{"id":191423,"date":"2009-08-17T20:29:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-18T01:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/08\/17\/economics-update-167\/"},"modified":"2009-08-17T20:29:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-18T01:29:00","slug":"economics-update-167","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/08\/17\/economics-update-167\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px 10px; width: 410px; float: right; text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img198.imageshack.us\/img198\/9817\/gbcchartaugust099854937.gif\" bordercolor=\"white\" border=\"0\" width=\"400\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img9.imageshack.us\/img9\/7633\/delinquencyratesq220091.jpg\" bordercolor=\"white\" border=\"0\" width=\"400\" \/> Graph Pr0n, courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/\"><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Calculated Risk<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Lets lead with some good news, the New York Bank of the Federal Reserve&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/08\/ny-fed-empire-state-manufacturing.html\">Empire State Manufacturing Index hit its highest level since November, 2007<\/a>, and it&#8217;s <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">actually positive<\/span>, as opposed to the &#8220;falling less slowly,&#8221; good news we frequently see from hack economic reporters. (See top pic)<\/p>\n<p>We also have home builder confidence, as measured by the National Association of Home Builders\/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/32448971\">rising to its highest level in more than a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&lt;Paul Harvey&gt;And now, the <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">rest of the story<\/span>:&lt;\/Paul Harvey&gt;<\/p>\n<p>We have the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/08\/fed-delinquency-rates-surged-in-q2-2009.html\">delinquency rates at commercial banks rising sharply in Q2<\/a>, and the banks responded by  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=aA_yjiBTcYVo\">tightening credit significantly<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601009&amp;sid=a4mA1MFGQxWg&amp;refer=bonds\">pushing up the price of treasuries<\/a>, and thus lowering their yields, as investors flee to quality.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, the Fed has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601069&amp;sid=aNUlYQ.TIz2M&amp;refer=fedwatch\">extended its TALF facility for commercial real estate<\/a>, because they (correctly) see an impending crash.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, where our other partner in corrupt &#8220;Anglo-Saxon Capitalism&#8221; goes to work, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20603037&amp;sid=atyemyTsrY6o\">asking prices of UK homes fell by 2.2% this month<\/a>, (that&#8217;s for the month, not annualized) with lack of credit to home buyers being a large factor in this move.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, most of the signs are not good, which is why both <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/08\/17\/markets\/oil.reut\/index.htm\">crude oil<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601110&amp;sid=aYoioJ1P4WMo\">natural gas<\/a> fell significantly today, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/id\/32454907?__source=RSS*tag*&amp;par=RSS\">US dollar and the Japanese Yen both rose<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Graph Pr0n, courtesy of Calculated Risk Lets lead with some good news, the New York Bank of the Federal Reserve&#8217;s Empire State Manufacturing Index hit its highest level since November, 2007, and it&#8217;s actually positive, as opposed to the &#8220;falling less slowly,&#8221; good news we frequently see from hack economic reporters. (See top pic) We &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,973,1135,1004,1089,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-energy","category-finance","category-recession","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191423"}],"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=191423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}