{"id":188384,"date":"2010-10-07T18:17:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T23:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/10\/07\/economics-update-25\/"},"modified":"2010-10-07T18:17:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-07T23:17:00","slug":"economics-update-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/10\/07\/economics-update-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; width: 400px; float: right; text-align: center;\">Click for full size<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img94.imageshack.us\/img94\/3818\/consumercreditaugust201.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img94.imageshack.us\/img94\/3818\/consumercreditaugust201.jpg\" bordercolor=\"white\" border=\"0\" width=\"390\" \/><\/a> <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The paradox of thrift continues<\/span><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s jobless Thursday, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2010-10-07\/jobless-claims-in-u-s-unexpectedly-decreased-11-000-last-week-to-445-000.html\">initial unemployment claims fell out of the 450K-485K sweet spot<\/a> that they have been bouncing around in for most of the year.  Initial claims fell by 11,000 to 445,000, better than forecast, with the 4-week moving average falling by 3,000 to 455,750, with continuing claims falling by 48,000 to 4.46 million, and emergency claims rising by 257K to 5.14 million.<\/p>\n<p>So fewer people are losing work, but hiring has not picked, so overall unemployment has increased (257K &#8211; 48K  &#8211; 11K = 198K more people collecting unemployment).<\/p>\n<p>We also had good news on the retail front, with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/idUSTRE69623Q20101007\">better than expected same store retail sales in September<\/a>, though I am unclear how consumers are financing this, since wages are stagnant, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2010\/10\/consumer-credit-declines-in-august.html\">consumer credit fell in August<\/a>. (See graph pr0n)<\/p>\n<p>I guess that it could be that people took out their credit cards more in September, and that the conflicting figures are simply the result of month to month changes.<\/p>\n<p>In Europe, both the Bank of England and the ECB <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/business\/world-business\/bank-of-england-ecb-keep-rates-low-20101008-16a7e.html\">held rates steady<\/a>, and the BoE says that it will continue quantitative easing (printing money).<\/p>\n<p>ECB bank president Jean-Claude Trichet went further <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/print\/2010-10-07\/trichet-holds-rate-at-1-for-18th-month-as-banks-stay-hooked-on-ecb-funds.html\">full inflation idiot in statement to the press<\/a>, tut-tutting other central banks easing moves, andstating that the ECB will be, &#8220;gradually phase out its non-standard liquidity measures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yes, we are seeing more pronouncements from the pain caucus about austerity, and the most vocal of these folks, Tory PM David Cameron, has apparently succeeded in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/finance\/economics\/houseprices\/8047664\/UK-house-prices-fall-by-record-3.6pc-in-a-month.html\">pushing UK house prices down by 3.6% in the month of September<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Note that I am <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">not<\/span> talking about a -3.6% annual rate, I am talking about a \u00a36,000 drop in home prices in <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">just that month<\/span>. (!)<br \/>UK home prices -3.6% in a month (!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Click for full size The paradox of thrift continues It&#8217;s jobless Thursday, and initial unemployment claims fell out of the 450K-485K sweet spot that they have been bouncing around in for most of the year. Initial claims fell by 11,000 to 445,000, better than forecast, with the 4-week moving average falling by 3,000 to 455,750, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1005,973,975,984,1004,1088,1089,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-economy","category-employment","category-europe","category-finance","category-real-estate","category-recession","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}