Initial claims fell to 397,000, the first time it’s been below 400K since April
It should be noted that the austerity confidence fairy is not really smilling, now with durable goods orders falling in June.
And we keep hearing that “Prosperity is just around the corner.”
And unsurprisingly, all this talk of expansionary austerity and government defaults is not producing jobs.
Initial claims rose to 418,000, and we are seeing a spike in layoffs.
Well, initial claims for unemployment fell to 405,000, but it’s still above 400,000, well above where we need to have it to see a meaningful job growth (generally about 375K is where you start seeing job growth).
The 4-week moving average, as well as emergency claims fell, though the regular continuing claims rose.
The problem here is three things:
But unfortunately the people who are supposed to be fixing this are determined to spend their time making it worse by cutting the deficit in the near term.
He just explicitly left the door open for another round of quantitative easing, or some similarly extreme measure:
The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, gave a subdued account of the economy’s health Wednesday and said that the Fed was prepared to expand its economic aid campaign once again, if necessary, though such a step was not imminent.
Less than a month has passed since Mr. Bernanke said at a press conference that the central bank intended to stand back and take the measure of the nation’s sluggish recovery. Wednesday’s remarks amounted to acknowledgment that so far, the news has been almost uniformly bad.
“I think we have to keep all the options on the table,” Mr. Bernanke said in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. “We don’t know where the economy is going to go.”
This is about as close as you will ever hear a central banker get to saying that, “This scares the sh%$ out of me.”
It turns out that academic economists are not interested in their profession adopting a code of ethics:
The world’s largest association of economists is considering ethics guidelines after outrage about undisclosed conflicts of interest, but only a handful of its 18,000 members have bothered to offer any input.
The American Economic Association earlier this year charged a five-person panel with looking into ethics and economics — in part a response to the 2010 documentary “Inside Job” that vilified a number of big-name economists for arguing in favor of deregulation while on Wall Street’s payroll.
The film also notably skewered former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin, who wrote a glowing paper about Iceland’s financial system in 2006 — for which he was paid by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce. Two years later, the country’s financial system collapsed.
The panel, chaired by Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Solow, asked for input from the broader membership, with an end of June deadline, but so far, Solow said, he has received at most a dozen responses.
They then follow with a quote from some pissant by the name of David Card, an Econ prof at UC Berkeley, suggesting that it’s not necessary, because they don’t make that much.
But as Yves Smith wryly observes, “Last I checked, economists are much better paid than other social scientists, and lesser paid professions, like nurses and teachers, have codes of ethics.”
Yesterday’s news, that unemployment claims remain stubbornly high was not great news, but the the monthly non-farm payroll report was horrific, with just 18,000 jobs created. about 1/3 of , and May’s number was adjusted downward from about 50,000 to 25,000.
Additionally the unemployment number (U3) rose to 9.2%, and the more inclusive U6 rose by 1% to 16.4.
This was about ⅓ of the forecast, and to provide some perspective Canada, with a population only a tenth of ours, created 22,000 jobs, and in order to accommodate natural growth in the workforce, you probably need 175,000 jobs a month to be created.
What is going on here is that we are on the trailing end of the stimulus, so even without the current mania in Washington, DC to cut government spending, we would be seeing contraction government spending, which, unsurprisingly results in contraction.
Until we goose the economy with sufficient government spending, and establish policies that encourage banks and businesses to part with their cash reserves, we won’t see much improvement.
Considering Obama’s mania for austerity and the confidence fairy, I’m beginning to think that the only way we get a recovery is if something like the debt limit triggers a precipitous fall in the US dollar, which would then create an export driven recovery.
We are completely f%$#ed.
This is grim
And so is this
The consumer confidence numbers came out, and they suck.
Basically, it’s plumbing an 8 month low (see chart pr0n), because there is no light at then of the tunnel, unless you are a bankster.
