http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/international/europe/09satellite.html

Is this to be blamed on metric? Or do we (a) only blame NASA/US space program setbacks on the system(s) of measure used or (b) is the Euro Space Agency not competent enough to launch a basic satellite? Let's see, Euro constitution gone forever; record high unemployment across the Euro zone; political impotency in Germany and France...All of this does not bode well for the so-called "European Project". But the Euro servile out there should not be expected to see reality.

"Is this to be blamed on metric? Or do we (a) only blame NASA/US space program setbacks on the system(s) of measure used or (b) is the Euro Space Agency not competent enough to launch a basic satellite? Let's see, Euro constitution gone forever; record high unemployment across the Euro zone; political impotency in Germany and France...All of this does not bode well for the so-called "European Project". But the Euro servile out there should not be expected to see reality."


You will be singing a different tune when Iran starts selling its oil in euros come March.

Constitutuin will be modified then applied without referendum. The only failure of the European Project in the minds of those who want it to fail so that Britain can hope (but never happen) to be #1 in control in Europe. Once euro is an oil currency, pound will fail along with dollar.

Unemployment in EU is holding constant, but going up in UK and US. UK still suffereing massive recession:


http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/48404.html


Industrial slump sparks fears for UK economy

IAN McCONNELL, Business Editor October 07 2005


SURPRISE news of a slump in UK industrial production yesterday sparked fears that economic growth in the third quarter could fall far short of the below-trend pace in the second, but interest rates were held.
Although the Bank of England's monetary policy committee had been expected by City economists to keep base rates at 4.5% at noon yesterday, business organisations nevertheless expressed disappointment that it had not surprised financial markets with a cut to boost economic growth.

National Statistics' revelation that industrial production fell by 0.9% in August – confounding City expectations of a rise of 0.2% – raised hopes that the MPC would be forced to cut interest rates again next month. The fall in industrial output was the sharpest since March, and sterling tumbled against the euro.

The manufacturing output component of industrial production showed a 0.2% fall in August, the first drop since March. A 0.1% rise had been expected, and the official manufacturing numbers are more downbeat than surveys from the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, which have suggested the sector climbed out of technical recession in the third quarter.

Overall industrial product-ion was dragged down particularly by a near-8% fall in oil and gas extraction during August. Department of trade and industry figures on Wednesday showed North Sea oil output falling in June to its lowest monthly level since 1989.
In contrast, yesterday's figures showed a further 3.8% jump during August in the output of a "distilled potable alcoholic beverages" category of which Scotch whisky is the main component.
Jonathan Loynes, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, predicted yesterday that third-quarter UK gross domestic product growth could come in at 0.3% or even 0.2%.

Either would be a dramatic slowdown on the 0.5% growth rate seen in the second quarter.

Loynes thought it likely the nine-strong MPC would have been split on the decision to hold rates yesterday, given dovish comments recently from external members David Walton, Stephen Nickell and Richard Lambert.

He believed the doves were regrouping to push for another rate cut, having secured a five-to-four majority for a quarter-point reduction in August which was opposed by Bank of England governor Mervyn King.

Third-quarter GDP figures are due to be published on October 21, so the MPC will have seen them by the time of its November meeting.
Kevin Hawkins, director-general of the British Retail Consortium lobbying group, said yesterday: "The BRC is disappointed the MPC did not make a further reduction to interest rates today. The weak consumer sentiment does not appear to be subsiding and so the MPC's decision does not reflect the reality on the high street.

"One reduction (in August), while welcome, will still take some months to work through to the consumer and have any effect. A further cut between now and Christmas is necessary if we are to see any positive change in the retail climate."
The Institute of Directors is forecasting a further rate cut in November.

Miles Templeman, IoD director-general, said: "Although we have been calling for an interest rate cut, today's decision was not a surprise. The bank is probably holding off for another month owing to uncertainty as to how far rising energy costs will impact on economy-wide inflation. With GDP growth now well below potential output growth, the rising output gap suggests inflation concerns will soon give way to one final interest rate cut for 2005."

Liz Cameron, director of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, referred to the downwardly-revised annual UK growth rate of 1.5% in the second quarter in last week's national accounts.

She added: "With economic growth falling to a 12-year low, and with continuing concerns about rising cost pressures and the health of key sectors of the Scots economy, such as manufacturing exports and retailing, it is essential that the Bank of England should be prepared to act in future to cut rates if necessary."

