Updated jobs analysis: from January 2001 to April 2008, only 3.8 million private-sector jobs -- all accounted for by private health care bureaucracies, bars and restaurants.
Manufacturing lost -3.5 million jobs; more than 1-in-5 Manufacturing jobs were lost in the last 7 ¼ yrs.
Over the period:
Textile Mills lost -57.2% of their jobs;
Apparel manufacturers lost -56.8% of their jobs;
Communications Equipment manufacturers lost -46.9% of their jobs;
Industrial production declined 0.7 percent in April, the Federal Reserve said in Washington today, more than twice the drop forecast by economists. Separate figures from the New York and Philadelphia branches of the central bank indicated the slide may continue this month.
The stock market is up big today on two pieces of news.
First of all, Freddie Mac only lost $151 million last quarter. This news has pushed their stocks up nearly 10%.
The other piece of news was that consumer price inflation was only 0.2% higher last month.
And if you believe these pieces of news then I have a bridge in New York City to sell you.
I have reviewed statements of finance ministers from the G7 nations in which they admitted they were undertaking secret actions out of the public eye for fear that public knowledge of their actions would destroy the very effectiveness of their actions. To me, this sounds like an incredible admission of propping up action.
Okay so either I am an absolute idiot, or haven't had enough coffee this morning, but for the life of me I can't make any sense of today's retail sales data...especially the part about autos.
We see that "car dealers suffered a 2.8% drop in sales in April, adding to the .5% drop in March".
So what is wrong with that you ask. Well try this...
Imagine my surprise, by happenstance, to find Former President Bill Clinton making a campaign stop in my small town. I live on the Oregon coast. Rugged, rural and even to get out here is no trivial travel matter. So, the prospect of seeing a former President speak in person, in an area I knew didn't have the population to draw thousands of people, I flew out the door and stood in the damp foggy weather. Oops, I forgot my coat.
So, I won't bother you with the speech on the Presidential campaign but Bill went into some detail on a couple of issues with alternative energy that really caught my ear.
That is batteries and transmission lines. Right now there are experimental plug-in cars which can get 105 mpg and the roadblock in getting them into mass production is batteries. Lithium Ion Batteries to be exact.
The blogs are full of it. Thousands of bits in cyberspace declaring the Democratic primary is over before it is over, misogynistic rhetoric abounds, talk of somehow this is a great political realignment and if you aren't paying attention you would swear the second coming of Christ is upon us.
There are those of us who actually pay attention to policy positions, who want the new political realignment to be about policy change. Are we really going to get that? Well, frankly I don't think so and this is why.
Firstly, there are 49% of Democratic voters who are having their candidate of choice ripped a new one daily in the main stream press and in the blogs. That's half of all those who voted in the Democratic primary.
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