{"id":196984,"date":"2008-03-10T20:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-11T01:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/03\/10\/economics-update-504\/"},"modified":"2008-03-10T20:34:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-11T01:34:00","slug":"economics-update-504","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/03\/10\/economics-update-504\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure if it even qualifies as news any more, but
oil hit a new record today<\/a>, topping $107\/bbl. Gasoline prices are following this trend<\/a>, with prices rising $0.09\/gallon over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

When this is combined with the fact that houshold wealth fell by $533 billion, (3.6% apr)<\/a>, in q4 of 2007. That’s without<\/span> considering inflation. <\/p>\n

When inflation is taken into account, all<\/span> of 2007 is down.<\/p>\n

In the ever entertaining world of the monoliner insurance, MBIA, is asking Fitch to stop rating its insurance units<\/a>. They think that Fitch’s model is inaccurate, because Fitch is still considering a downgrade.<\/p>\n

MBIA is insolvent, Fitch gets it, and S&P and Moody’s don’t.<\/p>\n

As a result of this, we are seeing more of the non-profit and state run college lenders unable to secure financing<\/a>, and hence unable to make loans.<\/p>\n

Remember, these loans cannot be discharged by bankruptcy, and they are federally guaranteed, and no one will buy the paper<\/span>.<\/p>\n

This might explain why Lehman Bros. is cutting 5% of its workforce<\/a>, about 1400 jobs.<\/p>\n

One bit of good news is that China’s trade surplus dropped 63% in February<\/a>, though one wonders how much of that is currencies readjusting, how much is a slowdown in the world economy, and how much is the winter storm that shut down the country for about a week.<\/p>\n

BTW, its official, Malaysia is a Kleptocracy. That’s the only way to explain why, following a defeat that kept the National Front in the majority, but at less than 2\/3, that the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index fell so sharply that they had to shut down trading<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This wasn’t even a change in party rule, just a drop below 2\/3, and everyone was scrambling to get out because their business positions were predicated on corruption. <\/p>\n

O happy day.<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, things are not much better in the US, where hedge funds are seeing margin calls on US treasuries<\/a>. If treasuries go bad, forget the Honda full of silver, you need ammunition and canned goods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure if it even qualifies as news any more, but oil hit a new record today, topping $107\/bbl. Gasoline prices are following this trend, with prices rising $0.09\/gallon over the past two weeks. When this is combined with the fact that houshold wealth fell by $533 billion, (3.6% apr), in q4 of 2007. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1261,973,975,1135,1004,1016],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bubble","category-economy","category-employment","category-energy","category-finance","category-international-commerce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196984"}],"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=196984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}