{"id":189966,"date":"2010-01-21T22:43:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T03:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/01\/21\/economics-update-for-the-week-3\/"},"modified":"2010-01-21T22:43:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T03:43:00","slug":"economics-update-for-the-week-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/01\/21\/economics-update-for-the-week-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update (For the Week)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, it’s “Jobless Thursday”, as Atrios<\/span><\/a> is wont to say, and it ain’t a good Thursday<\/a>, with initial claims up 36,000 to 482,000 and hitting a 2 month high, the 4-week moving average up 7,000 to 448,250, though continuing claims fell by 18K to 4,599,000.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank’s business<\/span> activity index fell from 22.5 to 15.2<\/a>, which still indicates growth, positive numbers indicate growth, but might show that the stimulus package is running out of steam.<\/p>\n

Also, it looks like finances may be catching up with the bank, with Citi<\/span> reporting a loss for the year on a horrible 3rd<\/sup> quarter<\/a>, and Bank of America posted a large loss<\/a>, largely as a result of its eagerness to pay off the TARP so that it could go back to overpaying its incompetent executives, while Morgan Stanley misses its earning estimate<\/a>, though it still turned a profit.<\/p>\n

I had kind of figured that a lot of the obscene profits earlier in the year were the result of rearranging deck chairs, and I think that the 4th<\/span><\/sup> quarter results give credence to this view.<\/p>\n

Note that these numbers were turning worse even as consumer defaults were falling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

BTW, in the UK, we are seeing journalists running around like chickens with their heads cut off over the recent spike in consumer prices<\/a>, up to a 2.9% annual rate.<\/p>\n

Kind of silly when you think about it.<\/p>\n

US inflation seems well in check, with the
Producer Price Index for up 0.2% in December<\/a>,<\/p>\n

In real estate, home builder confidence fell<\/span> in January<\/a>, but the Architecture Billings Index was up slightly<\/a>, though still below 50, indicating further contraction.<\/p>\n

The jump in building applications<\/a>, would seem to indicate improvements in the real estate market, but the FHA is increasing premiums and tightening loan standards<\/a>, which may deflate the balloon.<\/p>\n

The FHA really does not have a choice. Their balance sheet is a complete mess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, it’s “Jobless Thursday”, as Atrios is wont to say, and it ain’t a good Thursday, with initial claims up 36,000 to 482,000 and hitting a 2 month high, the 4-week moving average up 7,000 to 448,250, though continuing claims fell by 18K to 4,599,000. Additionally, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank’s business activity index fell …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,975,984,1004,974,1200,1088,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-employment","category-europe","category-finance","category-hack-journalism","category-inflation","category-real-estate","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189966"}],"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=189966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}