ID :
97928
Sun, 01/03/2010 - 14:08
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2000-'10 has been Lost Decade for US economy--stats.



WASHINGTON, January 3 (Itar-Tass) - The beginning of the 21st century
has become, as a matter of fact, a "lost decade" for the US economy. This
is evidenced by the American government's official statistics published by
the Washington Post newspaper on Saturday.
The period since 2000 has ended with the country's experiencing a zero
increment in new jobs, according to the data given by the Federal Reserve
System, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic
Analysis. Such a situation in the American economy is registered for the
first time since the beginning of the 1940s.
At that time, a stable growth of employment was observed in the United
States for a number of decades. Job growth rate was 38 percent by the end
of the 1940s, 24 percent in the 1950s, 31 percent in the 1960s, 27 percent
in the 1970s, 20 percent in the1980s, and 20 percent towards the end of
the 1990s.
The overall level of the wellbeing of American middle class families
has declined over the past decade. This is reckoned as a result of
addition of the family's earnings, the cost of available real estate, and
other assets with the deduction of debts. It turned out that in 2008 a
typical US medium affluent family possessed lesser means, considering
inflation, than in 1999.
The circumstance that labor productivity in the US over the first ten
yeas of the 21st century has substantially grown as compared with that in
the 1990s did not rectify the situation either, emphasized Lawrence
Michel, President of the American Economic Policy Institute.

.RF Kamaz team captures lead in Dakar-2010 motor rally.

BUENOS AIRES, January 3 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian KAMAZ truck driving
team, headed by Vladimir Chagin, captured the lead after the first stage
of the Dakar-2010 motor rally.
On Saturday, the five-time winner of the world's most prestigious
rally covered the counted special stretch of 251 kilometres within two
hours 35 minutes and 47 seconds, getting 27 seconds ahead of Czech Ales
Loprais driving Tatra. Another two Russian teams of Firdaus Kabirov and
Ilgizar Mardeyev placed third and fourth respectively.
In motorcycle classification, Frenchman David Castus (Cherco) is in
the lead, getting only three seconds ahead of Cyril Depres (KTM).
In automobile classification the best result was shown after the
first stage of the rally by Spanish pilot Joan Roma (BMW) who was 2 min 7
sec quicker than his fellow countryman Carlos Sainz from the Volkswagen
team.
The renowned motor rally has been taking place in South America for a
second year running. In 2008 the rally in Africa was cancelled owing to
the danger of terrorist acts. In view of that, the organisers decided to
transfer the Dakar motor rally to Argentina and Chile.

.RF KAMAZ trucks lead in Dakar Rally.

BUENOS AIRES, January 3 (Itar-Tass) - Russian KAMAZ trucks are in the
lead after the Dakar Rally--2010 first stage that ended on Saturday.
Vladimir Chagin, five-time winner of the world's most prestigious
rally, was the first to cover the high-speed special stretch of 251
kilometres within two hours 35 minutes and 47 seconds, getting 27 seconds
ahead of Czech Ales Loprais driving Tatra. Another two Russian teams of
Firdaus Kabirov and Ilgizar Mardeyev placed third and fourth, falling
behind their teammate 4 min and 9 min 50 sec, respectively.
Erik Khairullin, press attache of the KAMAZ-Master team, told
Itar-Tass that Vladimir Chagin, when sharing his impressions immediately
after the race, had said the first section of the route had been aptly
selected by the organizers. He said "it was really a rally-type one,
abounding in tortuous and narrow stony areas and at the same time it was
not too long". It was fine enough for the rally participants, as Chagin
put it, to successfully "come rolling into the race". French journalists
have counted that this is a 48th win in the Russian pilot's career in
Dakar Rally high-speed area performance.
The press attache of the KAMAZ-Master team said information had come
in from the rally route that Czech Tomas Tomicek of the Tatra team met
with a serious road incident. However, details of the incident are unknown
so far. On the whole, the number of breakdowns was larger-than-expected
for the first day of the competitions in the truck category.
Summing up the results of the day, Semyon Yakubov, director of the
KAMAZ-Master team, said Russian teams on Saturday had been busy refining
the pace of movement and covered the route section without failure,
carefully, for fear of tire cuts in rocky areas.
-0-pop

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