'Safe as Houses!'

Greetings good citizen,

I’ll spare you the report of how the only economic indicator we have performed today because if you aren’t rich, it doesn’t matter.

Although how the market performs influences which stories I select. When I logged on this morning the markets were down, not a lot, but, as it turns out, they stayed down all damn day.

Naturally, I look for a story (headline) that might contain the answer for why the market is performing the way it is. In that respect, you really have to hand it to the MSM. They aren’t very good at reporting the truth but damn it, you can’t fault their readiness to provide simple, speedy (even if they’re dead wrong) explanations.

Sadly good citizen, I’ve charged off the reservation and provided you with the wrong first impression of tonight’s first offering when tonight’s second offering contains the explanation (regardless of how implausible) for today’s market performance…

US Home Building Unexpectedly Slumps in October

By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Published: November 18, 2009

New home construction slowed unexpectedly in October to the lowest level in six months, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, resurrecting fears that the housing market may be slow to recover. [Um, Jesus, what’s so ‘surprising’ about this? Over 90% of the country is headed into winter, what the hell do they expect? Worse, it’s not like we ‘need’ the houses!]

A separate report showed consumer prices inched upward in October, but not enough to make inflation a concern even as the dollar weakens and interest rates remain at historic lows. [ya know, ‘interest rates’ don’t have anything to do with inflation yet our pal ‘Ben-Ber’ keeps pointing to low interest rates as the reason he’s confident we won’t experience runaway inflation…no, it’s not ‘interest rates’ that cause inflation, it’s ‘devaluation’. As your money becomes increasingly worthless, you have to print more to buy less shit and viola! We have inflation!]

The data on home construction showed a decline in the rate of single- and multiple-family homebuilding, contributing to an overall decrease of 10.6 percent in housing starts from September. In total, construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 529,000 housing units in October, falling short of the 590,000 predicted by analysts. Building permits, an indicator of future construction, declined as well, to an annual rate of 552,000 from 575,000, also falling short of forecasts. [Predicted by ‘analysts’…the fuckers are forever wrong so the only ones ‘surprised’ by their missed predictions are the freaking clueless media people!]

Apartment construction slowed to a historic low, dipping to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 53,000 in October. Analysts attributed the decrease to the reluctance of banks to finance large construction projects and lackluster demand for rentals as vacancies remained abundant. [Stop right there good citizen…this is another seriously ‘bad’ indicator that nobody is paying attention to…where the fuck are all of the people who are losing their homes going if they aren’t renting apartments? Some of them, not many and certainly not most, go ‘home’. If not to their parents house then to a sibling’s residence…but isn’t not having enough money/credit/’fill in the blank’ to rent a stinking apartment make matters that much worse?]

Part of the overall decline in housing construction might be explained by the uncertainty in October over whether Congress would extend a tax credit for first-time home buyers. Earlier this month, lawmakers voted to extend the credit through April, but builders may have been reluctant to begin construction in October without assurance that homes would be bought. [As many besides myself have pointed out, using taxpayer funds to ‘subsidize’ the purchase of a new home (especially when those homes are still at inflated prices) doesn’t help anyone but the bankers]

The revival of the housing market is considered crucial to reviving the economy. Construction adds jobs to the economy, and once a home is sold, consumers typically go on spending sprees as they stock up on furnishings like televisions, refrigerators and sofas. [Um, missing from this cozy little tableau is the ‘true’ value of the property. Home situated in present or future ‘economic deserts’ have no chance of being sold for a profit no matter how long you ‘hold on’ to them. Until our economy is straightened out, buying a home is an exercise in futility…]

“These figures can be pretty volatile from month to month, so it may just be a blip,” Paul Ashworth, senior United States economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note on Wednesday. “Nevertheless, taken at face value it suggests homebuilders are still uncertain about the sustainability of the rebound in home sales.” [For pretty much the same reasons I lay out above.]

Celia Chen, senior director at Moody’s Economy.com, said demand for homes would likely remain weak into 2010. [But what does Celia Chen know? Nothing! What you can count on is come 2010 and housing demand is still in the doldrums, you know Celia will revise her prediction into 2011 or 2012…]

“The housing market is still very fragile,” she said. “It seems that the market has bottomed in terms of sales and starts, but that stability can be easily broken, even if affordability is very high.” [Um, affordability is ‘relative’. People who can easily afford an expensive home don’t hesitate to purchase two or three, but those people are rare (and the ‘utility’ of having/maintaining more than two homes is what prevents people from ‘accumulating’ them by the dozen. If you have that kind of money, you usually don’t have the time to ‘make use’ of more than two or three ‘bases of operation’.]

The Labor Department’s report on consumer prices showed the Consumer Price Index climbed 0.3 percent, slightly above analysts’ estimates of 0.2 percent. The index measures the changes in the cost of a bundle of goods for consumers — everything from cooking oil to airplane tickets to medical care. [Naturally the big problem with CPI is it ‘ignores’ food & fuel, rendering its ‘usefulness’ as a measuring tool moot.]

The increases came because of rising energy and motor vehicle costs, the report said. When the government excluded the cost of food and energy, which can be volatile, prices rose 0.2 percent. [Two hundredths of a percent isn’t much but it is well known that the current method of computing CPI grossly understates the real rate of inflation…]

The prices of cars and trucks showed steep increases. Analysts said that could be a side effect of the government’s popular cash-for-clunkers program, which depleted the supply of both cheaper 2009 models and used vehicles, driving up prices. [Um, you don’t suppose the need to pay back the government subsidies has influenced the price of US assembled/sold vehicles?]

The small increase in consumer prices signaled that inflationary pressures, by and large, appear to be in check, restrained by the nation’s high unemployment rate and significant unused factory capacity. On Tuesday, a report on wholesale prices showed similar results, though there were signs that higher prices might be on the horizon. [I’ve noticed this low inflation ‘meme is getting a lot of play recently, especially in light of the fact that the dollar is plummeting relative to other ‘world currencies’. The dollar is sinking like a rock and it will soon take more of them to purchase the same basket of goods…a basket of goods that will be getting lighter as ‘food insecurity’ becomes more severe.]

“Effectively, this gives the Federal Reserve a checkered flag to keep rates exceptionally low for an extended period of time,” said Brian Bethune, chief United States financial economist for IHS Global Insight.

Um, since ‘A’ leads to ‘B’, food insecurity will lead to other kinds of insecurity as the tempo of crime accelerates to plug the gaps left by the slowdown in ‘the productive economy’.

Worse good citizen, we’ve been here before. It wasn’t that long ago although people under fifty might have a hard time remembering what it was like back in the Seventies. Anyone who remembers the premise behind the ‘Death Wish’ movies knows they were ‘reality based’. (Which is a bit misleading, We aren’t talking a real incident but the situation the movie described was what you’d really experience if you ventured alone, unarmed in the dark places of the ‘concrete jungle’)

Not only was ‘mugging’ a commonplace event that could strike anywhere, but it also wasn’t unusual for muggers to murder their victims.

Strangely, many of the muggings were blamed on welfare recipients, not something that was actually proven but you know how politicians are…they don’t want to solve a problem as much as they want to ‘appear’ to be doing something about it. It’s an appeasement thing politicians love to embrace.

Anyway, they finally got the muggers off the streets by turning them into cops…but that’s another story.

So we arrive at tonight’s http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/business/19markets.html?ref=business/> second offering which, as promised, speaks directly to today’s lousy market performance.

Stocks Off to Sluggish Start on Wall Street

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 18, 2009

Stocks were lower Wednesday in early trading on Wall Street after a report showed housing starts dropped unexpectedly in October.

The Commerce Department said construction of new homes and apartments fell 10.6 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 529,000 units. Economists forecast a rate of 590,000.

A report on inflation showed prices at the retail level rose 0.3 percent last month, slightly ahead of the 0.2 percent economists’ expected.

