{"id":195933,"date":"2008-06-04T17:40:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-04T22:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/06\/04\/economics-update-446\/"},"modified":"2008-06-04T17:40:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-04T22:40:00","slug":"economics-update-446","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/06\/04\/economics-update-446\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ADP&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/id\/24962602\">private report suggests 40,000 new jobs<\/a>, though it should be noted that , &#8220;U.S. companies&#8217; planned layoffs rose 15 percent in May from April to the highest monthly total since December 2005&#8221; it has been noted that, &#8220;ADP has been inaccurate of late, overpredicting payrolls,&#8221;  so I would wait for the government figures.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/id\/24964609\">productivity rose more than predicted<\/a> in Q1 of 2008, though all indications is that this was not more stuff to do, but simply less stuff doing it, &#8220;Aggressive cuts in worker hours will help shield corporate profits and keep wage-related cost pressures under control, helping to reassure the Fed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I&#8217;m inclined to take the pessimistic assessment of this, because the <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/06\/04\/news\/economy\/ism_services\/index.htm?postversion=2008060410\">Institute for Supply Management&#8217;s (ISM) non-manufacturing index fell to 51.7<\/a>, indicating a softness in the service sector.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, we have the <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/06\/04\/news\/international\/oecd_forecast.ap\/index.htm?postversion=2008060407\">forecasting a world wide growth rate of only 1.8%<\/a> this year, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/id\/24962375\">weekly mortgage applications fell to a 6-year low<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Inflation worries are now <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/06\/04\/markets\/dollar_euro.ap\/index.htm?postversion=2008060408\">weighing down the dollar<\/a>, though <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/06\/04\/markets\/oil_eia\/index.htm\">oil prices are down a bit more<\/a> to $122.48\/bbl, but retail gas prices rose to a new high again, $3.983\/gal.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, we have a visit from our old friends, the monoline insurers, with <a href=\"http:\/\/dailybriefing.blogs.fortune.cnn.com\/2008\/06\/04\/moodys-downgrade-dunks-ambac-mbia\/\">Ambac and MBIA getting hammered<\/a> because Moody&#8217;s is <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">finally<\/span> considering a downgrade on their debt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ADP&#8217;s private report suggests 40,000 new jobs, though it should be noted that , &#8220;U.S. companies&#8217; planned layoffs rose 15 percent in May from April to the highest monthly total since December 2005&#8221; it has been noted that, &#8220;ADP has been inaccurate of late, overpredicting payrolls,&#8221; so I would wait for the government figures. On &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,975,1135,1004,1045,1088,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-employment","category-energy","category-finance","category-insurance","category-real-estate","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195933"}],"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=195933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}