You know, I was in the car, talking with my son about Greece, and I said that the Greek parliament had approved their own suicide pact by approving the austerity program demanded by the ECB and IMF.
My son, ever the precocious almost 11-year-old, asked me why it was a suicide pact, and I explained that austerity causes the economy to contract, which makes you less able to repay your debts.
I said that it was like demanding a salary cut so that you can better pay your debt.
My son did not understand this at all.
I explained that it was because they are stupid, and by “they” I mean the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and Angela Merkel.
Charlie did not find this a satisfying answer, and, truth be told, I don’t find it a particularly satisfying answer.
Another lousy jobs report, initial unemployment claims rose by 9,000 to 429,000, with the 4-week moving average and continuing claims staying flat, but emergency claims rose.
We’re at 9+% unemployment, and the PTB should be running around with their hair on fire, but they are too busy preaching austerity to make the world safe for the banksters.
Senators Durbin and Schumer have come out and explicitly accused the ‘Phants of deliberately tanking the economy for political gain:
hey’ve made it explicit. Democrats are accusing Republicans of trying to sabotage the recovery — or at least stall it — by blocking all short-term measures to boost the economy, even ones they previously supported.
In a Capitol press conference Wednesday, the Senate’s top Democrats argued that Republicans don’t want to pass measures like a temporary payroll tax holiday for employers because they’ll improve President Obama’s re-election chances.
“Our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are driven by putting one man out of work: President Obama,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL).
The harshest denunciation came from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the man who crafted the Dems’ new “jobs first” message.
“We are also open to hiring incentives, perhaps in the form of a payroll tax cut for employers that was floated by the administration…. [T]hat might not be our first choice, that shows how willing we are to work with the Republicans to create jobs. It’s pro-business, it’s a tax cut, and many Republicans have been for it in the past. But now all of a sudden they’re coming out against it,” Schumer said.
They should have been saying this 6 months ago.
First, it’s true, second, it’s good politics, and third, it’s true.
Initial jobless claims fell, but remained over 400,000, 414 K specifically, with the 4-week moving average remaining flat, with both continuing and emergency claims falling slightly.
It is a little better but the claims numbers are still, in the words of Jimmy McMillan, “Too Damn High.”
Additionally, the Philadelphia Fed’s survey of business outlook fell to a nearly two year row.
But all the very serious people keep saying that “Prosperity is just around the corner.”
Two pieces of economic news today, retail sales fell for the first time in 11 months, and thge National Federation of Independent Business’s survey of small business shows that they intend to reduce hiring.
At the rate that this is going, we will have President Palin in 2013, and I will be making Aliyah to Israel.
And once again, the initial claims numbers suck wet farts from dead pigeons, rising by 1000 to 427,000, as opposed to falling to 419,000 as forecast, though the 4-week moving average, the continuing, and extended claims all fell slightly.
This is not a glass half full, or too big a glass, this just sucks.
While Washington, DC is obsessing on making things good for the banks, which is what all this deficit cutting/austerity is really all about, this economy remains in the dump.
Because when some narcissistic sociopath gets a bee in his bonnet and blocks a Nobel prize winner in economics from a seat on the Federal Reserve:
The decision by a noted economist Monday to end a 14-month wait for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is renewing concerns among some Democrats about the fighting spirit of the Obama administration.
The candidate, Peter A. Diamond, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Nobel Prize laureate for his work on labor markets, cited Republican opposition in asking the White House to withdraw his nomination.
But Democratic leadership did not press for a vote on the nomination, and Congressional aides said that the White House invested relatively little energy in fighting for Mr. Diamond. Moreover, they said that the administration had not submitted nominations for vacancies atop several of the federal agencies charged with overhauling and improving financial regulation in the wake of the 2008 crisis.
“There’s a deep feeling of frustration,” said one Democratic aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “No one wants to insult the administration or put them in a position that’s uncomfortable for them or worse for them. So you’re just sitting around waiting for them to take the lead.”
