Economic Statistics for 7 Oct 11
Today is a big day for economic numbers:
The Labor department reports that 103,000 new non-farm payroll jobs were added last month, a slightly higher than expected number, while the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.1%. The devil is in the details, as always, and the details are not quite as pretty. 322,000 people dropped out of the labor force last month, and the labor force participation rate declined to 64.2%, the third straight monthly decline. On the plus side, the number of people employed continued to increase, rising to 140,502,000, an increase of 3 million employed since January. Also, the broadest measure of labor underutilization, the U-6 unemployment rate, also continued to fall to 15.7%. The picture is decidedly mixed, which is, all things considered, an improvement over the picture a year ago.
Wholesale inventories rose only 0.4% in August, and the stock-to-sales ratio remained unchanged at 1.16.
Consumer credit rose to $12.0 billion outstanding in July, mainly on auto sales. This is an old number, so is mainly of academic interest.
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Dale Franks
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Spain and Italy got credit rating downgrades today. Look at all the teeth gnashing over the repetitive bailouts of Greece. Greece is a small potato compared to Spain or Italy. In short, Europe is still a basket case of debt.
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In the same month, Canada added 61,000 new jobs, many in construction.
Converting that number to the USA experience, that would mean a 10x multiplier . . . or 610,000 jobs.
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That’s SIX HUNDRED and TEN THOUSAND jobs.
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The benefits of a conservative Prime Minister who preached restraint vs President Hopey Changey.
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We feel for Americans at this time. Please vote Obamassiah out of office . . . he’s an economic moron.
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I own a few Canadian stocks, and it looks like the loony weakening and a quarter of negative growth is hitting Canada…or did you just tell me things are getting better?
Watching unemployment is important, but if we measured ‘employment’ we’d see a collapsing graph of the data, instead of a rising graph.
You see! You see! The stimulus is working!