{"id":192103,"date":"2009-05-12T18:50:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-12T23:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/12\/economics-update-223\/"},"modified":"2009-05-12T18:50:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-12T23:50:00","slug":"economics-update-223","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/12\/economics-update-223\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img87.imageshack.us\/img87\/9910\/trademarch20098318719.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" width=\"400\" \/>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/05\/us-march-trade-deficit-276-billion.html\">US trade deficit rose in March<\/a>, to 27.6 billion, on falling exports and the recent increases in oil prices.<\/p>\n<p>Imports fell by $1.6 billion, but exports fell by $3 billion.<\/p>\n<p>We will not be, as the Japanese did, exporting our way out of this trade deficit.<\/p>\n<p>This is one reason why the <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/05\/12\/news\/economy\/cfo_survey\/index.htm?section=money_topstories\">American Express\/CFO Research Services survey has 59% of CFOs seeing more layoffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the fact that nationwide, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=az4_Z53jx4zE&amp;refer=home\">US home prices fell the most on record<\/a>, 14% year over year, and the only markets where home sales are rising are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/30699979\">where vultures are sweeping in to buy cheap foreclosure properties<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On the bright side, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/30697525\">National Federation of Independent Business&#8217; monthly index of small business sentiment was up<\/a> for the first time in 4 months.<\/p>\n<p>It appears, however, that credit card company Advanta is not so optimistic.  The company, which specializes in credit cards for small businesses, is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=a_FhoI2A4ZsM\">shutting down its lending operations on June 10<\/a>, after uncollectible debt exceeded 20%.<\/p>\n<p>They are not shutting down, they are just shutting down all their credit lines, and just taking payments, which is <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">awfully close to shutting down<\/span>, so the credit cards just become so much plastic.<\/p>\n<p>The deficit is not looking good either, with <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/05\/12\/news\/economy\/treasury_budget\/index.htm?section=money_topstories\">tax receipts so low that the federal government ran its first April deficit since 1983<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In energy, <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/05\/12\/markets\/oil\/index.htm?section=money_topstories\">oil was up today<\/a>, briefly breaking $60\/bbl for the first time since November, before settling at $58.85\/bbl.<\/p>\n<p>This, along with banking changes and interest rate increases, is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601110&amp;sid=aoFhQiAtl3RY\">why the ruble is on a tear right now<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/05\/12\/markets\/dollar.reut\/index.htm\">US dollar fell to a 4 month low<\/a> on comments by a number of experts that the recession is bottoming&#8230;.Yeah&#8230;.sure&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US trade deficit rose in March, to 27.6 billion, on falling exports and the recent increases in oil prices. Imports fell by $1.6 billion, but exports fell by $3 billion. We will not be, as the Japanese did, exporting our way out of this trade deficit. This is one reason why the American Express\/CFO &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1038,1080,973,975,1135,1004,1016,1088,1089,1033,983],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budget","category-currency","category-economy","category-employment","category-energy","category-finance","category-international-commerce","category-real-estate","category-recession","category-russia","category-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192103"}],"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=192103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}