The fall in the housing starts could stoke concerns that the economic recovery in the world’s largest economy will not be as strong as many in the markets have been predicting. Stock markets have rallied strongly since March as investors reined in their economic doomsday expectations partly because of a recovery in the property market. [Um, notice they are still talking up how the US is the ‘world’s largest economy’…what are they going to say when it isn’t anymore? I’d say it is already factually untrue to label the US as the world’s largest economy although US multi-national companies are among the world’s strongest, the question is how much the US is involved in making them strong…I’d say not so much.]

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 16.86, or 0.2 percent, at 10,420.56. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 0.88, or 0.1 percent, at 1,109.44, while the Nasdaq composite index was down 5.17, or 0.2 percent, at 2,198.61. [While the ‘stupidity index’ didn’t finish in positive territory, it did close higher than these pre-noon figures indicate.]

European stocks were higher.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 15.43 points, or 0.3 percent, at 5,361.36 while Germany’s DAX rose 40.30 points, or 0.7 percent, at 5,818.73. The CAC-40 in France was 28.75 points, or 0.8 percent, higher at 3,857.81.

The dollar mostly fell against other major currencies, while gold prices rose, touching a new record high. Gold rose $8.10 to $1,147.50 an ounce, after rising as high as $1,151.00 earlier in the day.

Traders are keeping a close eye on the dollar, which has a major impact on the movement in commodity and energy price stocks, as well as any suggestions that borrowing costs will be rising sooner than anticipated.

The dollar won a brief respite over the last couple of days after the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and the European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, seemingly tried to talk up the United States currency, which has slid to multiyear lows against the yen and to near 15-month lows against the euro.

Some of the gains made in the early part of the week were lost Wednesday as the euro recovered 0.4 percent to $1.4934 and the dollar fell 0.1 percent to 89.18 yen.

“The dollar downtrend remains intact despite the increased volatility seen over the past week,” said Hans Redeker, global head of foreign exchange strategy at BNP Paribas.Earlier, Japan and Hong Kong led the Asia’s declines, with Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 stock average losing 53.13 points, or 0.6 percent, to 9,676.80 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shedding 73.82, or 0.3 percent, to 22,840.33.

Markets in Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand also fell.

Oil prices rose further, closing in on $80 barrel after an unexpected drop in U.S. crude supplies suggested demand could be improving. Benchmark crude for December delivery was up 48 cents to $79.62 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Dunno why the lying bastards bought up oil prices, which remain stalled around $80 a barrel, where they’ve been for the past two months.

The last time the Dow made it to the 10,400 level it ‘masturbated’ in this range for close to a year before (inexplicably) bounding higher…talk about funky little tidbits that ‘stick in your head’.

Hard to say what’s more frightening, the widespread ‘dis-information’ being spouted about the causes of inflation or the fact that those in charge of ‘repairing’ the economy are the ones spreading these fairy tales!

Hell, stocks are going up as the dollar dives! In fact, the dollar has lost what, 18% over the past few weeks alone? We have absolutely no clue as to why this is happening (now instead of months ago) but we do know nothing is being done to reverse the slide…which isn’t very surprising, considering who is in charge.

Left unanswered is whether or not you will ‘eventually’ need a wheelbarrow full of cash to purchase a loaf of bread and it is my opinion that you will, regardless of what the pundits think.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The worst is yet to come!

Greetings good citizen,

The ‘Stupidity Index’ managed to finish in positive territory today so, by extension, everything should be just ducky! The markets are going up so people are working, happy and preparing for the Holidays…except that they’re not.

As most of you are well aware, this variety of misleading ‘eyewash’ leaves us unprepared to deal with the coming crisis...

What crisis is coming? The crisis is over, there’s no crisis coming…except that there is.

Wait a minute! Everything is just fine, hell the markets have just posted new highs for the year!

Uh, you don’t have to take my word for it…have a gander at tonight’s offering straight from the website of ‘Dr. Doom’.

The Worst is yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses

by Nouriel Roubini

Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%. [And most think even that figure is low…]

While losing 200,000 jobs per month is better than the 700,000 jobs lost in January, current job losses still average more than the per month rate of 150,000 during the last recession. Also, remember: The last recession ended in November 2001, but job losses continued for more than a year and half until June of 2003; ditto for the 1990-91 recession. So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back.

There's really just one hope for our leaders to turn things around: a bold prescription that increases the fiscal stimulus with another round of labor-intensive, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, helps fiscally strapped state and local governments and provides a temporary tax credit to the private sector to hire more workers. Helping the unemployed just by extending unemployment benefits is necessary not sufficient; it leads to persistent unemployment rather than job creation. [Um, sadly, none of that will work, the best place to start is a halving of the workweek, instantly doubling the workforce. Couple that with making the ‘stack of lumber’ free and prosperity returns pretty much instantly.]

The long-term picture for workers and families is even worse than current job loss numbers alone would suggest. Now as a way of sharing the pain, many firms are telling their workers to cut hours, take furloughs and accept lower wages. Specifically, that fall in hours worked is equivalent to another 3 million full time jobs lost on top of the 7.5 million jobs formally lost. This is very bad news but we must face facts. Many of the lost jobs are gone forever, including construction jobs, finance jobs and manufacturing jobs. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of U.S. jobs are fully out-sourceable over time to other countries. [And as long as the cretin bankers continue to manipulate the value of our currency, the situation isn’t going to improve.]

Other measures tell the same ugly story: The average length of unemployment is at an all time high; the ratio of job applicants to vacancies is 6 to 1; initial claims are down but continued claims are very high and now millions of unemployed are resorting to the exceptional extended unemployment benefits programs and are staying in them longer. Based on my best judgment, it is most likely that the unemployment rate will peak close to 11% and will remain at a very high level for two years or more. [What we should all be asking ourselves is why we will stop bleeding jobs two years from now? Nobody is saying that in two years our labor force will be so beaten down that we will finally be ‘competitive’…why will this suddenly change in two years and not two decades, like it’s been for Japan?]

The weakness in labor markets and the sharp fall in labor income ensure a weak recovery of private consumption and an anemic recovery of the economy, and increases the risk of a double dip recession. As a result of these terribly weak labor markets, we can expect weak recovery of consumption and economic growth; larger budget deficits; greater delinquencies in residential and commercial real estate and greater fall in home and commercial real estate prices; greater losses for banks and financial institutions on residential and commercial real estate mortgages, and in credit cards, auto loans and student loans and thus a greater rate of failures of banks; and greater protectionist pressures. [What slays me good citizen is how economists can follow the trail that far and stop short of the next step…why do they think civil order will remain intact under such arduous conditions? Worse, they totally miss why money supplies become so bloated and prices so unwieldy, it is because of the massive drain in value caused by ‘debasing’ the money…that’s why you suddenly need a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread. Understand that even when money is virtually worthless, they still won’t be ‘giving it away’, you’ll either have it or you won’t.]

The damage will be extensive and severe unless bold policy action is undertaken now.

What do you suppose the odds are that you’ll live to see a proposal like the one I make above have of being put into action?

Are the chances roughly the same as a snowball’s chance in Hell or do you think you stand a better chance of having face time with your (alleged) maker?

Worse, how many of you think like Dr. Doom (and pretty much every other economist) that society will remain civil while a vast majority of the people starves to death?

The current unemployment/foreclosure crisis already presents a serious threat to social stability. Perhaps more disturbing is that there is no ‘end’ to the current crisis in sight. Dr. Roubini uses two years but how does he know? It could be two years and it could just as easily be two decades!

Beneath the globalization mandate lies peak oil and the fact that transporting goods to the farthest corners of the earth will soon be cost prohibitive! If it doesn’t grow where you live, you ain’t getting the sumbitch! These ‘freemarket assholes’ can take their ‘anti-protectionist’ bullshit and stick it where the sun don’t shine! If we fail to re-establish our manufacturing sector, we can look forward to permanent ‘Banana Republic’ status…or worse.

