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.
At least when it’s clear that he is a crook and a liar, you clearly deserve to reap the whirlwind
Case in point, Florida Governor Rick Scott, who presided over Columbia/HCA while it was defrauding Medicare, and proceeded to take the 5th amendment around 75 times during the investigation.
And now it apopears that the dumb-ass voters of Florida are having a bit of buyers remorse:
Gov. Rick Scott is one of the least popular governors in America, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll that shows 57 percent of voters disapprove of his job performance.
Only 29 percent favor the job Scott is doing, the poll of 1,196 registered voters shows.
Scott’s job-performance numbers mirror public sentiment about the $69.7 billion state budget, which cuts schools, healthcare and programs for the environment. The poll finds that 54 percent of voters say the budget is “unfair” to someone like them, while 29 percent favor it.
Scott has praised what he calls the “jobs budget” as a way to get Florida’s economy moving. But despite the nickname, the budget will lead to more layoffs in the short-term because it eliminates nearly 4,500 state worker positions.
Tough titties, Floridians, you elected him, and you don’t have a recall law for state wide official, so for the next few years, it will suck to be you.
It’s why Americans are more pessimistic about the economy and their future than they have been in years:
Americans are more pessimistic about the nation’s economic outlook and overall direction than they have been at any time since President Obama’s first two months in office, when the country was still officially ensnared in the Great Recession, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Amid rising gas prices, stubborn unemployment and a cacophonous debate in Washington over the federal government’s ability to meet its future obligations, the poll presents stark evidence that the slow, if unsteady, gains in public confidence earlier this year that a recovery was under way are now all but gone.
Capturing what appears to be an abrupt change in attitude, the survey shows that the number of Americans who think the economy is getting worse has jumped 13 percentage points in just one month. Though there have been encouraging signs of renewed growth since last fall, many economists are having second thoughts, warning that the pace of expansion might not be fast enough to create significant numbers of new jobs.
The dour public mood is dragging down ratings for both parties in Congress and for President Obama, the poll found.
The Republicans must be high fiving each other in private about this, a bad economy presages a Republican takeover of the Senate, and possibly the White House.
Truth be told, when the good least bad guys Washington, DC think that everything is fine because banksters are doing better, even though unemployment is almost 9% (over 15% for the more accurate U-6), the American public is in the right frame of mind, we are unbelievably screwed.
It turns out that all those studies showing Americans to be the most church going and religious people in the industrialized world, don’t show this.
They just show that Americans are the most likely to lie to pollsters about their religiosity:
Two in five Americans say they regularly attend religious services. Upward of 90 percent of all Americans believe in God, pollsters report, and more than 70 percent have absolutely no doubt that God exists. The patron saint of Christmas, Americans insist, is the emaciated hero on the Cross, not the obese fellow in the overstuffed costume.
There is only one conclusion to draw from these numbers: Americans are significantly more religious than the citizens of other industrialized nations.
Except they are not.
Beyond the polls, social scientists have conducted more rigorous analyses of religious behavior. Rather than ask people how often they attend church, the better studies measure what people actually do. The results are surprising. Americans are hardly more religious than people living in other industrialized countries. Yet they consistently—and more or less uniquely—want others to believe they are more religious than they really are.
If this is true, then the only surprise is that I am apparently more religiously observant than the average America, which buggers the mind.
The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee held its benchmark rate at effectively 0%, and said that it will continue its policy of monetary easing. (printing money)
It’s really no big surprise, but the other two pieces of news, that the small business optimism survey hit a 2 year high, and that retail sales rose for the 5th straight month are a bit of a surprise, though definitely ont he plus side of the ledger.
Generally, this has not been a good day for economic news.
We have seen a a spike in inventories, they rose 1.5% in September, following a 1.2% increase in August, which indicates that recent increases in manufacturing activity, which were largely driven by businesses rebuilding inventories, may now be running to the wall of weak consumer demand.
The fact that job openings fell again in September, indicating that there is simply not a an opportunity for people to find their way back into the job market, might be a part of this, as would the continued increase in personal bankruptcies.
On the brighter side, the National Federation of Independent Business’s optimism index rose to a 5 month high in October.
The Delphi Method is that people in aggregate make better predictions than the experts.
This can apply to a group of experts, or it can apply to a large sampling of the general population.
Well, someone just applied this methodology by using Google searches:
Google has published details of the levels of search interest for political candidates as election day approaches. But there seems to be little clear connection between Google hits and the ballot box.
The main advantage the web has for tracking patterns is the sheer number of people using it. For example, it sounds insane that anyone wanting to find the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) website would do anything other than try ufc.com as their first tactic. Yet the number of people who search for “UFC” and related terms in the days leading up to a pay-per-view event is nearly always a good indication of how many people will buy the event. The reason is that even if only a tiny fraction of people actually have to search for the term, it still adds up to enough people that variations over time are measurable.
Does this work for politics? Well, here’s the current levels of Google search interest among web users from the relevant state in three notable Senate races, along with predictions for the winner from polling analysis site fivethirtyeight.com (source of the image above). The first figure shows each candidate’s current share of the total searches for the listed candidates, while the second is the predicted share of the vote.
