{"id":192149,"date":"2009-05-05T05:12:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T10:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/05\/economics-update-228\/"},"modified":"2009-05-05T05:12:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-05T10:12:00","slug":"economics-update-228","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/05\/economics-update-228\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, here’s a big surprise, credit card delinquencies are up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, this is a lagging indicator, seeing as how closely it is tied to unemployment.<\/p>\n

I would note that so called “marginally attached workers,” which is workers who are still looking for work, but are no longer looking hard enough to be counted, has risen significantly<\/a>, see pic.<\/p>\n

Then again, remember the increase in construction spending I mentioned yesterday?<\/p>\n

Private construction spending actually fell slightly in March<\/a> so the increase I was stimulus spending.<\/p>\n

Also, note that the Institute for Supply Management\u2019s index of non- manufacturing businesses, basically a measure of activities in the services, fell in April<\/a>, albeit at a slower pace than the past few months, so you can decide whether the glass is half full or half empty.<\/p>\n

We have another retailer filing bankruptcy, this time Chapter 11 reorg,
Filene’s Basement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s one for nostalgia’s sake, another monoliner insurer has been downgraded, Fitch cuts Assured Guaranty from AAA to AA<\/a>, which means that their insurance, which basically leases out their credit rating, is done.<\/p>\n

We have more evidence of credit loosening though, with the
LIBOR falling below 1% for the first time ever<\/a> for overnight interbank loans.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure if this is confidence in banks, or confidence in government bailouts though.<\/p>\n

In currency, the dollar gained vs the Euro, largely on the expectation of an ECB rate cut<\/a>, which in turn is based on the largest drop in European producer prices in over 20 years.<\/p>\n

Oil is down on reports of large inventories<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, here’s a big surprise, credit card delinquencies are up. Truth be told, this is a lagging indicator, seeing as how closely it is tied to unemployment. I would note that so called “marginally attached workers,” which is workers who are still looking for work, but are no longer looking hard enough to be counted, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,973,975,1135,1004,1045,1089,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-employment","category-energy","category-finance","category-insurance","category-recession","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192149"}],"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=192149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}