Not all forms of ‘genocide’ require gunplay…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Smoke and Mirrors

Greetings good citizen,

Um, there is only one word that describes today’s market action and that word is ‘disturbing’. The stupidity index climbed another 130 points…only it’s not a ‘good thing’ by any stretch of the imagination.

What I find particularly vexing is how assets denominated in US dollars can rise while the dollar falls? Gold will rise in price when dollars lose value but why are stocks behaving like gold? Understandably, the ‘assets’ are convertible into other currencies but it’s disgusting to see the dollar fall while shareowners are ‘rewarded’ for holding stocks.

Um, what is most disturbing about this situation is the same people responsible for destroying the value of our currency aren’t being affected by their own reckless actions.

Despite our pal ‘Timmy’ talking up the dollar (while doing nothing to actually strengthen our currency) the dollar is falling like a rock. The ‘side effect’ of this plunge in the value of our currency is stock prices are rising (making the already wealthy, wealthier!) While people who work for a paycheck see their purchasing power dwindle.

Um, ironically, tonight’s offering does indeed point to this ‘cause and effect’ relationship (the tanking dollar and rising gold) but instead attributes the market’s rise to a totally bogus rise in retail sales.

Retail Sales Numbers Give Markets a Lift

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Our boy ‘Javier’ has since ‘claimed’ this orphan.]
Published: November 16, 2009

Shares on Wall Street rose sharply on Monday after a new report showed retail sales rebounded more than expected in October because of an increase in auto sales. [Right! Um that’s a flat out lie and we all know it! Auto sales have returned to the basement, where they were prior to ‘cash for clunkers’.]

The United States market also followed overseas gains that were propelled by a weakening dollar and stronger gold prices, which again lifted commodities prices and shares of companies that produce raw material(s). [Notice how as purchasing power shrinks, prices rise! Why do you suppose purchasing power is shrinking good citizen? Could it be because we no longer produce anything for ourselves, never mind for anyone else?]

The Commerce Department said retail sales rose 1.4 percent in October, easily surpassing the 0.8 percent increase that economists polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast. It was a sharp rebound from a 2.3 percent decline seen in September.

However, excluding the autos, sales rose just 0.2 percent, half the increase economists predicted, tempering some of the excitement over the data. Futures pulled back slightly after the report. [It looks like the numbers were so pathetic they had to be ‘seasonally adjusted’ which has become short-hand for ‘fabricated to make them appear better than they are’.]

Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of all economic activity. Analysts widely agree a recovery at the consumer level is needed for a strong recovery, especially as government stimulus programs expire and unemployment remains high. [What the nimrods don’t address is how payrolls have been slashed and the average consumer is buried in debt…this hasn’t changed for the vast majority of US consumers who earn less than six figures annually.]

At midmorning, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 123 points, or 1.29 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 16 points, or 1.5 percent, while Nasdaq rose 28 points, or 1.3 percent. [Left unsaid is the ‘true cause’ of that rise, which is most likely the rapidly falling dollar. Worse, for the markets to spike 130 points the dollar lost a lot of value…yet, miraculously, inflation (as measured by the BEA) will remain ‘non-existent’!]

Before the markets opened, General Motors said it lost $1.2 billion in its first quarter since emerging from bankruptcy. Despite the loss, it said it will begin to repay $6.7 billion in government loans and was seeing a stabilization in its business.

The home improvement retailer Lowe’s said its profit dipped 30 percent in the third quarter, but it matched earnings expectations. Despite the declining earnings, Lowe’s said it is seeing stabilization in some of the hardest hit housing markets. [More ‘cherry-picked’ data good citizen. If it weren’t for FHA subsidized ‘liar’s loans’ the housing markets would be seized solid, there is no ‘mortgage money’ out there. Worse, a majority of these sales are to our old pal ‘flipper’, who thinks somebody is going to pay him sky high rent for the string of foreclosed properties he’s snapping up for ‘no money down’…]

Corporate outlooks from the companies will be just as critical as actual quarterly results because they are entering the key holiday shopping season. Disappointing sales through the end of the year could put a halt to the market’s ongoing climb. [Oh really? Well, they don’t want you to know that equity prices are rising solely because the value of the dollar is falling. You’re not supposed to know that can happen!]

Other economic readings on inflation, housing starts and industrial production are due out later in the week and could provide further evidence of the speed of a recovery. The Labor Department also reports its weekly unemployment claims data on Thursday. [This is something they do EVERY Thursday but we need to cut Javier some slack as he’s new around here.]

Bond prices were mixed Monday. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.39 percent from 3.42 percent late Friday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, rose to 0.07 percent from 0.05 percent. [So, how big would a T-Bill have to be to earn a dollar at the hundredths of a percent interest rate?]

The dollar mostly fell against other major currencies, while gold prices continued to climb higher hitting another record. Gold rose $10.40 to $1,127.10 an ounce after hitting a new record of $1,133.50 earlier in the day. I clipped this an hour before noontime but the markets traded basically ‘flat’ for the day…which tells you something else about ‘why’ they really rose…]

In Europe and Asia, stock markets advanced after figures confirmed that Japan, the world’s second-biggest economy, was growing strongly.

European stocks tracked their Asian counterparts higher, with the FTSE 100 in London was shares up 59 points, or 1.1 percent. The DAX in Frankfurt rose 60 points, or 1. percent, while the CAC-40 in Paris was 30 points, or 1 percent, higher. [You may notice a strange ‘cut’ here good citizen, I suspect this article was in the process of being edited when I copied it…]

.

ding teenage clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch and department-store chain J. C. Penney

Stocks have rallied strongly since March’s lows, with many of the world’s major indexes trading at or near their highest levels this year as investors reined in their economic doomsday expectations to factor in a swifter than anticipated global economic rebound. [How’s that for ‘wishful thinking’? ‘Mainstream economist’s’ have been co-opted by both the MSM and Wall Street, so naturally they have ‘reined in’ their ‘doomsday expectations’ while nothing, absolutely nothing has changed for the better… The words missing from all of the recent economic reports are ‘Once upon a Time’…]

Earlier, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average closed up 20.87 points, or 0.2 percent, to 9,791.18 after figures showed the Japanese economy expanded at an annual rate of 4.8 percent in the third quarter. That was the second straight quarter of expansion and the biggest rise since 2007. [Okay bub, once again we’re talking a currency where their dollar equal one of our pennies! The numbers are gi-normous but after you shift the decimal point around you have to ask yourself what the hell they’re so excited about…]

Encouragingly, much of the growth in Japan was due to a rise in consumer spending as opposed to exports. [Um, this is ‘exciting’ only if it doesn’t mean inflation has ‘slipped the leash.’ Increased spending due to higher prices, brought on by devalued currency is definitely not a ‘good thing’…something we will see here; sooner than anyone expects.]

“Growth will inevitably slow in Q4 and beyond, but we expect Japan to continue to surprise the markets on the upside for a few quarters yet,” said Julian Jessop, international economist at Capital Economics.

Again, who is that and why should I give a fuck?

Perhaps more disturbing is how this hellacious story about the tanking dollar is being used to support claims that the economy is ‘recovering’…’quickly’…perhaps it will recover so quickly we won’t notice it ‘recovered and then slipped (just as speedily) into a deep funk again!

Um, Money Trickles North as Mexicans Help Relatives tonight’s second offering is a ‘headline only’ that pretty much sums up the ‘true status’ of the so called ‘economic recovery’ here in the US.

Just how pathetic is that good citizen?

You know you’re in trouble when Mexicans are sending their relations that are stranded up here money to tide them over…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Bait & Switch

Greetings good citizen,

Every once in a while you encounter ‘direct evidence’ regarding the current state of what passes for ‘civilization’. tonight’s offering provides us with an opportunity to explore an issue that has cost Lou Dobbs his spot as an anchor for CNN.

