{"id":195351,"date":"2008-07-15T17:24:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-15T22:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/07\/15\/economics-update-417\/"},"modified":"2008-07-15T17:24:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-15T22:24:00","slug":"economics-update-417","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/07\/15\/economics-update-417\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, we have to open up with <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/07\/15\/news\/economy\/prices_june.ap\/index.htm\">inflation in the producer price index<\/a>, 1.8% for June, and 9.2% year over year, though the 1.8% rate actually comes closer to 22% if annualized.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed ain&#8217;t cutting rates any time soon, and apparrently <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/07\/15\/news\/international\/japan_rates.ap\/index.htm?postversion=2008071507\">neither is the Japanese central bank<\/a>, which is holding rates steady at \u00bd%. (Talk about pushing on a string!)<\/p>\n<p>Even so, <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/07\/15\/markets\/dollar\/index.htm\">the dollar hit a new record low against the Euro before settling a bit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Then we have <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/07\/15\/news\/companies\/GM\/index.htm?cnn=yes\">General motors announcing massive job cuts and that it would suspend its dividend<\/a>, which it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=a1beVzmh_B24&amp;refer=home\">has not done since 1922<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So GM paid a dividend throughout the Great Depression, but will not do so now.<\/p>\n<p>Not surprisingly, <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/07\/15\/news\/economy\/senate_banking\/index.htm?postversion=2008071510\">Bernanke was rather downbeat about the economy in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On the bright side, the doom and gloom has convinced everyone that the US is headed into a severe recession, reducing our demand for oil, so <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/07\/15\/markets\/oil\/\">oil prices fell $6.44\/bbl<\/a>, the largest drop since Jan. 17, 1991, when Poppy Bush pulled oil out of the strategic petroleum reserves.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, this has <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/07\/15\/news\/economy\/gasoline\/index.htm\">not yet translated to relief at the pump<\/a>, with retail gasoline hitting a new record high.<\/p>\n<p>In the world of retail, <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/07\/15\/news\/economy\/retail_sales.ap\/index.htm?postversion=2008071509\">there was a sales increase of just 0.1%<\/a>, which, as <a href=\"http:\/\/bigpicture.typepad.com\/comments\/2008\/07\/ppi-retail-sale.html\">Barry Ritholtz notes<\/a>, is a a contraction when you figure in inflation, and even worse when you pull out food and energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, we have to open up with inflation in the producer price index, 1.8% for June, and 9.2% year over year, though the 1.8% rate actually comes closer to 22% if annualized. The Fed ain&#8217;t cutting rates any time soon, and apparrently neither is the Japanese central bank, which is holding rates steady at \u00bd%. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,973,1135,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-energy","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195351"}],"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=195351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}