{"id":196256,"date":"2008-05-13T16:51:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-13T21:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/05\/13\/economics-update-460\/"},"modified":"2008-05-13T16:51:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-13T21:51:00","slug":"economics-update-460","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/05\/13\/economics-update-460\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, the financial news is reporting that consumer spending are up, but as <a href=\"http:\/\/bigpicture.typepad.com\/comments\/2008\/05\/april-retail-sa.html\">Barry Ritholtz notes<\/a>, &#8220;Retail Sales were rather unimpressive:  Gasoline, Groceries, Food &amp; Beverage were up, while pretty much everything else was flat to down. (see picture)<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pic60.picturetrail.com\/VOL1689\/10590113\/19633101\/317164829.jpg\" \/><br \/>Also note that the real numbers are actually a reduction when adjusted for inflation.<\/p>\n<p>In the &#8220;same as it ever was&#8221; department, we have <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/05\/13\/markets\/oil.ap\/index.htm\">crude oil and gasoline hitting a new record again<\/a>, $126.98\/bbl.<\/p>\n<p>In real estate, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;refer=home&amp;sid=arfjFulEBNJ0\">The median single-family home price dropped 7.7% Q1<\/a>, annualized, that is around a 30% drop, but you will see articles calling a bottom soon.<\/p>\n<p>In banking, we have <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/05\/13\/news\/companies\/bank_of_america.ap\/index.htm?postversion=2008051311\">Bank of America saying that credit costs are up<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Translated from bank-speak, it means that they are having more late payments, defaults, and foreclosures.<\/p>\n<p>On the good news side, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=a1epxg3i.6YM&amp;refer=home\">Ben Bernanke is promising more free money<\/a> through the Federal Reserve&#8217;s &#8220;sh%$pile for dollars&#8221; auctions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, the financial news is reporting that consumer spending are up, but as Barry Ritholtz notes, &#8220;Retail Sales were rather unimpressive: Gasoline, Groceries, Food &amp; Beverage were up, while pretty much everything else was flat to down. (see picture)Also note that the real numbers are actually a reduction when adjusted for inflation. In the &#8220;same &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,1135,1004,1088,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-energy","category-finance","category-real-estate","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196256"}],"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=196256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}