treasury source said. The commitment, signed after a meeting with George Osborne, is a way around Switzerland's famous banking secrecy laws.

Although the tax will not raise as much as if the full sums held on deposit were disclosed, the compromise promises some payment to the Exchequer where previously there was none. Germany is believed to be holding similar discussions.

Switzerland has been forced onto the back foot due to tougher international action against tax havens and the weakness of its biggest bank, UBS, which was hit hard by the financial crisis. The US threatened ruinous legal action against UBS this year unless the Swiss authorities handed over the names of thousands of alleged US tax avoiders. In a landmark deal, Switzerland provided the names and the case was settled.

It has agreed to adhere to international standards on helping countries chase tax avoiders but has fought off demands for automatic information exchanges with other countries in favour of a withholding tax that helps preserve the secrecy on which its $2 trillion wealth management industry is built.

SPIEGEL: What do you think of US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's proposal that countries keep their current-account balance under 4 percent of gross domestic product, both for deficits and surpluses?

Michael Burda: I think that interventions of this sort are unreasonable and unworkable. One can not resolve global imbalances by imposing penalties. Such measures are unsuitable for achieving that goal.

SPIEGEL: What does the proposal mean for Germany, which runs a current-account surplus as a result of its strength as an exporter?

Burda: Germany would effectively be punished for its efforts in recent years to regain its competitiveness, which can help explain why German products are selling like hotcakes on the global market. I would also find it strange to see other countries being rewarded for not having put their own house in order.

SPIEGEL: The US treasury secretary is proposing that Germany reduces its reliance on exports, for example by boosting domestic demand with the help of tax breaks.

Burda: But you don't need penalties to do that. Domestic demand will pick up in the near future, entirely by itself. Germany's unions will see to that in the coming rounds of wage negotiations (ie by securing pay raises for their members).

SPIEGEL: How can the imbalance between exporting and importing countries be brought back into balance?

Burda: These things cannot be manipulated by governments in the long run, and will ultimately correct themselves over time without outside intervention. The Chinese will ultimately have to focus more on their domestic economy, and small- and medium-sized companies in the US will make an effort to produce goods that they can successfully export - of that I am optimistic.

A thirst for change in Washington and worries about the stumbling economy appear likely next Tuesday to break Obama's Democrats' grip on Congress in a potential rout that would topple House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from power. With more than 90 Democratic-held seats at risk on November 2 in the 435-member House, independent analysts project Republicans will pick up at least the 39 Democratic seats they need for control.

Republicans are also headed to big gains in the Senate but are expected to fall short of picking up the 10 Democratic seats needed for a majority. To control the 100-member Senate, Republicans will need to sweep nearly every competitive race - a difficult but not impossible task.

A Republican win in the House and gains in the Senate would likely put the brakes on Obama's agenda and spark a prolonged period of legislative gridlock, analysts said. Investors expect a split government and have largely factored in the result, so a dramatic move in stocks on November 3 is unlikely without an unexpected showing by either party.

His comments raise the prospect that big UK banks will be required to hold significantly more equity than new international rules require.

In order to do this, the banks might have to issue new shares, pay out less profits as dividends, or ration new lending more tightly.

In September, the Basel international committee of bank regulators raised the minimum ratio of equity that banks must hold to absorb losses on loans and other risky investments from 2% to 7% of assets. However, the committee said that even higher ratios were still to be agreed for the biggest banks whose failure would pose a risk to the financial system.

Mr King said that the new Basel minimum capital ratios were inadequate to address the problem of banks that are too big too fail, such as Barclays, HSBC and RBS. Such banks, he said, enjoy an implicit guarantee, which gives them an incentive to take on excessive risks. He also said that the coalition government's proposal for a bank levy - which is expected to raise 2.5 billion pounds a year - would be nowhere near enough to cover the losses of a future financial crisis.

"For all the clever innovation in the financial system, its Achilles heel was, and remains, simply the extraordinary - indeed absurd - levels of leverage represented by a heavy reliance on short-term debt," said Mr King. "The broad answer to the problem is likely to be remarkably simple. Banks should be financed much more heavily by equity rather than short-term debt. Much, much more equity. Much, much less short-term debt."

Experts say that after a long absence from Haiti, cholera could now "settle" and become endemic. The UN said 25 more people had died of the disease on Tuesday, bringing the total to 284. The number of reported cases now stands at 3,612. Health experts say they expect the outbreak will soon lessen but the disease will eventually join malaria and tuberculosis in becoming endemic in Haiti.

"It's normal that we should expect a settlement of cholera in Haiti nationwide over the coming months," Dr Michel Thieren of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) told Reuters news agency. The spread of the disease has alarmed locals in the region, who have reportedly vented their fears on the doctors who have arrived to help them.

The Associated Press reported that a treatment centre set up by the Spanish branch of MSF in Saint-Marc had been attacked by angry stone-throwing youths, who said they were afraid that the facility would bring more cases of the disease to their town. Some 1.3 million survivors of January's devastating earthquake are living in tent camps in and around the capital. Poor sanitary conditions make the camps and slums vulnerable to cholera, which is caused by bacteria transmitted through contaminated water or food.

Thousands of people have been evacuated amid fears pressure building up beneath Merapi's lava dome could lead to one of the most powerful blasts in years. But a further 13,000 people need to be evacuated from within a 10-mile (16km) radius of the volcano, officials say. It is thought that 5,000 people live on or near the volcano.

Emergency teams have found at least 12 bodies in the area close to the mountain, local media report. "There are likely to be more victims as the terrain is difficult, roads are damaged and trees uprooted, it's dark and the condition of the volcano is still unstable," said Yogyakarta search and rescue official Taufiq.

On Monday, officials monitoring the volcano raised the alert for Mount Merapi to the highest possible level. Since then, more than 600 volcanic earthquakes have been recorded around the mountain. "We heard three explosions around 1800 (1100 GMT) spewing volcanic material as high as 1.5km (one mile) and sending heat clouds down the slopes," government vulcanologist Surono told AFP news agency.

He warned that pressure was building up behind a lava dome near the crater. "We hope it will release slowly," he said. "Otherwise, we're looking at a potentially huge eruption, bigger than anything we've seen in years."

Ten villages on the islands were swept away by the tsunami, a disaster official told the AFP news agency. Damage and rough weather are delaying efforts to reach the affected area. Hendri Dori Satoko, a lawmaker in the Mentawai islands, told Metro TV: "Our latest data from crisis centre showed that 108 people have been killed and 502 are still missing."

Heavy rain is preventing helicopters from accessing the area and boats cannot reach the islands either because the dock on the island of South Pagai has been destroyed. Poor communications have also made it hard for officials to gain accurate information, our correspondent adds. The disaster comes as thousands of people are being evacuated from the area around the Mount Merapi volcano in central Java, after it began erupting.