Maine Town Is Riven by Housing Dispute

By ABBY GOODNOUGH
Published: November 14, 2009

MILBRIDGE, Me. — Down a rural road where wood smoke spirals from chimneys in the settling twilight, a five-acre lot thick with spruce trees is the unlikely site of a dream deferred.

This is the intended spot for a small apartment complex for farmworkers, a few hundred of whom are Hispanics living year-round in this remote corner of Down East Maine. They harvest blueberries, process seafood and assemble holiday wreaths, and most live in trailers near the fields and factories where they work.

A local nonprofit group won a $1 million federal grant last year to build the six-unit complex, a first step toward expanding housing options for the immigrant laborers, most of whom come from Mexico and Honduras.

But then ugly words were uttered, a petition was circulated, and voters in this town of 1,300 approved a moratorium on multifamily housing in June, blocking the project. [First thing to ask yourself good citizen is why? Why are Federal funds being used to construct housing for so-called ‘migrant’ workers? Don’t the jobs these ‘migrant workers’ came all the way here from Honduras to perform pay them enough to live on?]

Now the group, Mano en Mano — Spanish for Hand in Hand — has filed a federal lawsuit alleging discrimination under the Fair Housing Act and the equal protection clause of the Constitution. And Milbridge, which once won acclaim for its efforts to welcome and integrate immigrants, is smarting from accusations of racism. [Missing from this picture is the fact these people ARE NOT citizens of the US. So why should taxpayer funds be used to provide these non-citizens with subsidized housing? More curious is whether or not the immigrant’s EMPLOYER isn’t behind this ‘non-profit’ group.]

“We have always been very open and receptive and accommodating,” said Lewis Pinkham, the town manager, police chief and code enforcement officer. “In my personal opinion, this got blown out of proportion.” [What do you suppose the odds are that big chief ‘Many Hats’ had a gun held to his worthless head by the fucking CHEAPSKATE employer? The bigger question is how these ‘immigrant’s’ came to be 5,000 miles away from where they started?]

According to the lawsuit and local newspaper accounts, some residents opposed the project on grounds that farmworkers’ children overburdened the schools; others predicted it would be a drug haven. The petition, signed by 48 residents, said jobs should be saved for local lobstermen, whose industry is suffering, and not “given out to minorities that may move into these units.” [But that ‘sentiment’ also totally misses the point that these jobs don’t pay enough for the immigrants to survive on. If the immigrants were being paid a reasonable wage, there would be no need to use federal funds to construct housing, the ‘private sector’ would make the housing happen.]

Hispanics are a rare sight in Maine; more than 96 percent of the population is white, tying it with Vermont as the least diverse state. And while most immigrant groups here have clustered in cities — Somalis in Lewiston, for example, and Sudanese in Portland — Hispanics tend to scatter through smaller communities, making their ranks feel even thinner. [FOUL! It’s dirty pool to emphasize the ‘whiteness’ of the region as the ‘cause’ of the so-called dispute. It’s more than a little ‘counter-intuitive’ that Hondurans would travel 5,000 miles, clear across the entire United States to the coast of Maine for jobs that don’t pay them enough to live on…]

Not so in Milbridge, though, where Anais Tomezsko, director of Mano en Mano, said Hispanics made up perhaps 10 percent of the population or more. Washington County, which produces most of the nation’s wild blueberries, draws thousands of them every summer to help with the harvest. And when a sea cucumber processing plant opened here in 1995, offering year-round jobs, some began to stay. [Listen to the BULLSHIT fly! Picking fucking BLUEBERRIES for three or four weeks out of a year doesn’t pay enough to justify travelling 10,000 miles at your own expense. Hell, they can’t live in Maine on what they make ‘helping’ with the harvest. Which is at the base of the argument here!]

“It felt very isolated,” said Edith Flores, 30, who came with her parents a decade ago to work at the sea cucumber plant. “But it was sort of like the town where I come from in Mexico, where everyone knows each other. It was calm, peaceful.”

Beth Russet, a nurse practitioner and founding member of Mano en Mano, said their presence has shored up the town as the population of rural Maine has aged and dwindled. [Did I mention that Maine was in an ‘economic desert’? It’s true…Real Estate is still reasonable there for the exact same reason it is reasonable in the Rustbelt…if you choose to live there you have to bring your job with you because there aren’t any there. Living less than an hour away from the Maine border I know what I’m talking about. It was my sales territory twice and it redefined the term ‘Slim Pickens’.]

“It’s great that there are young families excited to stay here,” she said. [Um, what Beth doesn’t realize is there’d be a lot more of them if the fucking cheapskates paid a damn living wage…but it is apparently more ‘productive’ to discuss how ‘prejudice’ the ‘crackers’ up Maine are!]

But housing has been a constant challenge, Ms. Tomezsko said. The region’s only subsidized apartment complex has a long waiting list, she said, and the few rental homes in Milbridge are usually too expensive for farmworkers — about $500 a month for a one-bedroom. “We have two or three people coming in every week asking about housing,” she said, “and we’re usually at a loss.” [Understand good citizen that $500 a month is ‘dirt cheap’ for New England…you can’t rent a broom-closet around Boston for less than three times that amount. I add that for those of you unfamiliar with real estate prices in the area. Oh, to make matters worse, the price to heat a one bedroom apartment in Maine runs pretty close to the cost of rent…and the ‘heating season’ is 9 months long…]

Ms. Russet said the town initially embraced year-round immigrants, even holding potluck suppers to help them fit in. Mano en Mano gave Spanish lessons — to bank employees who were struggling to communicate with Hispanic customers, among others — and the town won a grant to tutor immigrants.

But the constant drain of jobs has made native residents less receptive, others said, even though most shun the low-paying farm and factory work that immigrants do. [Here’s where the ‘poor immigrant’ argument breaks down…why do you suppose the locals ‘shun’ these jobs that only people unfamiliar with the area are willing to take? And what is the ‘point’ of this article again…isn’t it about building ‘subsidized housing’ for people that aren’t being paid enough to rent decent accommodations? What about people that have lived in Maine their entire lives who can’t afford to stay there so the must leave the state?]

The county’s unemployment rate is 10.4 percent, and 20 percent of its population lives in poverty. In a letter to a local newspaper, one resident pointed out that many native Mainers, not just immigrants, live in tumbledown trailers.

“When there is very little work,” the letter said, “bringing more people in does not solve the problem.” [Bringing in people willing to work for less CERTAINLY does nothing to help the circumstances of the native population…all it does is boost profits for the (absentee) owners of these operations!]

In another letter, the resident, B. J. Seymour, wrote that multifamily housing complexes “are popular as halfway homes for recovering addicts, transients, sex offenders, seasonal workers, parolees and those with limited mental abilities.”

The building moratorium was scheduled to expire last month, but at a town meeting in September, residents voted to extend it. They also voted down a proposal to exempt the Mano en Mano project from the moratorium and let it move forward. [Yeah, let’s have everybody accuse the residents of a small Maine community of being ‘prejudice’ and exclusionary while ignoring the real problem…living wages!]

Tenants at Mano en Mano’s housing project — the first of its kind in Maine — would have to be American citizens or permanent residents who made a certain percentage of their income from agriculture or aquaculture under the terms of the federal grant, from the Department of Agriculture. They could be of any race. [Race isn’t the issue here, although the article is trying real hard to make it the issue! No, the real issue here is using tax dollars to construct (subsidized) accommodations for people a particular employer (group of employers) does not pay (or desire to pay) a living wage to, for the area.]

But Mr. Pinkham said residents were more irked by the fact that Mano en Mano, as a nonprofit group, would be exempt from paying property taxes. [Methinks old Pinky, himself drawing three paychecks from local public coffers, ‘misstates’ the situation.]

“Everybody feels that everybody should pay their own fair way,” he said, estimating that the complex would pay $10,000 a year in property taxes if privately owned. “That’s what I’ve heard the most complaints about.”

