Should U.S. Olympians Have to Pay Taxes on Their Medals and Prize Winnings? (As of Now, They Do)

The governor of the Bank of England has urged those in the scandal-hit finance sector to learn lessons from Britain's Olympic heroes. Sir Mervyn King said the sportsmanship and work ethic displayed by the stars of the London Games needed to be embraced by those plying their trade in the City. Sunday, 12 August 2012 New hope? If it is true or we wait for Monday? The number of jobs available in the United States has risen to its highest level in four years, the Bureau of Labour Statistics said this week, providing more evidence that the job market is slowly recovering. There were 3.8 million job openings at the end of June, up 105,000 from the previous month and the most since July 2008. That is also 1.6 million more openings than when the market hit bottom in July 2009. All of the gains in May came in the private sector. The number of open government jobs declined in June, as it had in two of the preceding three months. But at 363,000, the government figure was well above the low of 280,000 reached in 2009. The government's JOLTS report - Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey - comes out more than a month after the widely followed monthly job numbers are released and, as a result, gets little attention. But it provides significant information on how the job market is changing by asking a sampling of employers how many workers were added during the month and how many left. It also seeks information on why those people left, and on how many jobs the company has that it is seeking to fill. In normal times, one thing that stands out is just how much turnover there is. During the most recent 12 months, the government estimates that 51.4 million people started new jobs, and that 49.6 million people left old ones, voluntarily or otherwise. Those numbers may be a little inflated, since the survey is of individual sites, not of entire companies. A worker transferred from IBM's New York office to its Los Angeles office might be counted as leaving one job and starting another, for example. Still, the total number of jobs begun during the 12 months equalled 39.2 percent of the total of jobs that existed a year earlier. But the number of separations was nearly as high, equalling 37.8 percent of jobs. Before the recession began, the hiring figure was as high as 48.1 percent, while the departure figure was at 46.1 percent It is instructive to look at the total number of job openings each month since the JOLTS numbers were first calculated at the end of 2000, as well as the ratio of the number of unemployed workers to that figure. Back in 2000, when an economic boom was ending, there were nearly as many jobs available as there were unemployed workers. By the summer of 2009, there were 6.7 times as many unemployed workers as there were open positions. Now that number is down to 3.4, little more than half the peak level. But it remains higher than it had been until the recent recession began at the end of 2007. I think I want them to swim as global warming now is on the news. The problem id if the economy is going down the water level is going up. Mr. King has a point not a good one as has watched too many tennis games. I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA