Dale Franks
Observations: The QandO Podcast for 14 Apr 13
This week, Michael and Dale discuss Kermit Gosnell and the UK.
The direct link to the podcast can be found here.
As a reminder, if you are an iTunes user, don’t forget to subscribe to the QandO podcast, Observations, through iTunes. For those of you who don’t have iTunes, you can subscribe at Podcast Alley. And, of course, for you newsreader subscriber types, our podcast RSS Feed is here.
Economic Statistics for 12 Apr 13
Here are today’s statistics on the state of the economy:
Falling gas prices sent Producer Prices down by -0.6% in March, the though the core PPI rate rose 0.2%. On a year over year basis, the PPI is up 1.1%, and the core PPI is up 1.7%.
Retail sales fell a disappointing -0.4% in March. Sales were also down -0.4% ex-autos, and down -0.1% ex-autos and gas.
The Reuter’s/University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index fell 6.7 points in the first April reading to 72.3.
Business inventories were steady in February, rising only 0.1%. A 1.2% increase in sales drove down the stock-to-sales ratio to a lean 1.28.
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Dale Franks
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Economic Statistics for 11 Apr 13
Here are today’s statistics on the state of the economy:
The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index stayed steady at –34.0 this week.
March chain-store sales were mixed with 9 retail chains reporting higher year-on-year sales rates, 7 reporting lower rates, and 1 unchanged.
Initial jobless claims fell 42,000 last week to 346,000. The 4-week average rose 3,750 to 358,000. Continuing claims fell by 12,000.
Import prices fell 0.5% in March, with the year-on-year rate at -2.7%. Export prices fell -0.4% with the year-on-year rate up 0.3%.
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Dale Franks
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Economic Statistics for 10 Apr 13
Here are today’s statistics on the state of the economy:
The MBA reports mortgage applications rose 4.5%. Purchases fell -1.0% while re-fis rose 6.0%.
The Treasury reports that March’s fiscal deficit came in at $106.5 billion, well below analyst’s expectations.
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Dale Franks
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Economic Statistics for 09 Apr 13
Here are today’s statistics on the state of the economy:
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index dropped 1.3 points in march to 89.5, 1.2 points below the recovery average.
February wholesale inventories fell -0.3%, while sales rose 1.7%, pulling the stock-to-sales ratio down to 1.19.
In weekly retail sales, Redbook reports a 2.5% year-on-year sales increase, as sales slowed following the Easter week. ICSC-Goldman store sales rose 0.7% in the week, with sales up a soft 2.1% year-over-year.
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Dale Franks
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Observations: The QandO Podcast for 07 Apr 13
This week, Bruce, Michael and Dale discuss the events of the week.
The direct link to the podcast can be found here.
As a reminder, if you are an iTunes user, don’t forget to subscribe to the QandO podcast, Observations, through iTunes. For those of you who don’t have iTunes, you can subscribe at Podcast Alley. And, of course, for you newsreader subscriber types, our podcast RSS Feed is here.
Economic Statistics for 5 Apr 13
The BLS reports non-farm payroll jobs increased by only 88,000 in March, while the unemployment level fell 0.1% to 7.6%. Private payrolls increased only 95,000. Average hourly earnings were unchanged, while the average workweek increased a single tick to 34.6 hours. The internals of the report are uniformly bad. The labor force participation rate fell to 63.3%, the lowest since May, 1979. 496,000 people left the labor force since last month, as it fell from 155,524,000 to 155,028,000. The number of persons who declared themselves employed in the household survey fell from 143,492,000 to 143,286,000, a decline of 206,000. The number of persons not in the labor force rose 663,000 to 89,967,000. The employment to population ratio is back down to 58.5, matching the lows of the 2009-2010 recession, and the historic lows of the 1978-1982 period. While it will probably be reported as a "bright spot" in an otherwise dreary employment report, even the drop in the official unemployment rate is bad, in that it is merely a reflection of the fact the people are leaving the labor force faster than new jobs can be created. So many people have left the labor force that the official unemployment rates are essentially useless. This month’s huge drop in the size of the labor force caused the U-6 unemployment rate, the broadest official measure of unemployment, to fall sharply from 14.3% last month to 13.8%. In actuality, using the historical average labor force participation rate, the real rate of unemployment jumped from 11.47% to 11.65%, the highest since Jan, 2012. There is simply nothing good in this report.
The US trade balanced narrowed slightly in February to $-43.0 billion from $-44.4 billion the previous month.
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Dale Franks
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Economic Statistics for 4 Apr 13
Here are today’s statistics on the state of the economy:
The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index was essentially unchanged in the latest week, at -34.1.
The Challenger Job-Cut Report reports that there were 49,255 announced layoff in March, substantially higher than the year-ago total of 37,880.
Initial jobless claims rose a sharp 28,000 to 385,000. The 4-week average rose 11,250 to 354,250. Continuing claims fell 8,000 to 3.067 million.
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Dale Franks
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Economic Statistics for 3 Apr 13
Here are today’s statistics on the state of the economy:
The MBA reports mortgage applications fell -4.0% last week. While purchases were up 1.0%, re-fis fell -6.0%.
ADP’s Employment Report for March shows a weak 158,000 new private payroll jobs, pointing to weakness in Friday’s Employment Situation.
The ISM Non-Mfg Index fell 1.6 points to 54.4 in March. The employment component fell a sharp 3.9 points.
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Dale Franks
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Some sanity, sad as it is
It’s not often one finds a dose of sanity in the New York Times. When one does, it should be celebrated, rather than ignored. In this case, the sanity comes from David Stockman, former budget director for President Reagan. His bottom line is no different than what I’ve been predicting since 2009. It’s just as gloomy:
[T]he Main Street economy is failing while Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation’s bills. By default, the Fed has resorted to a radical, uncharted spree of money printing. But the flood of liquidity, instead of spurring banks to lend and corporations to spend, has stayed trapped in the canyons of Wall Street, where it is inflating yet another unsustainable bubble.
When it bursts, there will be no new round of bailouts like the ones the banks got in 2008. Instead, America will descend into an era of zero-sum austerity and virulent political conflict, extinguishing even today’s feeble remnants of economic growth.
He calls it a state-wreck, which is exactly what it is. An arrogant government that thinks it can fix everything, help everyone, and create money out of nothing has corrupted the markets & political culture, and mortgaged our future.
Even now, the Fed, after two previous rounds of "monetary stimulus"—code words for creating en ever larger supply of "money"—is dumping $44 billion cash into the market every month. And where it going? Creating millions of new jobs? No. It’s just going to Wall Street, where the equity markets have hit an all-time high.
The wheels have been wobbling for the last five years. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, they’ll simply…come off, and then we shall see what we see.
Read the whole article. Save it. Print it out. Keep it. That way, you’ll be be able to show your children how the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the earth committed suicide.
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Dale Franks
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