{"id":191956,"date":"2009-06-01T20:11:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-02T01:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/06\/01\/economics-update-209\/"},"modified":"2009-06-01T20:11:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-02T01:11:00","slug":"economics-update-209","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/06\/01\/economics-update-209\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The OECD has released its GDP figures for the 1<sup>st<\/sup> quarter, and they are not good, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openleft.com\/diary\/13516\/oecd-gdp-down-21-in-first-quarterdown-42-from-last-year\">down 2.1% for the quarter, and down 4.2%year over year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Also, consumers in the US are continuing to explore the paradox of thrift, with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/06\/consumption-down-saving-rate-increases.html\">consumption down and savings up<\/a>, even though there was a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/31041907\">bump in income<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the financial press is optimistic on the fact that the <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/06\/01\/news\/economy\/ISM_manufacturing.reut\/index.htm?postversion=2009060111\">ISM manufacturing index is the highest it has been in 9 months<\/a>, only the number, 42.8, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">still signals further contraction<\/span>, but for the financial press, the fact that the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> derivative is up means that prosperity is just around the corner.<\/p>\n<p>The <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Wall Street Journal<\/span> is selling the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB124359823545766213.html#mod=rss_whats_news_us\">corporate profits rose for the 1<sup>st<\/sup> time in two years<\/a> in the same way.<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I&#8217;m more concerned about signs of increasing interest rates and inflation, like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=aYU4lGO84k0Y&amp;refer=home\">recent surge in 10-year treasuries<\/a>, and the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/05\/31\/news\/economy\/gas_prices\/index.htm?section=money_topstories\">retail gasoline broke $2.50\/gal nationally this weekend<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/06\/01\/markets\/oil\/\">oil breaking $68\/bbl<\/a>, even a long time in the doldrums is going to have energy prices rising.<\/p>\n<p>Still the traders are optimistic, which is why <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/06\/01\/markets\/dollar.reut\/index.htm\">the dollar fell to its lowest level this year<\/a>, there is less demand for a safe haven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The OECD has released its GDP figures for the 1st quarter, and they are not good, down 2.1% for the quarter, and down 4.2%year over year. Also, consumers in the US are continuing to explore the paradox of thrift, with consumption down and savings up, even though there was a bump in income. Of course, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,973,1135,1200,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-energy","category-inflation","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191956"}],"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=191956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}