Las Vegas Review-Journal

Ready for Apple’s newest gadget? There’s a line at the store for that

Locals, visitors camp out in LV Valley for chance to buy iphone X

- By Nicole Raz and Wade Tyler Millward Las Vegas Review-journal

Apple loyalists say a mix of the technology giant’s products and the brand makes them camp out in front of Apple stores to be the first buyers of new products.

It’s all about staying up with the latest tech and being loyal to the brand, said Las Vegas resident Isaac Brown, 54.

It’s about being the first of all of your friends to have the latest and greatest, said Charles Sandoval, 45.

The iphone X, which starts at $999, features a 5.8-inch super retina display with OLED screen and facial-recognitio­n technology.

The first person in line at the Downtown Summerlin Apple store to buy Apple’s latest phone arrived at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

Just a few spaces next in line was Shane Jourdain, 30, who drove from St. George, Utah, to get his hands on the new device. But he was originally just going to make the trip for a friend.

Jourdain said a friend paid him $1,000 to stand in line in Las Vegas, which houses the closest Apple Store to St. George, and buy an iphone X on his behalf.

But it just so happens his iphone 6s battery has started to die, so he decided to buy one for himself as well.

For others, like Neil James, 29,

IPHONE X

said Jed Kolko, chief economist at Indeed, a job-search website.

Interest rates going up?

In part because of the durability of the job market, the Federal Reserve is likely on track to raise its short-term interest rate in December. That could lead to slightly higher mortgage rates and other borrowing costs over time.

At the same time, Republican­s in Congress proposed tax cuts Thursday that they say would fuel faster economic growth and job gains.

That might be hard to achieve with unemployme­nt already so low. Many employers already complain that they can’t find the workers they need.

Because the tax proposals would also swell the budget deficit by $1.5

trillion over a decade, the tax cuts might also be temporary. Tax experts generally say that permanent cuts are more likely to bolster the economy than those that expire.

When the Penn Wharton Budget Model examined a similar plan, it found that tax cuts would increase economic growth by 0.13 percent annually for a decade.

That is a far cry from President Donald Trump’s claims that he could lift annual growth by a full percentage point on a sustained basis.

The proportion of adults who are either working or looking for work fell last month to 62.7 percent, slightly lower than a year ago. That drop suggests that there aren’t many people on the sidelines who want jobs.

Estimates revised

The government also revised its estimate of the job total for the

previous two months. In August, employers added 208,000, up from 169,000. They added just 18,000 in September as thousands of businesses were forced to close. But a previous estimate showed a loss of 33,000.

With September’s jobs figure back in the positive column, the economy has now added jobs for 85 straight months, a record streak.

The biggest swing in the past two months occurred among restaurant­s and bars, which shed 98,000 jobs in September. That reflected shutdowns in Texas and Florida after hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Yet restaurant­s and bars regained 89,000 jobs last month.

Manufactur­ers added 24,000 jobs. A category that includes mostly higher-paying profession­al jobs, such as accountant­s and engineers, added 50,000. Retailers shed 8,300.

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Wesrand Las Vegas Review-journal

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