Loynes said industrial production, which accounts for about one-fifth of GDP, could show a 0.8% fall for the third quarter. This, he believes, could take 0.2 percentage points off growth compared with quarter two, when industrial product-ion was broadly flat and had a neutral impact on GDP.

He said services growth could, on the basis of surveys from CIPS, fall from 0.6% in the second quarter to 0.5% in the third. This could knock another 0.1 percentage points off GDP growth compared with the second quarter.
A third-quarter growth rate of 0.3% would equate to only 1.2% annualised – less than half the UK economy's long-term trend rate. The Bank of England puts the trend rate at 2.5%, and the Treasury at 2.75%. A 0.2% figure, annualised to 0.8%, would be less than one-third of trend.

Food for interest rate hawks meanwhile came in a survey yesterday from Halifax, the UK's biggest mortgage lender, which reported a 1.2% rise in house prices for September.







UK unemployment figures on the rise

http://www.4ni.co.uk/nationalnews.asp?id=44163

The number of unemployed people in the UK has risen, although the unemployment rate has remained unchanged, the latest figures reveal.
The number of people out of work increased by 12,000 to 1.42 million from the previous quarter, the Office of National Statistics reported. However, the unemployment rate remained static at 4.7%.
The claimant count also rose in August, with the number of people claiming benefits rising to 866,200 – an increase of 1,600 on July’s figures.

The number of job vacancies also dropped by 7,400 to reach 631,700.
However, the working age employment rate increased by 0.1% to reach 74.8% in July, compared to a year earlier. The employment level was 28.73 million in the three months to July 2005, an increase of 83,000 from the three months to April 2005 and up 315,000 on last year’s figures.

The number of people classed as ‘economically inactive’, such as students, carers and those on early retirement, also fell by 16,000 in the last quarter to 7.92 million.

Average earnings growth, including bonuses, increased by 0.1% to 4.2% from July, although growth, excluding bonuses, fell by 0.1% to 3.9%.
Commenting on the figures, Employment Minister Margaret Hodge, said that, in spite of the rise in those claiming benefits, the claimant had nearly halved within the last eight years and had dropped close to a 30-year low. She said: “We’ve done a lot, but there is still more to do. We need to reverse the recent rise in claimant unemployment and we need to press ahead towards our long-term aim of an 80% employment rate."

(KMcA/SP)




http://arkansasbusiness.com/news/headline_article.asp?aid=42009


U.S. Unemployment Rises to 5.1 Percent After Katrina
2005-10-07 12:04:00
By Arkansas Business staff, Arkansasbusiness.com Daily Report

The nation's unemployment rate rose two-tenths of a percentage point from August to reach 5.1 percent in September, according to a report Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The economy lost 35,000 jobs month to month. That was less than the 150,000-job loss analysts had expected given the effects of Hurricane Katrina, which struck states along the Gulf Coast during the last weekend in August and killed hundreds, caused billions of dollars of damages and displaced thousands of residents.

The job loss was the biggest monthly decline since April 2003, when the economy lost 54,000 jobs.

Unemployment figures for Arkansas are scheduled to be released Oct. 18.

The department said the report reflects Katrina's impact but that it was unable to break out job losses related to the hurricane.

"It is clear that Hurricane Katrina adversely affected labor market conditions in September," Philip Rones, the labor bureau's deputy commissioner, said in a statement accompanying the jobs report. "However, we cannot quantify precisely the overall effects of the disaster and its aftermath on the September employment and unemployment figures. We hope to get additional insight as more data becomes available."

It might be in the department's October report that a fuller picture of Katrina's effects comes into focus. Because of the severity of the hurricane disaster, the department said it modified its survey operations. For example, in the payroll survey, employed people were those who receive pay for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th day of the month. So people on payrolls in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were counted as employed even if they were absent from work.

<<Is this to be blamed on metric? Or do we (a) only blame NASA/US space program setbacks on the system(s) of measure used or (b) is the Euro Space Agency not competent enough to launch a basic satellite? >>

Wasn't it fired on a Russian booster? Didn't one of the stages fail to ignite? I think you need to look there. Maybe the low bidder isn't the best rocket launcher. So far, there is no data measurement system had anything to do with it.

The US did have a failure based on English/metric. The contract specified all work to be in SI. However, one engineer or engineering group wrote one software program either using English units or assuming rocket motor data was English. The result was substantially erroneous burn times on a small engine, miscalculating course corrections and putting it in incorrect orbit that led to augering in.

