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Unemployment: How Long Can This Go On?
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Unemployment: How Long Can This Go On?

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With Fed Chief Ben Bernanke warning about the dangers of long-term unemployment, 13 Senate Republicans joined Democrats to support a jobs bill worth $35 billion. How does it look to small business and unemployed people themselves? Should the government spend even more to create jobs or get out of the way of the private sector? Also, New York's troubled politics, and this year’s Vancouver Winter Olympics are the first be declared “carbon neutral.” But in planning for Sochi four years from now, Russia is not “going Green.”

Banner image: Federal Reserve Chief Bernanke testifies before the Senate Banking Committee on February 25, 2010


Making News

New York’s Troubled Politics ()

David Paterson became Governor of New York two years ago when Eliot Spitzer resigned because he consorted with prostitutes. Now Paterson has quit his own election campaign because he intervened in an episode of domestic violence involving a chief aide.  Steve Kornacki, formerly with the New York Observer, is now political columnist for Salon.com.

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Main Topic

Unemployment: How Long Can This Go On? ()

The Senate's newest member, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, was one of 13 Republicans who voted this week in support of a jobs bill, which provides $35 billion for highways, mass transit and tax credits for employers who hire new workers. With 15 million Americans out of a job and unemployment still close to 10%, it might create or save as many as 1 million, hardly a dent in the long-term problem that worries economists most. The author was Leading Democrat Harry Reid, whose bid for re-election is in serious trouble. How did his latest effort go down with the folks back home in Nevada? What are the social and psychological impacts of unemployment? Could it lead to unrest?  Is it time for another New Deal, even if that means more deficit spending?


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Reporter's Notebook

Will Russia Produce a Green (and Gold) Olympics? ()

As President of Russia, one of Vladimir Putin's crowning achievements was securing the Winter Olympic Games for 2014. As Prime Minister, he's facing criticism. While Canada is getting high praise for making sure this year's Vancouver Winter Olympics were Green and "carbon neutral," Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund have complained to the United Nations that Russia's plans for Sochi are destroying Europe's last pristine Alpine wilderness. Fred Weir is based in Moscow for the Christian Science Monitor.

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  • Fred Weir: Correspondent, Christian Science Monitor

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