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.
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.
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.
It’s Jobless Thursday, and initial claim hit a 3 month high, 429 K, with the 4-week moving average rising, though continuing and extended claims fell.
The numbers have been disappointing, which is not surprising, since the economy grew at an anemic 1.8% annual rate in the 1st quarter.
The problem is that too many people in power (see Geithner, Timothy, for one) think that the economy is recovering fine because the banksters are making lots of money, so they are concerned about the deficit and inflation, as evidenced by this story with its hand wringing about inflation rising, but even though it’s still well under the 2% (I would argue for 6% right now) that the Fed says that we need.
BTW, if you want to read it, here is the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee statement for you to read.
And initial claim felll less than expected, to 403,000, with the 4-week moving average rising to 399K, and continuing and extended claims also fall slightly.
When juxtaposed with the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing survey falling, I think that reports of the incipient recovery might be premature.
So, the BLS is reporting that job openings rose rapidly in February.
Looking at the ratio of jobs to the unemployed (see graph pr0n), there has definitely been some improvement, but first, it’s still a pretty crappy number, and second, workforce participation is down, so this number is partially an artifact of that.
We also saw retail sales rise and a moderately good beige book from the Fed, though the former has partially been driven by increased gasoline prices.
What worries me, particularly with the deficit cutting fever out there, is the fact that Gallup Economic Confidence Index hit a low for the year.
It’s Jobless Thursday, and initial unemployment claims fell by 10,000 to 382,000, with the 4-week moving average of initial claims, continuing claims, and emergency claims falling as well.
When juxtaposed with stronger than expected retail sales figures for March, the economic news is generally pertty good, though the fact that home prices continue to crater, falling for the 7th straight month, indicates that real estate is not done with its correction.
Understand that February is the shortest month of the year, and understand that new home sales are a lot more volatile than existing home sales, but the fact that sales fell almost 17% to an all time low, or at since records were first kept in 1963, 19,000 homes, giving an annual rate of just ¼ million home sales a year, is pretty stunning.
As the New York Times‘ Floyd Norris notes, this is not just the worst month ever, but it’s also the worst 12 month stretch ever.
We are not in recovery yet, and with the austerity crowd doing the best to trigger a double dip in order to appease the confidence fairy, and very little push back from the sane folks in public policy, it won’t get much better.
The Federal Open Market Committee has released its statement, and its policies of low (basically zero) interest rates and quantitative easing (printing money) remain in effect.
Meanwhile, home builder confidence rose in March, but remains really really low, while the New York Feds Empire State Index Rose.
Full FOMC statement after the break:
Release Date: March 15, 2011
For immediate releaseInformation received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January suggests that the economic recovery is on a firmer footing, and overall conditions in the labor market appear to be improving gradually. Household spending and business investment in equipment and software continue to expand. However, investment in nonresidential structures is still weak, and the housing sector continues to be depressed. Commodity prices have risen significantly since the summer, and concerns about global supplies of crude oil have contributed to a sharp run-up in oil prices in recent weeks. Nonetheless, longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable, and measures of underlying inflation have been subdued.
Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. Currently, the unemployment rate remains elevated, and measures of underlying inflation continue to be somewhat low, relative to levels that the Committee judges to be consistent, over the longer run, with its dual mandate. The recent increases in the prices of energy and other commodities are currently putting upward pressure on inflation. The Committee expects these effects to be transitory, but it will pay close attention to the evolution of inflation and inflation expectations. The Committee continues to anticipate a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability.
To promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to continue expanding its holdings of securities as announced in November. In particular, the Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings and intends to purchase $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011. The Committee will regularly review the pace of its securities purchases and the overall size of the asset-purchase program in light of incoming information and will adjust the program as needed to best foster maximum employment and price stability.
The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period.
The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will employ its policy tools as necessary to support the economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate.
Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; Elizabeth A. Duke; Charles L. Evans; Richard W. Fisher; Narayana Kocherlakota; Charles I. Plosser; Sarah Bloom Raskin; Daniel K. Tarullo; and Janet L. Yellen.
2011 Monetary Policy ReleasesLast update: March 15, 2011
We have the latest claims, and they are going in the wrong direction again, with unemployment rising by 26K to 397K, worse than forecast, though both continuing and emergency claims both fell.
Additionally, consumer confidence fell, largely on spiking gas prises.
The Bank of England is not too confidence either, so it kept its benchmark rate at effectively zero.
The news has been good this week.
First, the jobless rate rate fell to below 9% for the first time in about 2 years, and initial unemployment claims fell to a roughly two year low as well.
Note that while the improvement in the labor force was good, 193,000 that rate means that something like 7 more years would be required to reach something approaching a normal employment picture.
Additionally, productivity rose strongly in the 4th quarter, while the Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing indices both rose strongly.
The only real question is whether the pain caucus calling for government austerity will screw this all up by cutting government spending, and possibly tightening monetary policy, too soon.
The Fed’s Beige Book is out, and it is the same old, same old, a slow recovery that will take years before we are back to what should be normal:
The Federal Reserve said the labor market improved throughout the country early this year, driven by rising retail sales and “solid growth” in manufacturing.
“Labor market conditions continued to strengthen modestly, with all Districts reporting some degree of improvement,” the Fed said today in its Beige Book report, an anecdotal account of the economy released two weeks before meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. Its last survey, released Jan. 12, said the job market was “firming somewhat.”
Overall, the economy “continued to expand at a modest to moderate pace,” the central bank said in Washington. Eleven of the Fed’s 12 regional banks, including San Francisco and Philadelphia, described their regions as expanding, improving or experiencing moderate growth. Only Chicago reported growth “at a pace not quite as strong” as before.
This translates to, “Well, stocks are up, but this is not really a recovery.”
I am uncertain just how much this fragile and slow recovery might be harmed by the recent spike in oil prices.
We also have conflicting job news, with Challenger, Gray, and Christmas saying that large planned layoffs are up, largely on the loss of jobs at state and local government level, but ADP is forecasting fairly strong private sector job growth.
It was a mixed day, with the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence index falling in December on job worries, it was well below forecast, and the Case-Shiller home prices fell for the 4th straight month in October.
On the plus side, actual consumer spending actually rose.
So, I guess the consumer felt depressed, and went shopping to cheer themselves up.
The final numbers for US GDP in the 3rd quarter came in, and they were slightly lower than estimates, with a 2.6%, as opposed to the 2.7% forecast, growth rate, while core inflation was at a 50 year low.
So I don’t think that either inflation or a robust recovery are around the corner, particularly with oil rising above $90/bbl, a 2 year high, which has in turn driven gasoline prices near to $3.00/gallon.
Unfortunately, the dollar has continued to fatten up versus the Euro, because people see more pain and woe from Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy.
That may be a bottom, but it ain’t a recovery
It’s jobless Thursday, and initial claims fell by 3,000 to 420,000, and the 4-week moving average fell by 5,250 to 422,750, another 2+ year low, but continuing claims rose by 22,000 to 4.14 million, and emergency/extended claims rose by 324,537 to 4.83 million.
I would call that mixed. Fewer people losing their jobs, but people looking for work are not finding it.
In real estate news, home prices declined 1.9% in October, and by 3.93% year over year, so we are still not seeing any signs of recovery there.
