{"id":192909,"date":"2009-02-06T18:20:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T23:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/02\/06\/economics-update-286\/"},"modified":"2009-02-06T18:20:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-06T23:20:00","slug":"economics-update-286","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/02\/06\/economics-update-286\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img7.imageshack.us\/img7\/3457\/wwwreuterscom5183545lo4.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; cursor: pointer;\" width=\"375\" \/>So we have the new, official jobs report, <span style=\"font-size:180%;\"><a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/topNews\/idUSTRE5153B720090206\"><span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">Oh My God!!!<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The unemployment rate went up to 7.6%, and 598,000 jobs were cut, the most since 1974, and it happened across all sectors.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ritholtz.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/details-of-january-non-farm-payrolls\/\">Barry Ritholtz<\/a> looks at the number in more detail, and finds (excerpting):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">Total job losses since the recession started in December 2007: 3.6 million;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 4.1 million;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">For the first time since records began in 1939, there were three consecutive months of 500k + job losses;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">Household survey showed a record 1.24 million job plunge (Since data began in 1950)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">The employment-population ratio fell to 60.5%, down from 62.7% at the beginning of the recession, \u2014 the lowest rate since 1986.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">Unemployment rate: 16-year high (1992);<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">The 3.5 million job loss since January 2008 is the largest 12-month decline since the government started compiling those figures <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">in 1939<\/span><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">U-6 Marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers: 13.9% last month \u2014 up almost five percent;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">The employment-to-population ratio was the lowest since 1986.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Except for the jobs report, it&#8217;s a slow news day, which is kind of like saying, \u201cApart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?<\/p>\n<p>Then again, I expect at least one bank closing shortly after I shut down for Shabbos, because Friday is bank regulator seizure day (cue Prince Spaghetti Day ad).<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that it looks like <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/nm\/20090206\/pl_nm\/us_financial_bailout_accounting\">the SEC and Treasury are denying any plans of suspending mark to market<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Going back to mark to model would be like pouring gasoline on a the bonfire of the fraudulent.<\/p>\n<p>One odd thing here is that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601110&amp;sid=abMWJaaEjaxE\">Federal Reserve appears to be walking away from expanding its Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility (TALF) program<\/a>, a sh%$ pile for cash <del>givaway<\/del> lending program, to include consumer credit derived instruments.<\/p>\n<p>Not sure what is going on here, but it would seem to me that this might be one of the better ways to throw money at the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/02\/06\/markets\/oil\/\">oil fell on the jobs reports<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/02\/06\/markets\/dollar\/index.htm\">dollar was mixed<\/a>, up against the Yen, down vs the Euro, and flat vs. the Sterling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So we have the new, official jobs report, Oh My God!!! The unemployment rate went up to 7.6%, and 598,000 jobs were cut, the most since 1974, and it happened across all sectors. Barry Ritholtz looks at the number in more detail, and finds (excerpting): Total job losses since the recession started in December 2007: &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,973,975,1135,1004,1089,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-employment","category-energy","category-finance","category-recession","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192909"}],"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=192909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}