The November 2010 monthly unemployment figures are out. The official unemployment rate increased to 9.8% and the total jobs gained were 39,000, with 39,500 of those jobs being temporary. Yes, you read that right, there were more temporary jobs created than the finally tally of jobs.
The November 2010 ISM Manufacturing Survey is out and PMI came in at 56.6%. October 2010 manufacturing ISM was 56.9%. This is a -0.3% decrease in the factory index. While this is the 16th month for expansion (anything above 50 is an expansion), this is another flat line on the manufacturing ISM.
What do you get when you cross Tim Geithner and Peter Peterson?
Barack Obama; who would rather help the big banks and "balance" the budget than offer a helping hand for struggling homeowners. (Image)
The president demonstrated new heights of indifference toward the people in his handling of the mortgage relief program made a part of the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP). Citizens paid the full share for TARP and were to get a modest proportion. That's not the case. The November 2010 Congressional Budget Office Report on TARP was just issued. It showed that the funds for home mortgage assistance programs would be reduced from $50 billion to $12 billion, as reported in the Huffington Post.
Reading the details of the report, we find that the take back from homeowner relief through TARP funds is even more outrageous. The actual funds spent so far for homeowner relief is only $710 million.
The ADP report for November 2010 it out and ADP is reporting a gain of 93,000 private sector jobs. This is the biggest job gain in 3 years. Even more encouraging, the October private sector jobs numbers were revised, from 43,000 to 82,000. That's almost double what was originally reported. Now don't get your panties all in a bunch, this still is not enough to lower unemployment.
The Federal Reserve released 21,000 transactions, mainly short term loans, from the financial crisis.
Many of the transactions, conducted through a variety of broad-based lending facilities, provided liquidity to financial institutions and markets through fully secured, mostly short-term loans. Purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) supported mortgage and housing markets, lowered longer-term interest rates, and fostered economic growth. Dollar liquidity swap lines with foreign central banks helped stabilize dollar funding markets abroad, thus contributing to the restoration of stability in U.S. markets. Other transactions provided liquidity to particular institutions whose disorderly failure could have severely stressed an already fragile financial system.
As financial conditions have improved, the need for the broad-based facilities has dissipated, and most were closed earlier this year. The Federal Reserve followed sound risk-management practices in administering all of these programs, incurred no credit losses on programs that have been wound down, and expects to incur no credit losses on the few remaining programs. These facilities were open to participants that met clearly outlined eligibility criteria; participation in them reflected the severe market disruptions during the financial crisis and generally did not reflect participants' financial weakness.
Here's what's available from the Fed's press release:
Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (AMLF)
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