{"id":196674,"date":"2008-04-02T16:49:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-02T21:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/04\/02\/economics-update-488\/"},"modified":"2008-04-02T16:49:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-02T21:49:00","slug":"economics-update-488","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/04\/02\/economics-update-488\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s see, we have Bernanke, testifying before the Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, saying that there is just the slightest possibility that the US Economy might possibly be slipping into a recession<\/a>, which is Fed speak for, we are totally boned.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, the US dollar tumbles<\/a>, because recession=further rate cuts.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, given the current nature of the credit markets, the Fed could lower interest rates to zero and it wouldn’t lower short term rates. They are pushing on a string, and people are unsure about the amount of risk, so rates won’t go down.<\/p>\n

On quick numbers, we have new mortgage applications falling 29%<\/a> (refi is way down too), oil prices rising<\/a>, up to about $101.20\/bbl, and gas prices at a record high<\/a>, $3.287\/gal.<\/p>\n

On the good news side, ADP’s private report is showing an increase in private sector payrolls<\/a>, though I would rever the reader to this article on underemployment<\/span><\/a>, which points to growing numbers of people working part time jobs, a sign of employment weakness, for some context:<\/p>\n

Keith Hall, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which prepares the monthly jobs reports, said in Congressional testimony last month that this broader measure [underemployment report] stood at 8.9% in February, up from 8.1% a year ago.<\/p>\n

“We’ve clearly had a broad weakening in the labor market,” Hall said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My perspective, and I am<\/span> an mechanical engineer, which means that I value tangible goods in my world view, is that the fact that factory orders are still declining<\/a>, -2.5% in January, and -1.3% in February, is a better indicator, though I also consider the fact that car sales tanked last month<\/a>, including Toyota<\/span>, significant too.<\/p>\n

Of course, economists, and other such folks, tend to look at consumer spending, so the fact that Discover Financial Services reported that its consumer spending confidence index is down<\/a> might be a bigger deal for them.<\/p>\n

In real estate, we have Manhattan condo and Co-op sales collapsing<\/a>. It appears that the market is now crushing, “location, location, location”.<\/p>\n

And on the more surreal side of real estate, we are finding an epidemic of copper pipe theft from abandoned homes<\/a>. The hed is a real eye catcher, “ Some homes worth less than their copper pipes<\/span>“.<\/p>\n

This makes the USA sound like it’s suffering from Baghdad level looting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s see, we have Bernanke, testifying before the Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, saying that there is just the slightest possibility that the US Economy might possibly be slipping into a recession, which is Fed speak for, we are totally boned. Not surprisingly, the US dollar tumbles, because recession=further rate cuts. Truth be told, given the …<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-employment","category-energy","category-finance","category-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196674"}],"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=196674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}