{"id":193321,"date":"2008-12-24T18:23:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-24T23:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/12\/24\/economics-update-316\/"},"modified":"2008-12-24T18:23:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-24T23:23:00","slug":"economics-update-316","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/12\/24\/economics-update-316\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ouch. Initial jobless claims for last week hit 586,000<\/a>, the highest number since Nov. 27, 1982. The 4 week rolling average, which is a better metric, rose as well, to 558,000, though continuing claims declined to 4.370 million.<\/p>\n

Even if you do have a job, it’s likely that you are seeing wages and or hour cut<\/a>….And that 401(k) match, fuggedaboudit.<\/p>\n

It’s no wonder that consumer spending fell in November<\/a>, though it was less than expected, and when adjusted for inflation….OK, adjusted for deflation<\/span>….It was actually up.<\/p>\n

As Calculated Risk<\/a> notes even as record low mortgage rates are boosting demand<\/a>, a lot of that ReFi, the spread between “conforming” and “jumbo” 30 year fixed mortgages remain at an all time high<\/a> of about 2%, which means that in expensive areas, the cheap mortgages are simply not available.<\/p>\n

CRE is tumbling too, as we can see from the fact that Manhattan office vacancies hit a two-year high<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In currency, the dollar was down again today<\/a>, and the Russian central bank devalued the Ruble<\/a>…again<\/span>.<\/p>\n

I still think that a run on the dollar is a possibility when traders start to realize that the Treasury and Fed are printing money and dropping it from the proverbial helicopter.<\/p>\n

In energy, increases in inventory, drove oil to $35.35\/bbl<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ouch. Initial jobless claims for last week hit 586,000, the highest number since Nov. 27, 1982. The 4 week rolling average, which is a better metric, rose as well, to 558,000, though continuing claims declined to 4.370 million. Even if you do have a job, it’s likely that you are seeing wages and or hour …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,973,975,1135,1004,1088,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-employment","category-energy","category-finance","category-real-estate","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193321"}],"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=193321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}