As for the charges of racism, Mr. Pinkham said the town “can’t gag people.” “No matter where you go,” he added, “you can have one or two people stand up in a crowd and say some comments that aren’t the sentiment of the entire town.”

Mr. Pinkham said the town imposed the building moratorium not to block Mano en Mano’s project but to revise its land-use laws.

Residents will vote Monday on a zoning ordinance that would likely allow the project to move forward, he said.

Ms. Flores said that during a recent town meeting about the project, the hostility toward it — and toward Hispanics, she said — made her feel like “a cat surrounded by dogs.”

“I’m brown, dark hair, and it doesn’t matter if I’m a citizen of the U.S.,” she said. “Just like everyone else in the Latino community, I’m looked at as a newcomer who’s taking away jobs or asking for more than what we should have.”

Geez Louise, pay the people a living wage and this problem dries up and blows away…but NO, instead we have to build ‘subsidized housing’ so we can keep a segment of the local workforce repressed.

And don’t you think for a minute that the people responsible for bringing these people up to Maine from Honduras won’t point at the fact they live in subsidized housing (that won’t be maintained) when ‘review time’ rolls around.

Um, unlike Mr. Dobbs , we will leave the ‘legality’ issue aside and instead focus on what causes an individual to pack up their family and travel roughly 5,000 miles to perform a job that doesn’t pay him enough to support his family on…

Naturally, if it were just one family, the discussion may turn almost immediately to ‘mental competency’ but no, we’re talking 130 (not necessarily illegal) immigrants who have traveled across the entire US to take jobs in ‘New England’s own economic desert’, the great state of Maine!

Um, key to this particular instance is we have the ‘assertion’ that the immigrants have come (again, around 5,000 miles) to perform jobs that the ‘locals’ shun…

Perhaps more telling is how the ‘dispute’ itself centers on FEDERAL FUNDING for PUBLIC HOUSING to provide these (not necessarily) ‘migrant laborers’ with suitable lodging.

The little community that currently ‘hosts’ these migrant workers has altered their zoning laws in a way that prevents these units from being constructed.

The article, er, ‘emphasizes’ the fact that these people are Spanish speakers…thereby masking the true issue here and it’s the same issue we encounter EVERYTIME immigrants are lured to work sites the local labor force shuns.

Why don’t the locals take up these jobs? Apparently the people who write these articles think you’re too stupid to understand that the problem is these jobs don’t pay enough to live on (Which is why they are using ‘FEDERAL FUNDS’ to build these people a place to stay! Worse, the apartments will be ‘subsidized’ so whoever gets to be the ‘lucky landlord’ will be collecting the difference between what the migrants pay and what the apartments would attract from ‘fair market’ renters, from local taxpayers!

It REALLY pisses me off to see this kind of swindle defended as having ‘sympathy’ for the disadvantaged South American workers who are simply trying to build a better life for their families, here in the ‘land of opportunity’ (for the freaking capitalist!)

Sometimes it’s worse to get a look at something up and personal like this because it illustrates all of the other scams and schemes that conservative oligarchs cook up to bash their political opponents with.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Yippee! (the pundits say) 'It's over!'

Greetings good citizen,

Every once in a while its a good idea to 're-state' what (my) mission here is...because I don't think I've mentioned what I'm trying to accomplish since I first started posting here almost three years ago.

I am neither an economist nor an investor, in that respect I could care less what the market does. Nope, I watch the economy because that's the best 'indicator' we have to let us know how, er, 'healthy' our society is.

Naturally, the stock market is useless, the only thing its performance tells you is how rich the rich people are getting (because the wealthy own most of the stock!)

So, what you want to pay attention to is the employment situation as well as the size and the nature of domestic investment. Are they building new factories and creating more, better paying jobs (something they haven't done around this neck of the woods for the past thirty years!) or are they closing plants and sending the work overseas? (a much more familiar sight.)

At the end of the day good citizen, it's that 'long view' that tells the story.

Can there really be an 'economic recovery' without any corresponding investment? It only stands to reason that what they do is far more important than what they say!

Oh, and pouring your (taxpayers) money down a black hole to cover their bad bets isn't anyone's idea of an economic stimulus! 99% of this so-called 'economic recovery' (the stock market moving back into the 10,000 range) is simply 'cover' for the trillions of taxpayer dollars that have gone 'missing in action' over the past two years...there is no recovery!

But that's not what
tonight's offering tells us.

Euro Zone Officially Out of Recession

By MATTHEW SALTMARSH
Published: November 13, 2009

PARIS — After more than a year in the doldrums, the euro area emerged from recession during the third quarter, helped largely by export growth and improved industrial production in its largest economy, Germany.

The European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, reported Friday that gross domestic product for the 16 countries using the single currency expanded by 0.4 percent from the second quarter, following five quarters of contraction. Against a year earlier, G.D.P. was still 4.1 percent lower.

Analysts said the outlook remained patchy, particularly because unemployment is still climbing, wages are stagnant and consumption and lending are being propped up by government programs that will not be renewed indefinitely.

“Europe is still very dependent on lenient fiscal and monetary policy,” said

Helge J. Pedersen, chief economist at Nordea in Copenhagen, “so I fear a bit for what happens when all these programs are phased out in coming months.”

The German economy grew 0.7 percent from the second quarter, when it was up 0.4 percent, Eurostat said. Compared to a year earlier, G.D.P. was down 4.7 percent.

France recorded a more muted rebound during the same period. Its G.D.P. grew 0.3 percent — the same increase as was reported during the second quarter — against analysts’ expectations of 0.6 percent.[Um, not exactly 'kick ass' growth...worse, chances are good, since we aren't talking whole percentage points here, that we are not outside the statistical 'margin of error' that could wipe this tiny gain right out...]

In Italy, the economy grew 0.6 percent. Spain, struggling with a deep housing market correction and the highest unemployment rate in the region, remains in recession; its economy contracted 0.3 percent. [Does anyone else see a 'pattern' emerging here?]

The data were preliminary, and further details will be published later in the month. [And remember, ALL of these figures are subject to 'revision'...]

But the German numbers appear to have been bolstered by an acceleration in industrial production, which was up 3.5 percent in the third quarter from the previous period, and exports, which rose 5.4 percent during the third quarter despite the stronger euro. [Um, who, good citizen, is buying the goods this little 'spike' in production has produced? Consumers around the world are...'tapped out', not only have they had their paychecks slashed but their credit lines have been cut as well...could a tiny handful of the superwealthy actually account for this...er, spending spree?]

Germany, noted for its value-added manufactured goods like machine tools, chemicals and high-end automobiles, appears to be better placed to gain from the stronger growth in emerging countries than France. [Most people dislike 'truisms', well, there's a 'truism' about German products, they are the most expensive...but they're worth it because they are the best! So we have to ass ourselves, who the fuck has the money to be buying 'the best' in this shitty economy? Sure ain't us po' folks!]

The French recovery was also helped by higher exports, although household consumption leveled out.

The French rebound “is still rather weak and reliant upon the stimulus package put in place by the authorities,” Oscar Bernal, an ING analyst, said.

“Only public spending is likely to keep sustaining growth in the next quarters,” he added.

Simultaneously, there is a danger that European authorities will soon pressure France to limit spending to control its rising public deficit and debt ratios, analysts say. [Should we be wondering if those guys are planning on paying us a little visit in the not too distant future? Hey, the Chinese are already on our case to get our 'house in order'...and I don't think having 'Timmy' yak up the dollar is what they mean by that.]

For the 27 members of the full European Union, the economy grew in the third quarter by a more modest 0.2 percent, Eurostat said. [Um, once again I have to wonder if that is 'genuine growth' or a 'statistical error'?]

The British economy, in particular, is lagging its neighbors. British growth contracted by 0.4 percent in July to September from the previous three months, and it shrank by 5.2 percent compared with a year earlier. [Which makes you wonder because they 'deep fried' the books in the US, why couldn't they do the same in the UK and cobble up a number that was 'barely positive' like Germany and France?]

