September 2009

"These jobs are not coming back"

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The unemployment rate climbed to 9.7% last month, a 26-year high...and the media told us that this is a good thing.

“[W]hether or not today’s and other recent reports overstate the case, the improving trend of the labor market after the autumn/winter carnage cannot be denied.

Ah, yes. The trend.
First of all, let's be clear what trend we are talking about. We've lost a lot of jobs, and we are still losing them - that is the trend.
Trying to spin that into a good thing is like putting lipstick on a pig. For the job situation to be "improving" requires that we stop losing jobs.

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The Unemployment Rate is Bad! 9.7%

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The BLS has released the unemployment rate for August 2009.

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in August (-216,000), and the unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Although job losses continued in many of the major industry sectors in August, the declines have moderated in recent months.

According to the BLS, this is the highest rate since 1983.

Treasury Dept. Changes Its Mission [UPDATED]

Its new mission:

To protect the financial oligarchy".

There is a quote that is so appropriate for what the Obama Administration particularly via the Treasury Department are doing:

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

--Albert Einstein

Check out the Obama Administration's last appointment to the Treasury Department. He's name is Jeffrey Goldstein. Mr. Goldstein has a HUGE potential conflict of interest:

Treasury Nominee Owes at Least $10.5 Million for Investments

That is right Mr. Goldstein, as partner of a private equity firm, owes millions of dollars to the firm he belongs to.

Stimulus being offshore outsourced via "waivers"

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We already know Stimulus money has been used to offshore outsource jobs and now we have a new tactic to avoid the meager Buy American clause....waivers.

The Boston Globe, in Stimulus work sends cash flowing out of US gives us the story.

As local governments race to spend stimulus money, many are seeking exemptions from the law’s “Buy American’’ restrictions, which were intended to prevent taxpayer money from ending up in foreign pockets.

The administration has granted waivers for goods as varied as steel for public housing projects, high-speed Internet equipment, and Auburn’s manhole covers, which have heavy-duty hinges to help withstand the town’s heavy truck traffic.

OECD Revised Economic Outlook

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The OECD has revised it's global economic outlook for the rest of this year.

The OECD forecasts economic growth across the Group of Seven countries to fall by 3.7% this year, a less brutal contraction than the 4.1% drop projected in June 2009. The latest GDP forecasts for this year provide slightly improved outlooks for Japan and the Euro area, an unchanged overall projection for the US but point to a gloomier situation in the UK.

Now note the OECD has the U.S. GDP growth projections unchanged at +1.6% for Q3 2009 and +2.4% for Q4, 2009. But what is interesting is Q3 is within the margin of error of 1.9% and Q4 projections are at the margin of error, 2.4%.

Student Debt up 25% from a year ago, while 33% of workers below age 35 live with parents

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From the Wall Street Journal:

Students are borrowing dramatically more to pay for college, accelerating a trend that has wide-ranging implications for a generation of young people.

New numbers from the U.S. Education Department show that federal student-loan disbursements—the total amount borrowed by students and received by schools—in the 2008-09 academic year grew about 25% over the previous year, to $75.1 billion. The amount of money students borrow has long been on the rise. But last year far surpassed past increases, which ranged from as low as 1.7% in the 1998-99 school year to almost 17% in 1994-95, according to figures used in President Barack Obama's proposed 2010 budget.

Why it's nuts to watch the weekly initial unemployment claims - Initial Claims for Aug. 29

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For the week of August 29, the new release is here.

In the week ending Aug. 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 570,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 574,000. The 4-week moving average was 571,250, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's revised average of 567,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.7 percent for the week ending Aug. 22, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's unrevised rate of 4.6 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Aug. 22 was 6,234,000, an increase of 92,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 6,142,000. The 4-week moving average was 6,216,750, a decrease of 27,250 from the preceding week's revised average of 6,244,000.

Blackout Blues: NFL not immune to recession

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Do you like to spend your Sunday sitting on the couch watching your favorite local pro football team on the TV? Then this might not be your season.

Two teams — the San Diego Chargers and the Jacksonville Jaguars— say it's likely they will have home TV blackouts this season due to an inability to sell out their stadiums. At least 10 other teams could also face blackouts.
"People are having it tough down here," Jaguars senior VP of business development Tim Connolly said. "People are watching their dollars and they're being tighter than ever."

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