Florida: Marco Rubio 45.4/44, Charlie Crist 32.9/32, Kendrick Meek 21.7/24
Nevada: Harry Reid 54.4/47, Sharron Angle 45.6/50
Pennsylvania: Joe Sestak 51.1/48, Pat Toomey 49.9/52
I have no clue as to whether or not this is a valid technique, but if it is, Reid will be reelected, and Sestak will beat Toomey.
I guess that we will find out tomorrow, but I am inclined not to believe that this is a valid predictive technique.
Small Business Hiring Down
The index still sucks wet farts from dead pigeons
H/t Calculated Risk for the graph pr0n
Oh, those invisible bond vigilantes are at again, with the 3-year Treasuries hitting a record low yield, 0.57%. (!)
Meanwhile the National Federation of Independent Business released its September survey of small business optimism, and the numbers remain grim, essentially flat, up from 88.8 to 89.0 from August, still highly contractionary, and the businesses are looking to lay off more workers.
We also saw 30-year mortgage rates continue to fall, but no one is borrowing, because non one is buying.
The latest polling on the Texas governor’s race has the Republican Rick Perry leading Bill White by 42% to 41%, which, given that undecideds generally swing against the incumbent (Perry) means that White could actually win this election, and might therefore be able to have a significant influence on redistricting.
The same goes for this poll, which has Perry up by 39% to 33% shows that the race is pretty close.
Obviously, the specifics of the polls make a difference, but this should be interesting in November, particularly given the ability of Governor Goodhair to put his foot in his mouth.
In any case, the phrase, “Margin of Error” figures prominently, as will the dynamics of early voting.
So says a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey.
This is unsurprising, and it may explain why efforts like Clinton’s, Blair/Brown’s, and Obama’s to dismantle the New Deal/Social Democrat structure, because they believe, even more than Republicans, that “Reagan changed everything,” are driving people back into the arms of an increasingly delusional Republican Party, because a bad something always wins over a better nothing.
This is a foreseeable consequence of the “3rd Way.”
The latest Gallup poll is out with the generic Congressional ballot, and Republicans have a 10% lead, the highest since Gallup started running this poll in 1942!
You know, continuing with Bush’s Kangaroo courts and surveillance state, selling out homeowners to banks, and ranting against your party are working really well, aren’t they?
If we don’t end up with Boehner as speaker, I would be very surprised.
[on edit]
It’s worse than I thought. It’s not a daily tracking pool, it’s a weekly.
At this rate, we will lose the Senate too.
We have a fair amount of news, most of it bad, with consumer spending and personal income flat, pending home sales falling sharply in June, and the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing survey falling more than expected, though the latter still indicates (rather anemic) growth.
Additionally, we have the Wells Fargo/Gallup survey of small business sentiment hitting a new low, while personal bankruptcy filings rose 9% in July.
As to the good news, we have…
We have…
We have…
We have…
Ummmm…A survey of economic mood in Europe hitting two-year high?
It looks like Andrew Romanoff, who recently sold his house to lend money to his campaign, appears to have moving ahead of incumbent appointee corporate raider/DINO Michael Bennet in the polls, with the most recent poll showing a lead of 48%-45%, though the Bennet campaign is claiming that they still hold a 4 point lead in internal polls, 41%-37%.
Note that the rule of thumb is that undecideds break at least 2:1 for the challenger, so either number looks like a very likely loss for Bennet, which to my mind would be a good thing.
Real Democrats win, and then they push good policies in office.
Rather unsurprisingly, the Obama administration come out rather strongly in favor of Bennet, as it has routinely in the case of Corporatocrats this cycle.
The primary is next Tuesday, and here’s hoping that Romanoff wins, particularly since the Republicans seem to be busy self-destructing in their primary.
The latest poll has Blanche Lincoln down 25 points to Republican John Boozma, but not to worry, Lincoln’s campaign says that their internal numbers have her down by only 9 points:
You know it’s hard out there for an incumbent Senator when she has to stave off bad news by releasing an internal poll showing her down by nine to her Republican challenger. But that’s exactly what Sen. Blanche Lincon (D-AR) has done, attempting to respond to yesterday’s poll showing her down by 25 points to Rep. John Boozman (R) with numbers of her own showing her losing by a lot — but not as much.
According to Lincoln’s numbers, Boozeman leads the race 45-36 with 18% undecided. A third party candidate draws 6% of the vote. The survey of 700 voters was conducted June 22-24 and has a margin of error of 3.7%.
The rule of thumb is that undecideds break for the challenger by at least 2:1, which gives us a 57-42 blowout, and the the average other polling shows Lincoln down by over 20 points.
This was foreseeable, but you know how it is, Washington insider and incumbent protection Über Alles.
Yet another reason not to give to the DSCC, they will doubtless waste money on her, and that is throwing good money after bad.
Well, if consumers are 70% of the economy, the fact that the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence index numbers fell to a nearly 1 year low.