A significant reason for the divergent performance between the economies appears to be the larger debt burden of British consumers. [Understand good citizen that US consumers carry nearly as much debt as consumers in the UK and that didn't even slow 'em down when it came to 'fudging' GDP numbers here.]

The U.S. economy also recovered from recession during the third quarter; G.D.P. there expanded at an annualized rate of 3.5 percent. By comparison, on an annualized basis, the euro area economy grew by about 1.6 percent during that same period.

As I was saying...all three indexes closed in positive territory today...for no particularly good reason except the rich are feeling good about being rich, if you got a problem with that, too bad!

Naturally, sometimes we have to wonder why they tell us what they tell us when they choose to do so.

Understand good citizen that for the most part you are treated like a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed a steady diet of bull shit.

While this kind of treatment is excellent for mushrooms, it's of dubious merit when it comes to maintaining civil order because the truth has a nasty habit of making itself known.

So what are we to make of recent 'revelations' that there's a lot less oil around than was previously 'believed'?

Our civilization and by extension, our society, was built upon the idea of cheap, abundant energy. Once energy is neither our entire 'lifestyle' collapses...things no longer get where they need to be, when they need to be there.

Worse, most of us don't realize just how dependent we are on idea that when we flip the switch, the lights come on.

Iraqis know what it's like to only have power for a couple of hours a day...but the Iraqi economy is in shambles, largely because they only get a couple of hours worth of electricity a day...

Perhaps more puzzling is how the price of energy continues to rise while consumption tapers off, what do you suppose is causing that?

Perhaps we will learn the answer in
tonight's second offering

U.S. Trade Deficit Widens on Oil Imports

By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Published: November 13, 2009

The United States trade deficit in September widened more than expected, to $36.5 billion, in part because of an increase in oil prices, the Commerce Department said on Friday.

The department’s data showed an 18.2 percent jump in the gap between the value of imports and exports in the economy, known as the trade balance. [The Dollar is sinking like a rock so this is pretty, er, 'puzzling' news...if it isn't outright bull shit!]

Both imports and exports rose in the month, but an increase in the price of oil weighed significantly on the statistics. Oil prices increased to $68.17 a barrel in September from $64.75 in August. As a result, the United States imported $19.51 billion of oil in September, up from $17.38 billion in August. [Well, if you haven't been watching the commodity prices, a barrel of oil today was selling for roughly $80 a barrel but still, 19 and a half billion dollars worth of oil is a crap load of oil, even at $70 a barrel!]

Overall, imports rose to $168.4 billion from $159.1 billion, or 5.8 percent, in September, and exports rose 2.9 percent, to $132 billion from $128.3 billion — a significant increase that indicated increasing demand for American products abroad, including autos, aircraft and industrial machinery. [Ironically, none of those items are actually produced in the USA...well, okay, they 'asemble' the aircraft here and there is, count 'em
ONE US producer of machine tools and only one, the other US brands are like the aircraft example, assembled here with foreign made parts, which is pretty much the same deal when it comes to autos. Assembled here from parts that are made elsewhere. I mean fuck, where do you think all of the jobs went?]

As of September, the trade deficit is running at an annual rate of $366 billion, about half of last year’s $695.9 billion. The deficit with China, which had been easing, rose 9.2 percent to $22.1 billion last month. [You don't suppose that 'rat bastard' Santa Claus has something to do with this, do ya?]

While the economy remains weak, Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., said he saw reason for optimism in the numbers. The rise in imports, he said, indicated that manufacturers in the United States were building up inventories [Excuse me, Stop right there!...can you show me a 'green card' buddy?] — a carmaker importing Japanese auto parts, for instance — in anticipation of higher demand from American consumers. [Um, not a particularly 'patriotic' example there but you have to be sympathetic, there really isn't anything else to point to except food and raw materials, which shoots to hell the idea that we still have a manufacturing base here in the US.]

“It’s a very strong signal that the domestic economy is recovering,” he said.

[I'm disinclined to ask how importing what we need does anything at all to 'help' the domestic economy although one could suppose it helps the retail sector...]

Mr. Behravesh said he expected the appetite for imported goods would recede as the economy stabilizes, and that he believed exports would continue to climb. [Rather strange 'reversal' there, isn't it? Apparently being an economist let's you have things both ways!]

As the dollar continues to drop against other major world currencies, companies in the United States are hoping to take advantage of its dwindling value. [While shell-shocked consumers tighten their belts as their diminished purchasing power forces them to make 'hard choices' like 'heat or eat'...]

A weak dollar makes the price of foreign goods like French wine and Japanese cars more expensive in the United States, driving consumers toward American brands. [Which will really suck because there aren't any at all in a broad swath of consumer goods!] Overseas, it makes United States exports like corn and mining trucks cheaper, helping sales for American companies. [and making US capitalist pigs richer, while their workers starve to death!]

But a bounce in exports may not come as quickly as some producers would like.

John H. Dobson, president of the American Soybean Association, said he took the news of a weak dollar as a positive sign.

“I hope that we will be able to catch up and see strong export growth,” Mr. Dobson said. Exports of soybeans, as well as corn, fell slightly in September.

However, he said the weak dollar meant soybean growers would have to pay more overseas for things like fertilizer and machine parts, and he worried that there was a limit to the demand for soybeans worldwide, even if they were cheaper to foreign consumers. [Just a poorly phrased statement good citizen, Mr. Dobson is simply 'wishing out loud' that his competitors will be hindered by higher domestic prices, making his soybeans more 'attractive']

Dermot Hayes, a professor of economics and finance at Iowa State University who specializes agricultural economics, said the global malaise could slow what might otherwise be a positive for American exporters. [This could become extremely 'problematic' if the dollar sinks so far that domestic goods become priced out of the reach of domestic consumers...]

“If it weren’t for these other impediments in the crisis, we should have seen a big increase in exports,” he said. “But it also takes awhile to produce stuff. You have to ramp up production and grow more acres and grow more pigs and more cows and that takes time.” [Um, I may be speaking out of turn here but if I'm not mistaken, harvests around the world were particularly good this year...so what is 'dodo' wishing for?]

Policy makers in Washington have seemed content to let the dollar slide, so long as it does not go at such a rapid pace that it wreaks havoc on world economies. The Federal Reserve has kept its interest rates at historic lows, helping to contribute to a weak dollar as investors transfer their wealth to the world’s booming stock markets instead. [Um, 'scuse me...they left out the 'fraud riddled' part!]

In Asia this week, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner reiterated his support for a strong dollar in the face of criticism from the finance ministers of other nations, who hold much of their foreign investments in United States dollars. [Um, is laughing in Timmy's face considered 'criticism'?]

In August, the deficit narrowed unexpectedly as Americans cut back on foreign oil. On Friday, the Commerce Department revised the August deficit to $30.71 billion.

Um, the damn trade deficit is still running at a triple digit billion dollar annual rate, which is to say we're still importing more than we export, so where the fuck is this so-called US manufacturing sector, on Wall Street?

Because before this shit blew up, the boys on Wall Street were busy 'building' toxic financial instruments, complete with a triple A rating from one of their stooges attached to it!

Understand good citizen, when the market for MBS seized up our GDP number went from 4.5% in the third quarter to .5% in the final quarter of 2007.

That's how much of our economy was being driven by the financial sector...the freaking 'paper pushers', for lack of a better description.

Now I ask you, given the original 'mission' of this blog, what do you suppose the outlook is for our collective future?

I think things are looking mighty freaking bleak, but that's just me...

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

New Jobless caution?

Greetings good citizen,

Given that the markets are so manipulated you can’t tell what’s going on, it is hard to compose a coherent opening statement.

The markets were up (slightly) this morning…but that doesn’t mean anything coming on the heels of three successive days where the market performed ‘vertical take-offs’…only to ‘plateau’ for the remainder of the session. What the hell is that about anyway?

