And initial unemployment claims fell to 421,000, with the less volatile 4-week moving average falling to a 2¼ year low of 427,500, continuing claims falling by 191,000 4.09 million, and extended and emergency claims fell by 393,200 to 4.51 million.
Better news, but still somewhere between 30K and 60K too high to indicate a recovery in the labor market.
A lot of what happens for the next 6 months will be driven by the what happens in the Greed Day Christmas shopping season, I guess.
My sincerest apologies for not mentioning the Rude Pundit earlier.
He is a very profane genius.
One of his more recent gems is about the Republican response to Obama’s capitulation, “Senate Republicans Have a Celebration Orgy“:
The Senate Republican cloakroom was filled with whores yesterday. No, not the senators themselves, who were taking the afternoon off from letting the Chamber of Commerce sodomize them, the better for their assholes to regain some elasticity. There were real, actual, non-metaphorical prostitutes there, female and male, paid for by Karl Rove’s American Crossroads GPS and its billionaire donors.…
In the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I implore you tor ead the rest.
Treasury yields fell today, after rising sharply on news of the Obama-Republican tax deal:
Treasuries rose, following the biggest two-day slump in two years, as yields at the highest level in six months lured investors on prospects the Federal Reserve will discuss a possible extension of purchases.
Ten-year notes rallied before the Fed meets next week to review its program to buy $600 billion of U.S. debt through June. The yield advantage of 10-year Treasuries over Japanese bonds increased to the widest in five months, boosting the allure of U.S. assets. Treasuries tumbled the past two days, pushing 10- year yields up by 35 basis points, the most since Sept. 19, 2008, when they fluctuated following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Those invisible bond vigilantes are a fickle lot.
In August U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, in response to the suit by environmentalists, issued a ruling that no new genetically modified “roundup ready” sugar beets be planted until a full environmental impact statement has been filed.
The US Department of Agriculture, never a big one for following the law, then issued permits to plant them anyway.
In response to this the judge has ruled that the crops must be destroyed.
This is what happens when you metaphorically call the judge a cock sucker.
The appeals court has stayed the ruling pending a review, but my guess is that they will be inclined to go along with the judge’s decision.
Judges hate it when you ignore their orders. They think that it’s illegal or something.
Come to think of it, it is illegal or something.
If we we are so damned terrified of terrorists that we have to erect airport style scanners to get into the Washington Monument, then we should close the structure to the public until we have grown a pair.
We got off the Jersey Turnpike while driving up to my Mother-In-Law’s in New York, and we found the Westhampton Family Diner,1857 Route 541 South, Westhampton, NJ 08060 (609)265-7065.
It is off of exit 5.
It had very nice food, both diner style, and some other cuisines.
I had a very nice Kibab over Rice Pilaf.
Large portions, good food, and friendly service.
Not sure which genius came up with this, but it is floating around the innerwebs.
First, it appears that the Republicans have structured the deal to force states into bankruptcy in order to destroy the public employee unions:
Congressional Republicans appear to be quietly but methodically executing a plan that would a) avoid a federal bailout of spendthrift states and b) cripple public employee unions by pushing cash-strapped states such as California and Illinois to declare bankruptcy. This may be the biggest political battle in Washington, my Capitol Hill sources tell me, of 2011.That’s why the most intriguing aspect of President Barack Obama’s tax deal with Republicans is what the compromise fails to include — a provision to continue the Build America Bonds program. BABs now account for more than 20 percent of new debt sold by states and local governments thanks to a federal rebate equal to 35 percent of interest costs on the bonds. The subsidy program ends on Dec. 31. And my Reuters colleagues report that a GOP congressional aide said Republicans “have a very firm line on BABS — we are not going to allow them to be included.”
This is juxtaposed with proposals mooted among the Conservative Nomenklatura, most notably in The Weekly Standard, that Congress enact laws allowing states to declare bankruptcy, which in turn would allow them to unilaterally break union contracts.
Additionally, you have the withholding tax holiday, which legitimizes schemes to defund Social Security as a prelude to gutting it, as Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, so ably notes:
Given that unwillingness to raise taxes by less than a nickel on every dollar earned over $1 million, I find it unfathomable that a more conservative Congress, in two years, in an election year, will increase the payroll tax by 2 percent on the very first dollar, and every other dollar up to the cap, earned by virtually every single worker in the country. Consequently, I think we have to assume that the payroll tax holiday will be extended beyond the two years the president is proposing and quite likely could become permanent.
That means that the federal government will have to continue to transfer $120 billion to the Social Security trust funds each and every year even as it has to transfer more and more interest payments as the trust funds continue to grow and as interest rates return to more normal levels. Unless Congress acts to restore Social Security to solvency, the Treasury bonds held in trust will have to be redeemed, again on top of that new $120 billion transfer from the general fund, starting fifteen years from now, assuming Congress even continues to make the $120 billion every year before that point. These dollars will be competing with dollars for defense, environmental protection, education, school lunches, Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, Pell grants for low income college students, and every other good and service financed by the federal government.
A permanent two percent cut in Social Security contributions doubles the 75 year projected shortfall. Scrapping the cap (eliminating the $106,800 maximum on earnings), tonally eliminates the shortfall today. If FICA is cut by 2 percent, scrapping the cap gets Social Security only halfway there.
I’m a cynic, and I believe that this is a feature, and not a bug.