This, along with a falling consumer price index, which indicates that a deflationary spiral may be nearer than we would like, are not good news.
Additionally, notwithstanding heroic/stupid efforts to prop up the housing bubble, home builder confidence has hit a 15 month low.
On the brighter side, Moody’s survey of commercial real estate prices is rose in May, and the National Association for Business Economics’ latest survey of employers is showing that employers are looking to hire more than they were a year ago, though admittedly, that is not saying much.
And the lines cross
I understand why the White House supported Arlen Specter in the Democratic primaries, it was a reward for his switching parties, and provided an inducement to other potential Republicans who might consider switching, like uh……… uh……… uh………
OK, there is not another potential switcher, but it all seemed so wonderfully hopey–changey post partisan.
Well, largely on the basis of the fact that Arlen Specter is really all about Arlen Specter, and the fact that Joe Sestak is pointing it out to people (see vid), Arlen Specter is now lagging in the polls, and as the incumbent with good name recognition.
The rule of thumb that the undecideds nearly always break for the challenger by something like 2:1, so I reiterate my statement that Arlen Specter is toast.
So, the White House loses one here, and they are doing something really stupid, which is to walk back their support of Specter now that it is likely that he is going to lose the election:
If this is true, it’s significant: CBS chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer is now saying that he has it on good authority that the White House is privately bracing for Arlen Specter to lose tomorrow.
………
I’ve also learned that Veep Joe Biden will not be doing any campaign events for Specter in the final stretch, though it’s not immediately clear how significant this is. Last week, Biden said he’d be doing events for Specter “as needed.”
But a Biden aide confirms for me that no campaign events are scheduled, even though Biden will be in Pennsylvania tonight speaking at his daughter’s graduation. Biden has done radio interviews on Specter’s behalf.
This recognizes a problem with the Obama administration, and for the Clinton and Carter administrations before them: An unwillingness to continue fighting when victory seems unlikely.
I can understand some talking points flowing out about, “an anti-incumbency mood,” and suchlike, but the idea that when faced with less than a 50:50 change of success, the choice is to fold like overcooked Brussels sprouts has negative consequences.
It convinces allies that you don’t have their back, and it convinces opponents that they can take a temporary advantage, and use it to kill a proposal early in the process.
I never thought that they should support Specter, or for that matter Lincoln, but sawing off the branch won’t endear other Democrats with the concept of going out on a limb for Obama.
It’s jobless Thursday, and initial jobless claims fell from 448,000 to 444,000, though it should be noted that last week’s number of 448,000 was actually revised up from 444,000, meaning that the number is even flatter than the 4K change indicates.
That being said, the 4 week moving average fell by 9,000, which might indicate a slight trend downward in claims, if not for the fact that continuing claims rose, indicating that this may be less a matter of the economy picking up than it is a matter of employers simply running out of people to let go.
In terms of other metrics for the economy:
Consumer confidence, at least as surveyed by Investor’s Business Daily and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, has risen in May, from 48.7 from 48.4, though numbers below 50 indicate pessimism.
The National Federation of Independent Business’ optimism index rose to 90.6 in April from 86.8 in March, which is firmly in the class of, “better, but still pretty weak tea.”
In transport and trade, we have the trade deficit hitting a 15-month high, which, while normally not a good thing, is right now, because we are well into “paradox of thrift” territory.
Additionally, we have the always worthwhile Calculated risk reporting that Diesel fuel consumption fell slightly, and rail traffic rose slightly, in April.
In real estate, mortgage applications are up, but only because refinance is up, purchase applications are down, indicating that we are seeing people who are trying to lock in low rates on homes that they already own.
Finally, the Bank of England has decided to maintain its monetary policies, keeping its benchmark rate at ½% (effectively zero), and maintaining its quantitative easing via asset purchases.
The latest poll has Sestak beating Arlen Specter by 9 points, 49%-40%.
the MOE is 4.9% with a 95% confidence.
Barring a herculean turnout from the minority community, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter as well as other African American pols are working hard for him, he is toast.
It turns out that 76% of the American public believe that we are still in a recession.
Considering that unemployment, even by the rather low U-3 number is around 10%, this is not surprising.
The reality is that we are still in a hole, and 2% annual won’t get us out of this hole for at least a decade.
Of course, the very serious people in Washington, DC think that the deficit is over, so now they are going to slam on the brakes to get the deficit down.
There have been persistent problems with lead levels in Washington, DC’s water supply.
While correlation does not prove causation, it does make one wonder.
So says the latest tracking poll, which has Joe Sestak leading Arlen Specter by 46% to 42%. (PDF)
If you assume that the numbers go the wrong way for Sestak on the margin of error (±5%), and figure in the 2:1 undecideds going for the challenger, then Specter wins a 51%-49% victory, but this is really grim for Specter, and the numbers also now appear to imply that Sestak is stronger in the general election against Neanderthal Pat Toomey.*
Basically, Sestak has started hitting Specter as being a political opportunist, and it works because it’s true.
Here’s hoping that Blanche Lincoln suffers the same fate.
*My apologies to Neanderthals for the comparison.