I have a theory what it’s about and it’s a theory that dovetails nicely with the ‘criminal element’ one is likely to encounter on Wall Street…

So, our first offering of the evening is an article from early in the trading day the ‘stupidity index was actually up a little.

New US Jobless Claims Decline

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 12, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — New claims for unemployment insurance fell more than expected last week, offering some hopeful signs for the job market.

Still, many analysts worry the nation could be in for a “jobless recovery” as the unemployment rate rises despite some overall economic growth. [‘Despite’ isn’t exactly the term I’d use here, it’s not like employers are not hiring because of overwhelming demand, that ‘growth’ they’re referring to is actually microscopic. It’s so tiny nobody has actually seen it!]

The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time claims for jobless benefits dropped to a seasonally adjusted 502,000 from an upwardly revised 514,000 the previous week. That is the fewest claims since the week ended Jan. 3, and below economists’ estimates. [Upwardly revised! Color me surprised…what you have to ask yourself now is if it will still be ‘the lowest since 1/3’ AFTER they ‘upwardly revise’ this week’s number?]

The four-week average, which smoothes fluctuations, dropped to 519,750, the lowest in almost a year. It has fallen by more than 20 percent since its peak in the spring. [Um, excuse me but are these asshats making off like 525,000 claims is a ‘good thing’ or a ‘big improvement’? Nothing like ignoring/downplaying the fact that (new) claims have been IN EXCESS of a half a million A WEEK for ALMOST A YEAR! That’s a far more ‘newsworthy’ story, isn’t it? Worse, it’s a little factoid that nobody is drawing attention to!]

Economists watch initial claims as a gauge of the pace of layoffs. But claims also can provide a signal about the willingness of companies to hire, because laid-off workers able to find jobs are less likely to request benefits.

Many analysts estimate that claims must fall to roughly 450,000 to signal that the economy is adding jobs. [Say what? Er, they have to work a lot harder than that to convince me that 450,000 new claims A FREAKIN WEEK means we’ve ‘turned the corner’ and the economy is ‘adding jobs’ at a brisk enough pace to compensate for the 150,000 new entrants to the labor market every. Hmmn, I want to say ‘month’ here but somehow that doesn’t sound right, given the size of the civilian workforce and all. Does the economy need to add 150,000 jobs ‘a week' to keep up? I think it is per week, there’s no way they can be cool about dropping nearly a half million jobs a week and expect to cover the whole shortfall by adding a mere 150,000 a month, does it?]

The number of people continuing to claim benefits dropped by 139,000 to 5.6 million, also below analysts’ estimates. The figures on continuing claims lag initial claims by a week. [Um, once again you are witnessing a ‘bad thing’ (people exhausting their claims just as hard winter is setting in across most of the nation.) Being passed off as a ‘good thing’ (that the total number of claims is falling…which is only a good thing if people are returning to work, people exhausting their claims is NEVER a ‘good thing’)]

But millions of unemployed Americans have used up the regular 26 weeks of benefits typically provided by states and are receiving extended benefits for up to 73 additional weeks, paid for by the federal government. Congress added 14 to 20 weeks to the extended program last week, the fourth extension since the recession began and the longest total extension on record. [Not to ‘rub salt’ in an open wound but most states, while trying to be more ‘business friendly’ cut the amount employers contributed to the unemployment insurance fund and now those funds are exhausted…so the taxpayer is on the hook for all of these ‘extensions’! Isn’t it time we fixed this problem, once and for all?]

About 4.1 million people were receiving extended benefits in the week ended Oct. 24, little changed from the previous week. [Why should this surprise anyone, a quick glance at the ‘help wanted’ ads tells the whole story…there aren’t any freaking jobs!]

The unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent in October, the Labor Department said last week, as employers cut a net total of 190,000 jobs. That was the highest jobless rate in 26 years. [The part that doesn’t make sense is the 190,000 jobs, which started off as nearly 600,000 but between ‘seasonal adjustment’ and the ‘Birth/Death model’ nearly 400,000 jobs got added back in…fucking liars!]

But the economy grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter after a record four straight quarterly drops. The disparity between the unemployment rate and economic growth figure has raised fears that the nation’s economy could be in for a jobless recovery. [Repeat after me, a ‘jobless recovery’ is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE! It can’t happen. It never has and it never will.]

Among the states, Wisconsin had the highest number of additional claims, with 1,501, which it attributed to more layoffs in the construction, public administration and manufacturing industries. Illinois, Michigan, Puerto Rico and Texas had the next largest increases. The state data lag initial claims by one week.

California had the biggest drop in claims, with 6,752, which it attributed to fewer layoffs in the construction and service industries. Florida, Georgia, New York and North Carolina had the next largest decreases.

That concludes tonight’s first offering, the ‘happy story’, if you will, Which is to ask if you are ready for the ‘not so happy’, later in the day post?

I knew you could handle it!

Without further adieu, we arrive at tonight’s second offering

Cautious Investors Send Wall Street Lower

By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Published: November 12, 2009

Wall Street stocks fell on Thursday as investors reacted with caution to the latest report on unemployment filings and a pledge by President Obama to catalyze job creation.

The announcement of a White House initiative on jobs did not seem to motivate investors, as they dumped shares of energy stocks in response to a decline in the price of oil. Financial stocks also dragged the market lower. [Wait a minute, Slim! Didn’t the market just charge up past the 10,000 mark, driven there by three consecutive days of trillion dollar trading? So, two days after the miraculous rally, all of a sudden investors are supposedly ‘cautious?’ What the hell happened?]

Shortly after the start of trading, President Obama, speaking at the White House before departing for a weeklong tour of Asia, announced that he would convene a summit in December to examine the state of unemployment. Mr. Obama said he was open to any “demonstrably good idea” that would spur job growth. [First he has to ditch the idea of ‘job growth’ there aren’t nor will there ever be ‘enough’ jobs so the only way to ‘crack this nut’ would be to abbreviate the workday/week, in that way multiplying the number of jobs already in existence.]

“We have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country,” Mr. Obama said. It really is as simple as cutting the workweek in half, thereby doubling the number of available jobs. Some parts of the labor force won’t respond well to ‘simple doubling’ as the ‘qualified candidates’ don’t exist…yet. But hey, we can easily ‘double’ the workforce the ‘old-fashioned’ way, we give the positions without ready candidates ‘apprentices’, they’ll learn the job by doing it!]

In response, shares on Wall Street made modest gains before retreating. By the early afternoon, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 60 points, or 0.6 percent. The broader Standard and Poor’s 500-stock index was down 7.56 points, or 0.7 percent, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 9.88 points, or 0.45 percent. [So we’re left to wonder…why are the markets retreating? The answer is actually fairly obvious, there’s no way (using capitalism) to create the necessary number of jobs, it simply can’t be done without screwing up profits!]

Earlier on Thursday, the Labor Department reported that new filings for unemployment insurance dropped last week to a seasonally adjusted 502,000 from an upwardly revised 514,000 the previous week. [We already discussed this, I just wanted to highlight it again…]

While the broader economy has shown signs of health since the near-collapse of the financial system last year, the United States has continued to grapple with high levels of unemployment. Last month, the unemployment rate reached 10.2 percent, a 26-year high. [The ‘U-6’ crested 17.4% but that still isn’t the 25% seen with a much smaller workforce almost a hundred years ago…which would be like comparing grapes to grapefruit!]

The news that Intel would pay $1.25 billion to Advanced Micro Devices to a settle antitrust and patent disputes sent shares of its rival surging. In midday trading, A.M.D.’s stock climbed 21.2 percent to $6.45, while Intel remained flat.

