The BEA has released Personal Income and Outlays report for July. This report covers individual income, consumption and savings and was released earlier in the week. Personal consumption expenditures, called by the press consumer spending, increased 0.8% and in real dollars, increased 0.5% from June to July.
The Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for July 2011 was released today. New orders overall increased 2.4%. Removing transportation (which includes aircraft) from the numbers, new orders increased 0.9%, so things aren't as good as they seem. Air-o-plane new orders, not defense, shot up 43.4%.
ADP, released their proprietary private payrolls August jobs report. This month ADP is reporting a gain of 91,000 private sector jobs in August. July 2011 was revised down to 109,000, from 114,000. In July, the BLS reported 154,000 private sector jobs.
Early in his tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke promised to make the workings of monetary policy more transparent. By golly – that’s exactly what he’s done! We no longer read the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee as if they contain hidden messages as to where policy might go in the future. We even bother to notice who is voting which way; gone are the days when every vote had to be unanimous because any no vote would be considered the equivalent of stabbing the Chairman in the back. These days, the people who vote no want their name out there in bright lights and their reasons spelled out in glorious detail.
The minutes released this week for the August FOMC meeting are a treasure trove of transparency. There is so much transparency because these people at the FOMC don’t know what to do. Some want more Quantitative Easing, but they don’t agree on the form it should take: add even more securities to the Fed’s gargantuan balance sheet (now equal to 4% of the entire GDP of the economy); or, sell some short term securities and buy long term securities in order to manipulate long term rates lower, yet keep the overall Fed balance sheet total unchanged.
The Federal Reserve released the August 9th FOMC meeting minutes and now the world of Wall Street is all ablaze, afire with more quantitative easing dreams and desires.
The FOMC meeting minutes paragraph causing the stir is this:
The S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a -4.5% decline from a year ago over 20 metropolitan housing markets and a -3.8% decline for the top 10 housing markets from June 2010.
Who is Alan Krueger? More importantly, is anyone in this administration going to propose solid legislation and policies, well thought out in detail, that will actually work to get America back to work? Bottom line, it looks like the same ole party line and finding anywhere Krueger has crossed it comes up empty.
Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.
Hurricane Hype for Advertising Bucks
In the wee hours of Saturday morning, MSNBC had some knuckle head reporter position himself on the Outer Banks so it gave the illusion waves were lapping at his back. Stay Safe was said during every interview in a voice of dire concern, the reporter would be swept out to sea, live on air. With that, we bring you Get Real: Hurricane Irene Should Be Renamed Hurricane Hype:
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