{"id":191167,"date":"2009-09-16T20:56:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-17T01:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/09\/16\/economics-update-150\/"},"modified":"2009-09-16T20:56:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-17T01:56:00","slug":"economics-update-150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/09\/16\/economics-update-150\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px 10px; width: 410px; float: right; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/img36.imageshack.us\/img36\/2805\/nahbsept09.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img36.imageshack.us\/img36\/2805\/nahbsept09.jpg\" bordercolor=\"white\" border=\"0\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a> <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Home Builder Confidence<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img17.imageshack.us\/img17\/9870\/capacityaug2009.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img17.imageshack.us\/img17\/9870\/capacityaug2009.jpg\" bordercolor=\"white\" border=\"0\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a> <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Industrial Production Utilization<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Well, we got the inflation numbers in, the <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/09\/16\/news\/economy\/CPI_consumer_price_index\/index.htm?section=money_topstories\">CPI rose 0.4% in August and fell 1.5% year over year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure whether to call this a sign of recovery (mild inflation) or of further problems (deflation).<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d be tempted to go with the former, as both <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/09\/nahb-builder-confidence-increases.html\">builder confidence<\/a> and<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/09\/industrial-production-capacity.html\">industrial production capacity utilization<\/a> increased this past month (see pics), but that is from horribly low levels, and objectively, the levels are still horrible.<\/p>\n<p>With UK <a href=\"http:\/\/ftalphaville.ft.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/16\/72261\/uk-unemployment-at-highest-rate-since-1996\/?source=rss\">unemployment hitting the highest level since 1996<\/a>, would appear to cut the on the down side.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/businessNews\/idUSN1612481020090916?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=businessNews\">Mortgage applications fell last week<\/a>, though some of that may come from the 4 day week because of labor day, and they are still well above the trough, though one wonders how long that will last once the tax credit for first time home buyers expires.  (More on that later)<\/p>\n<p>In energy, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/businessNews\/idUSTRE56T3EA20090916?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=businessNews\">oil rose above $72\/bbl<\/a> on falling inventories.<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/id\/32868843\"><\/a><br \/>Currency is getting interesting though, with the <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/09\/16\/markets\/dollar.reut\/index.htm\">dollar falling to a 1 year low<\/a>, largely on increases in optimism on the economy, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/32883190\">gold hit the highest level since March, 2008 $1,017.65\/oz<\/a> (Troy), and gold generally rises in times of pessimism and uncertainty?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home Builder Confidence Industrial Production Utilization Well, we got the inflation numbers in, the CPI rose 0.4% in August and fell 1.5% year over year. I&#8217;m not sure whether to call this a sign of recovery (mild inflation) or of further problems (deflation). I&#8217;d be tempted to go with the former, as both builder confidence &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1094,1080,973,975,1135,1200,1088,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-finance","category-currency","category-economy","category-employment","category-energy","category-inflation","category-real-estate","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191167"}],"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=191167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}