{"id":192092,"date":"2009-05-13T17:21:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T22:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/13\/economics-update-222\/"},"modified":"2009-05-13T17:21:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T22:21:00","slug":"economics-update-222","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/13\/economics-update-222\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img216.imageshack.us\/img216\/6403\/retailaprilyoy3171966.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img216.imageshack.us\/img216\/6403\/retailaprilyoy3171966.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a>With all this talk of green shoots, its worth noting that the evidence in the underlying economy does not really indicate much in the way of a recovery, which is why the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/05\/retail-sales-decline-in-april.html\">decline in retail sales in April should come as no surprise<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a big portion of the US economy right there, and what&#8217;s not is real estate, which is showing little in the way or recovery either, with <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/05\/13\/real_estate\/April_foreclosure_stats\/index.htm?section=money_topstories\">foreclosures at a new record in April<\/a>, though actual repossession of property fell, because the banks are worried about the costs of actually having to take care of the property when they finally assume ownership, along with changes in laws that have drawn out the process in many of the hardest hit states.<\/p>\n<p>The number of foreclosures were up 1% over an already record March, and up <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">32%<\/span> year over year.<\/p>\n<p>We also saw a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=newsarchive&amp;sid=a6r..0RZZi8k\">drop in mortgage applications<\/a> as refinancing slowed with the increase in interest rates.<\/p>\n<p>There is not a whole bunch of economic recovery in the Euro zone either, with <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/05\/13\/news\/international\/EU_production.reut\/index.htm\">industrial output falling more than 20% year over year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We are seeing some good news on the credit front again though, because <a href=\"http:\/\/bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601110&amp;sid=aD4x4Q7Gz5eI\">LIBOR hit a 2 month low<\/a>, though in the real world, where it&#8217;s lending to real businesses, as opposed to banks, real interest rates, interest minus inflation, <a href=\"http:\/\/bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601109&amp;sid=am.gkYZFlB0A&amp;refer=home\"> are at a 25 year high<\/a> and it is curtailing all sorts of capital activity.<\/p>\n<p>It also looks like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/05\/bkuna-needs-1-billion-in-capital.html\">BankUnited may be heading to a headline on Friday Night Bank failures<\/a>, with a late filing with the SEC saying that they need to raise over $1 billion in capital, because, &#8220;<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">the Board of Directors of the Bank entered into a Stipulation and Consent to Prompt Corrective Action Directive (the \u201c<\/span>PCA<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"> Agreements\u201d) with the <\/span>OTS<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">.<\/span>&#8221; (Office of Thrift Supervision).<\/p>\n<p>In any case, the bad consumer spending figures <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/05\/13\/markets\/oil\/\">pushed oil down<\/a> on demand concerns, and <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/05\/13\/markets\/dollar.reut\/index.htm\">pushed the dollar up<\/a> as investors fled to safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With all this talk of green shoots, its worth noting that the evidence in the underlying economy does not really indicate much in the way of a recovery, which is why the decline in retail sales in April should come as no surprise. That&#8217;s a big portion of the US economy right there, and what&#8217;s &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,984,1004,1088,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-europe","category-finance","category-real-estate","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192092"}],"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=192092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}