{"id":192573,"date":"2009-03-18T19:13:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-19T00:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/03\/18\/economics-update-258\/"},"modified":"2009-03-18T19:13:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-19T00:13:00","slug":"economics-update-258","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/03\/18\/economics-update-258\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img256.imageshack.us\/img256\/2086\/front0318096185104.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" \/>So, we saw a<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/29752885\">0.4% increase in the consumer price index in February<\/a>, which is the highest rate since July, even if that is just a 5% rate.<\/p>\n<p>Truth be told, I&#8217;m not sure if this is good news, reduced possibility of inflation, or a sign that the dollars that are flooding our economy are creating an inflation spiral.<\/p>\n<p>In either case, we have another indicator that the real estate market is no where near a turn around, the bump in February building permits not withstandint: the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/03\/architecture-billings-index-near-record.html\">Architecture Billings Index remains near a record low<\/a>, and this is a leading indicator.<\/p>\n<p>The spike in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/29751266\">jump in mortgage applications<\/a> does not really mean much, as it is primarily refi activity driven by low mortgage rates.<\/p>\n<p>Internationally, we have a number of developments:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/news\/story\/foreign-debt-sales-raise-doubts\/story.aspx?guid=%7B74B72564-4864-4785-92FC-4073ACB0C024%7D\">Foreign purchases of US debt fell sharplyin January<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB123734744223766243.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us\">Bank of Japan kept its benchmark rate unchanged<\/a> at 0.1% (so the US isn&#8217;t the only central rate running up against the zero bond) and is buying bonds (printing money)<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/id\/29751189?__source=RSS*tag*&amp;par=RSS\">jobless rate in the UK rose above 2 million<\/a>, this is a 12 year high in unemploy, and the delta of 138,400, which is the highest number since records started being kept in 1971.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In energy, <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/03\/18\/markets\/oil\/index.htm\">oil fell on the pessimistic report from the Federal reserve<\/a> despite <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601110&amp;sid=a1nZBaWlc5ns\">assurances of the House of Saud that OPEC will really follow the quota this time<\/a>&#8230;.really&#8230;for sure.  (I don&#8217;t believe it either)<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the news that the Fed is printing about a trillion more dollars <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/03\/18\/markets\/dollar\/index.htm\">pushed the dollar down<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, we saw a0.4% increase in the consumer price index in February, which is the highest rate since July, even if that is just a 5% rate. Truth be told, I&#8217;m not sure if this is good news, reduced possibility of inflation, or a sign that the dollars that are flooding our economy are creating &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,973,1135,1004,1200,1088,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-energy","category-finance","category-inflation","category-real-estate","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192573"}],"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=192573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}