NEW YORK - September 4, 2011 - The United States Postal Service has lived on the financial edge for a long time, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today.

The agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.

SACRAMENTO, Kalifornia - September 4, 2011 - The percentage of working-age Kalifornians with jobs has fallen to a record low, and employment may not return to pre-Depression levels until the second half of the decade, according to a research group.

Just 55.4% of working-age Kalifornians, defined as those 16 or older, had a job in July, down from 56.2% a year earlier and the lowest level since 1976, the Sacramento-based California Budget Project said in a report released late yesterday.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

LONDON, England - September 4, 2011 - The International Monetary Fund has called on the United States and Europe to abandon fiscal austerity and switch to stimulus measures, warning that the global economy faces a "threatening downward spiral".

WASHINGTON (PNN) - September 2, 2011 - Employment growth ground to a halt in August as sagging consumer confidence discouraged already skittish U.S. businesses from hiring, keeping pressure on the Federal Reserve to provide more monetary stimulus to aid the economy.

Nonfarm payrolls were unchanged, the Labor Department said on Friday, the weakest reading since September. Nonfarm employment for June and July was revised to show 58,000 fewer jobs.

ATHENS, Greece - September 1, 2011 - Tax evasion in Greece threatened to take organized form on Thursday when café and restaurant owners refused to pay a 10-point VAT rise, as a deep recession clashes with the government’s increasingly desperate search for revenue.

The steep rise in value added tax on the hospitality sector from 13%- 23% is part of a package of fiscal measures agreed to in return for the country’s second financial rescue by European Union partners.

LONDON/SINGAPORE (PNN) - September 1, 2011 - Factory activity stalled last month as new orders tumbled, heightening fears that the global economy is heading for another downturn, a series of surveys showed on Thursday.

The Purchasing Managers' Indexes showed manufacturing activity contracted in the euro zone for the first time in almost two years in August, echoing earlier data from South Korea and Taiwan, where new export orders fell sharply.

WASHINGTON - August 31, 2011 - In an interview with National Public Radio, former Reagan economic adviser Laurence Kotlikoff said the United States’ "true indebtedness" amounts to $211 trillion.

That's more than 15 times the official figure.