{"id":193511,"date":"2008-12-10T22:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-11T03:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/12\/10\/economics-update-326\/"},"modified":"2008-12-10T22:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-11T03:05:00","slug":"economics-update-326","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/12\/10\/economics-update-326\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, now we have a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20602099&amp;sid=aPWsH3fmPauc\">report from MasterCard saying that gasoline consumption rose year over year for the first time since April<\/a>, which I guess gives us an indication of just how quickly American consumers go back to their old ways when fuel prices fall.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, <a href=\"http:\/\/calculatedrisk.blogspot.com\/2008\/12\/credit-crisis-indicators_10.html\">Calculated Risk&#8217;s Credit Crisis Indicators<\/a> have shown a bit of improvement, though with people taking negative interest to be in US treasuries, I&#8217;m not sure how reassuring that it.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, it&#8217;s now clear that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/28154692\">last week&#8217;s surge in mortgage applications was from people scrambling to lock in rates<\/a> and this week, we have the application rate plunge, because this week&#8217;s applicants rushed to apply last week.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=aT3tIUszCRuY&amp;refer=home\">consumer spending looks to post the biggest drop since just after Pearl Harbor<\/a>, which is really pretty scary when you think of it.<\/p>\n<p>And there won&#8217;t be much help on the export markets, with both <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/businessNews\/idUSTRE4B70ME20081210?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=businessNews\">China and Europe showing more signs of slowing themselves<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Which leads one to wonder when they will stop lending to us, because the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601110&amp;sid=am754qoCQsAU\">U.S. budget deficit was $164.4 billion in November<\/a>, up from $98.2 billion in November 2007.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, we have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/businessNews\/idUSTRE49B3Y620081210?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=businessNews\">oil rising on a Saudi supply cut<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/12\/10\/news\/economy\/gasoline\/index.htm\">retail gasoline dropping for the 84th straight day<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/12\/10\/markets\/dollar\/index.htm\">Dollar was mixed<\/a> again today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, now we have a report from MasterCard saying that gasoline consumption rose year over year for the first time since April, which I guess gives us an indication of just how quickly American consumers go back to their old ways when fuel prices fall. In the meantime, Calculated Risk&#8217;s Credit Crisis Indicators have shown &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,1004,1088,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-finance","category-real-estate","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193511"}],"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=193511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}