On labor, the Obama administration has pointedly sat on its hands with regard to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), and the Obama Department of Education is more virulently anti-union than Bush’s Education Department ever was, as mind boggling as it sounds.
As to Social Security, anyone who appoints Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to a “deficit reduction” (catfood) commission, clearly wants to gut that gem in the crown of the New Deal.
These flaws in the “compromise” are features, not bugs.
After seeing this happen repeatedly, I think that actual intent is a more coherent explanation than simple incompetence.
Obama wants these things to happen.
H/t Yves Smith for the first link.
Well, don’t forget it:
Jon Stewart 37, War on Christmas morons: 0.
Unlike Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, the PIGS, Iceland has a currency, which it has allowed to devalue, and it has largely defaulted on its banks debts, though its government had to be dragged into this kicking and screaming through a plebiscite, but now Iceland’s economy grew sharply in the 3rd quarter:
Iceland’s decision two years ago to force bondholders to pay for the banking system’s collapse appeared to pay off after official figures showed the country exited recession in the third quarter.
The Icelandic economy, which contracted for seven consecutive quarters until the summer, grew by 1.2% in the three months to the end of September.
Iceland famously agreed in a referendum to reject a scheme to repay most of its debts that were once worth 11 times its total national income.
In contrast to Ireland, Iceland’s taxpayers refused to foot the bill for the debts accumulated by the banking sector. Bondholders were told to accept dramatic reductions in the value of repayments on bank debt after the sector borrowed beyond its means to fund ambitious investments abroad.
By contrast, Ireland guaranteed all depositors and all bond holders, and will be crushed by that debt for years.
Rule number one of these sorts of meltdowns is that the bond holders are professionals, and they get interest because they are taking a risk, and risk means a chance of default.
The argument that is made against Greece, or Ireland, or the rest of the PIGS taking a similar approach is that it they need to maintain the confidence of the markets in order to prosper economically.
This is wrong. It is literally a confidence game.
They’re just not that into you, Barack!
Stephen Colbert is a genius.
Interest rates on Treasuries have surged in the wake of the tax cut capitulation:
Treasury prices dropped Tuesday, pushing 10-year yields up by the most since June 2009, after Congress and the White House compromised on a tax package that is expected to raise the deficit and increase the government’s borrowing needs.
The drop in prices, which move inversely to yields, extended further after the government’s first of three auctions this week drew tepid demand from investors.
Go figure. Barack Obama has managed to capitulated his way into pushing interest rates up.
That will help the economy.
Barack Obama once again, railing against the Democratic Party, and throwing in a couple of Republican memes in the process.
He slams FDR once again, and lies about he gets the facts wrong about the origins of Social Security and Medicare.
Seriously, he sounds like a Republican, and given his penchant of consistently attempting to find the most retrograde policies consistent with being a Democrat, I’ve come to conclusion, that he’s as much of a member of the Democratic Party as Vladimir Putin.
Note that he has not been charged, and the warrant is for an interview, a British magistrate has ordered Julian Assange held without bail after he turned himself in voluntarily.
Tell me that the fix is not in here.
Of course, the fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, have his ITEOD* file, and some number probably greater than 10 people have the code to decrypt those unredacted files has got to give the people pursuing him cause to pause.
*In The Event Of Death.
Her family was with her, including John.
It turns out that his pay freeze proposal will cripple the staffing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said this week that exceptions may have to be made to President Barack Obama’s proposed pay freeze in order to effectively implement the Wall Street reform bill.
………
Frank said on Thursday he would support providing exemptions to the pay freeze if regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CTFC), can show they are needed to hire the appropriate talent.
………
In July, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro announced that her agency intends to hire 374 new employees in 2011. She also indicated that to meet the requirements set out in the Dodd-Frank bill, the agency will need to hire up to 800 staff in total.
Mr. Frank, you are being naive. The fact that the pay freeze cripples agencies that regulate the big banks is not a bug, it’s a feature.
Surely, after all he has done to protect the big banks, you can’t think that he will allow the regulatory agencies to staff up with competent and motivated people to actually reign them in?
Silly Congressman, don’t you know that laws are for whistle-blowers, not bankers!
H/t MP at the the by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS.
Get Your War On!
There are 21 strips at the link.
Well, the White House completely caved on tax breaks.
What the Republicans got:
What Obama got:
It’s a remarkably one sided agreement, and Barack Obama followed this up with a lie:
Mr. Obama said he was insisting on a temporary deal on the tax rates for high earners and wealthy estates on the belief that he would ultimately prevail.
“I’m confident,” Mr. Obama said, “that as we make tough choices about bringing our deficit down, as I engage in a conversation with the American people about the hard choices we’re going to have to make to secure our future and our children’s future and our grandchildren’s future, it will become apparent that we cannot afford to extend those tax cuts any longer.”
Let’s be clear, Barack Obama has no intention whatsoever to raise taxes on the rich or on the inheritance of drooling rich heirs.
He’s a pimps harder for the well off than Bill Clinton ever did, and it should be noted that Clinton did it before the rich ratf%$#s on Wall Street blew up our economy.
When one looks at what Obama has done, one can only conclude that we got sold a bill of goods by a Blue Dog.
If he had even the smallest bit of a progressive bent, he would have bent.
He sells out to Republicans because he supports most of their policies.