The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said on Monday that the White House did everything it could to push the nomination, and he lamented the “partisan obstructionism” that had prevented approval of Mr. Diamond.
(emphasis mine)
Yes, “partisan obstructionism”, and the fact that your boss is a hopeless clueless chump.
Or maybe he really does not want meaningful regulation, and so he’s leaving seats empty, so that Geithner can continue to run things for the benefit of the banksters.
Your call, but I am leaning toward door number 2.
Giving into hostage takers just encourages more hostage taking.
BTW, you can read Diamond’s take on all of this here.
And the initial claims numbers show no signs of recovery in the job market, with initial claims remaining excessively high, at 422,000, though the 4-week moving average did fall by 14K to 425,500, and continuing and emergency/extended claims were basically flat.
So, the employment numbers are crap, and stuck in a no-recovery “sweet spot,” and it looks like the real estate market is still crashing, a rebound in manufacturing would take years for the capital to be assembled and constructed, and we still have Wall Street sitting athwart our economy, extracting its unearned vigorish that saps both resources and intellect from productive activity.
ADP’s private payroll report showed an increase of only 38,000 in May, which, when you consider the obvious cuts in state and local payrolls, and lord knows what in the non-profit sector, means that we are looking about a decline in the workforce if the federal numbers come close to matching this report.
Additionally, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence report fell, and auto sales fell for all the major auto manufacturers.
And still the Democrats are buying into the Republican meme that our problem is the deficit.
To quote Robin Williams, “Shazbat!”
First, initial jobless claims jumped unexpectedly,with initial claims unexpectedly rising to 424,000, though the less noisy 4-week moving average fell slightly, as did continuing and extended claims.
Additionally, the revised 1st quarter GDP numbers missed expectations, with weak consumer spending being much of the shortfall.
With no one in Washington talking about anything besides austerity and cuts, this is going to get ugly.
I think that Krugman is right when he worries that this might be shaping up to be a 3 depression, one more in the vein of the Long Depression of 1873-1890 than the shorter, but more intense Great Depression of the 1930s.
Initial claims are out and they are better, but still not enough to constitute a recovery in the job market.
Initial claims were at 403,000, still above the roughly 375K required for a meager recovery, while the less volatile 4 week moving average climbed to a 7 month high.
In the longer time views, while continuing claims fell, extended and emergency claims rose.
These are awful numbers, and Barack Obama has to be thanking his lucky stars about what a clown show the Republican Presidential campaign has become, because there were also a whole passel of truly anemic economic metrics released today, with the Philadephia Fed survey, the Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators, and existing home sales disappointing.
Perusing what Uncle Ted called “a series of tubes,” I came across Think Tank: The Economics of Death Star Planet Destruction:
Lee
What’s the economic calculus behind the Empire’s tactic of A) building a Death Star, B) intimidating planets into submission with the threat of destruction, and C) actually carrying through with said destruction if the planet doesn’t comply?Doesn’t the Empire take a huge economic loss from the lost productivity of an entire planet? They were presumably paying taxes and providing resources to the rest of the Empire. Presumably the loss of that planet’s output would have to be made up by increased output from other planets that were either slacking in productivity due to rebellion or threatening to rebel and withdraw from the Empire altogether. It doesn’t seem to make good economic sense.
McNeil
This is a pretty standard imperial tactic for dealing with rebellion. The Romans would do this in the eastern empire every once in a while. A city would become a hotbed of rebellion, threatening to pull other cities into the action. The Romans would wipe out that one city, no matter how wealthy (Palmyra comes to mind) to put any other potential rebels on notice. Kind of like a mastectomy. You lose one productive part of the body in order to keep cancer from spreading.…………
Lee and Mcneil, along with Perich, Fenzel and Stokes (read the whole thing provide an interesting dialogue on economics and governance that is (I think) unintentionally a rather trenchant analysis of the current American imperial hubris.
Just read it.