Of course, I don't see what an Iranian bourse in Euros has to do with a rocket crash either. Maybe a stock market crash, not a rocket crash. Or are we trying for stretch non sequitors?

<<
The US did have a failure based on English/metric. The contract specified all work to be in SI. However, one engineer or engineering group wrote one software program either using English units or assuming rocket motor data was English. The result was substantially erroneous burn times on a small engine, miscalculating course corrections and putting it in incorrect orbit that led to augering in.
>>
Translation: Congress decided to pass a law prohibiting NASA from using the same units that its contractors used. Where is the common sense here? When was the last time the board of directors of a corporation declared that the business could not use the same units used by its contractors? This is a good reason why government should not interfere with these things. I think engineers at NASA know better than members of Congress.

Bud,

Not true. All the vendors but one used SI as required by the purchase order terms & conditions. NASA should have contingent liability in their contractos and sue for recover. The vendor certifies he complies with t&c.

<<Is this to be blamed on metric? Or do we (a) only blame NASA/US space program setbacks on the system(s) of measure used or (b) is the Euro Space Agency not competent enough to launch a basic satellite? >>

The failure was not that of ESA it was a Russian Launch vehicle. ESA were only responsible for the satellite itself.

The failure was presumably not down to mixed measures (unless an American aerospace contractor was involved). The Mars Climate orbiter which failed in 1999 was blamely squarely on the issue of mixed measures by NASA in their report.

<<Let's see, Euro constitution gone forever; record high unemployment across the Euro zone; political impotency in Germany and France...All of this does not bode well for the so-called "European Project". But the Euro servile out there should not be expected to see reality.>>

Irrelevent twaddle like this isn't worth responding to.

<<When was the last time the board of directors of a corporation declared that the business could not use the same units used by its contractors? >>

I have no idea if it was the LAST time, but an example is when the Big Three automotive companies went metric in the mid-70's. All their US suppliers and US operations were Customary at the time, while overseas operations and suppliers were metric. We went metric and to suppliers to go metric or go away.

Did you notice the rocket wasn't 25.4 times too tall. Most vendors got the message - in fact, only one didn't. Lockheed Martin actually had a lot of other content on the program. It was all metric too. One subroutine but one programmer wasn't -- although the contract required it to be.

Do you really believe (and have any basis for) that every other vendor on the program would prefer to go back to Customary to accommodate one programmer? That seems preposterous. Better to fire him.

"Bud,

Not true. All the vendors but one used SI as required by the purchase order terms & conditions. NASA should have contingent liability in their contractors and sue for recover. The vendor certifies he complies with t&c."


So John, are all of the vendors working for NASA today on the same page, that is working fully in metric on all new projects? So Bud can go to bed tonight and sleep peacefully knowing that NASA and its suppliers are using the same metric measurement language.

<<So John, are all of the vendors working for NASA today on the same page, that is working fully in metric on all new projects?>>

I don't even know if NASA is on the same page. It IS their written policy, but there seems to be poor adherence to it. I have more direct experience with several of the National Labs than with NASA, and they are not very good about adhering to their metric policy.

This article is a few years old but fairly critical of NASA on adherence to using metric.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2001/010303-metric.htm

I haven't seen any articles saying they have improved, but I may have missed something.

<<But the Euro servile out there should not be expected to see reality>>

LOL! I've never seen bait work so quickly!!!!

<<
Not true. All the vendors but one used SI as required by the purchase order terms & conditions. NASA should have contingent liability in their contractos and sue for recover.
>>
Do you happen to know if the other vendors were using SI to begin with, or changed as a result of NASA's switch?



<<
I have no idea if it was the LAST time, but an example is when the Big Three automotive companies went metric in the mid-70's. All their US suppliers and US operations were Customary at the time, while overseas operations and suppliers were metric. We went metric and to suppliers to go metric or go away.
>>
This automotive changeover to metric did not cause any major problems. NASA's changeover did. I'll leave it to you to figure out why.

<<LOL! I've never seen bait work so quickly!!!!>>

Well, Daniel went for the bait. Some of us completely mis-directed and derailed the thread, however, by turning it to a discussion of NASA and whether they are REALLY metric.

This is true - the debate turned "healthy".

But you've gotta laugh at poor Daniel sometimes! He makes "comical ali" look positively dour in comparison to the laughs he creates.

The best bits are his choice of words and then a copy and paste of text - searched out by himself - that totally goes against his words!!!

LOL!