The Lack of jobs is still a big problem

Source: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/04/25/lack-of-jobs-is-still-a-very-big-problem

Congress gave the Federal Reserve a “dual mandate” to pursue “maximum employment” and “stable prices.” Most analysts agree that, during the recovery, the labor market has been nowhere near “maximum employment” and inflation, if anything, has been too low rather than too high given the Fed’s percent inflation target — notwithstanding Fed critics who want the Fed to concentrate exclusively on inflation.
In this recovery, unemployment has been falling but so, too, has the labor force participation rate (the share of people aged 16 and older either working or looking for work).
Due to those changing demographics and normal retirement decisions by baby boomers, the participation rate (and employment-population ratio) we would see with a healthier labor market is almost surely lower than in 2007 and will continue to fall.
That’s the right policy given the shortfall between actual labor market conditions and those that would reflect any reasonable definition of maximum employment — especially when there is still no evidence of the high inflation that Fed critics were sure these policies would engender by now.
As many analysts properly note, aging baby boomers are now swelling the ranks of workers aged 55 and older, and they have much lower labor force participation rates than those in their prime working years, ages 25 to 54.
Accordingly, the Fed has maintained a “highly accommodate” stance with respect to its dual mandate goals, keeping its policy interest rate as close to zero as practicable and adopting “unconventional” tools like “forward guidance” for setting that policy rate and large-scale asset purchases (“quantitative easing”) in order to stimulate greater economic activity and job growth.

Jobless Claims at lowest since 2007 but

source: http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/10/news/economy/jobless-claims/index.html?iid=SF_BN_River

Some thought they found it this morning when data came out showing that new claims for unemployment benefits suddenly plummeted last week to the lowest level since May 2007. Last year, for example, initial claims spiked during this same week as schools in many states observed spring break around Passover and Easter. The four-week moving average, which smooths out some of the volatility, was 316,250 last week -- a level consistent with the number of weekly claims filed back in 2007, before the recession began. Roughly 300,000 people filed for their first week of unemployment benefits last week, the Department of Labor reported Thursday morning.

Amazon buys comiXology app 4/13/2014

Source: http://www.wired.com/2014/04/amazon-buys-comixology/

The online website Amazon recently bought the digital comic book reading app comiXology, which is a  platform for reading digital comic books and graphic novels. According to Amazon’s Vice President of content acquisition and independent publishing, David Naggar the ‘two companies share a passion for reinventing reading in a digital world.” ComiXology was the highest grossing non-game iPad app in 2013 and sold  4 million pages of comic book and graphic novels..

This partnership will help gain more popularity for this app as well as gaining more comic book fans.

As a user of this app, I believe this buy out will help comiXology gain more popularity and downloads. But why only comiXology and not the Marvel or DC apps? If Amazon bought these other two powerhouses, will they potentially receive a wider audience if Amazon purchased them? If they were bought out, I think more people would read about their favorite comic book characters and get invested in the characters’ history rather than seeing them on the silver screen.