Other technology stocks were also climbing. Hewlett-Packard’s announcement on Wednesday that it would acquire 3Com, a provider of computer network equipment, for $2.7 billion sent 3Com’s stock up 31.6 percent, though H.P. declined 0.58 percent. [Elsewhere on the web outraged commentators are calling for SEC action claiming obvious ‘insider action’ surrounding the Hewlett/3 Com deal. Worse, Goldman is handling the deal for 3 Com and Hewlett is being ‘assisted’ by Morgan Stanley…]

In early trading, the dollar, which had dropped to a 15-month low a day earlier, showed signs of strengthening. It was trading at slightly more than $1.48 against the euro, which could explain some of the drops in stock prices as investors redirected their funds to currency markets in hopes of strong returns.

Oil fell to $76.96 a barrel, down from $79.28 on Wednesday. [Um, are we really expected to believe the market is THAT nimble? I highly freaking doubt it!]

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, reported on Thursday that its third-quarter revenue had risen 3.2 percent from the previous year, though sales at stores open at least a year fell 0.4 percent. Its stock climbed in early trading, but analysts said its report still raised questions about how much consumers would spend this holiday season. [Seriously good citizen…the consumer is freaking broke, how much does any ‘rational’ person think a tapped out consumer is going to spend? (note the ‘rational person’ qualifier)]

Quincy Krosby, a markets strategist at Prudential Financial, said the market was still hesitant but investors were watching to see if the S.& P. 500 could reach the 1,100-point threshold. That level is significant, she said, because it would mark a return to the days before the financial crisis and could motivate skeptical and otherwise ‘sane’ traders on the sidelines to enter the market.

“This is more of a struggle in the market, an inflection point, as to whether or not investors see the push toward the end of the year has any ammunition,” she said. “It’s psychological. Investors will go in regardless of whether they believe the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” [Which wraps up precisely what the market thinks of investors, that they’re fucking loony!]

In afternoon trading, European stocks were mixed, with the DAX in Germany down 0.1 percent, the CAC in France down 0.2 percent, while the FTSE in Britain up 0.2 percent.

In Asia, where industry and retail sectors have reported strong gains in recent days, markets closed lower. The Nikkei in Japan was down 0.7 percent, and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong was down 1 percent.

Not mentioned here because this was posted before the end of the trading day is that NONE of the Western exchanges closed in positive territory today, not one!

Um, fuck good citizen, it hard to sit here day after day trying to wipe the fucking ‘whitewash’ off of every single news story. It gets old really, really quick.

What is far worse is how the bastards consistently try to pass off bad news as good news…mostly because most of you don’t know any better! That’s the hell of it good citizen, that’s the real hell of it.

I had a tiny glimmer of hope come my way today, it’s not a ‘done deal’ yet so that’s as much as I dare say, I’ll know more Monday.

Anyway, thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Nuthin'

Greetings good citizen,

Happy Armistice Day to one and all! I know I’m not the only one looking forward to the day when peace reigns for the citizens of this nation once more.

That said we can ponder what peace means to a nation where the government took the day off but the stock markets didn’t, but that’s okay considering the big financial houses now claim they are actually doing ‘God’s Work’…who knew?

Um, perhaps a bit more perplexing is the fact that despite the two rather diverse headlines tonight’s offering ran under (and I believe it has changed yet again.) The ‘Stupidity Index’ hardly budged all day…go figure.

Without further adieu;

Dollar Slips Back and Stocks Turns Up

By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Published: November 11, 2009

Wall Street equity markets opened higher on Wednesday as the dollar sunk to a 15-month low and Asian countries reported robust signs of economic growth. [At this point in the game the Dow was only plus 20 so it’s hard to imagine what he means by stocks ‘turning up’? One could suppose that would be true of any ‘non-negative’ number…but 20 fucking points, gimme a break!]

While many analysts are concerned the recent surge in the equity markets has been overdone given the economy’s weakness, a growing belief that wealthy nations like the United States will forge ahead with efforts to revive economic growth is luring risk-shy investors back into the stock markets. But the low interest rates has the dollar swooning. [Are you confused yet good citizen?]

Overnight, the dollar’s value fell against most other world currencies, trading at slightly over $1.50 against the euro early Wednesday. Persistently low interest rates in the United States have kept its pay-off meager, sending investors seeking high returns to the world’s stock markets. [Just like all of those hopeful retiree’s looking to make a killing in the markets! And ended up getting killed instead…]

“People want their money in anywhere but dollars right now, whether in commodities, foreign equities or equities themselves,” said Andrew J. Neale, portfolio manager for Fogel Neale Partners. [You know the drill: who is this and why should I care?]

On Tuesday night, a Federal Reserve banker reinforced said the drop in the dollar’s value had not been “disorderly,” and he said interest rates would likely remain low for an extended period, Reuters reported. [Um, this naturally begs the question of what a ‘disorderly drop’ of the world’s reserve currency would look like…but strangely, I think you’ll know it when it happens.]

As the dollar fell, gold continued its climb to record highs, trading at $1,116.82 an ounce early Wednesday. [What’s really bizarre here good citizen is why gold is climbing at all. It ‘used to be’ money but it’s not today. In fact, there isn’t a nation on the face of the planet that still uses gold as ‘legal tender’ (because it’s too damned dangerous!) So it is foolish in the extreme to be buying gold and expecting anyone to ‘honor’ the price when that price could very easily return to $35 an ounce.]

The zeal from strong trading days in Europe and Asia seemed to perk up Wall Street. In afternoon trading, the major stock averages in Britain, Germany and France were up more than 1 percent. Overnight, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose by 1.6 percent, while the Nikkei in Japan stayed flat.

In early trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 46 points, or 0.4 percent. The broader Standard and Poor’s 500-stock index rose 0.59 percent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 14.95 points, or 0.7 percent,.

As the market continues to rise, many investors ignored signs that consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the U.S. economy, might not bounce as rapidly as some analysts might hope. [And those analysts do have a whole lot of hope…even if they are consistently being proven wrong!]

“The consumer is still not spending well,” Mr. Neale said. “Until there’s some sign of strength in the jobless market and housing market, then the consumer will remain on the sidelines.” [Um, the consumer is broke…I know that and you know that and I’m willing to bet he knows that…but it’s his job to sell stocks, so he’s got to pretend things are other than what they are…]

In a sign of retail spending, the department store Macy’s reported that its third-quarter losses were $9 million less than the year before. However, its projections for future profits did not meet Wall Street expectations.

The United States bond market was closed on Wednesday because of the Veteran’s Day holiday.

Today’s ‘bonus feature’ (for those still up for more reading) we have this excellent piece by one of my favorite writers, Henry C.K. Liu.

If you need more proof that capitalism is FUBAR, click here

And finally, take a gander at how tonight’s offering has ‘morphed’ over the course of the business day…

Stirred by a Weakening Dollar, Markets Rise

By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Published: November 11, 2009

The chain reaction started by the weakening dollar continued to rock the stock market, the gold market and the oil market on Wednesday.

In mid-morning trading, shares on Wall Street were higher, the price of gold continued its climb, and oil prices rose.

At the center of Wednesday’s movement was the tumbling dollar, which hit a 15-month low overnight before easing below $1.50 against the euro. Persistently low interest rates in the United States have meant meager returns, forcing investors to other alternatives.

While many analysts are concerned the recent surge in the equity markets has been overdone, given the economy’s weakness, a growing belief that wealthy nations like the United States will forge ahead with efforts to revive economic growth is luring risk-averse investors back into the stock markets.

But low interest rates have the dollar struggling.

“People want their money in anywhere but dollars right now, whether in commodities, foreign equities or equities themselves,” said Andrew J. Neale, portfolio manager for Fogel Neale Partners.

In Tokyo on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said he considered a robust dollar an important part of an economic recovery.

“I believe deeply that it’s very important to the United States, to the economic health of the United States, that we maintain a strong dollar,” Mr. Geithner said, according to news reports.

Some analysts, however, believe that behind closed doors, policy makers in Washington are happy to see a slow and steady depreciation of the dollar. The weak dollar makes American products cheaper overseas, buoying sales, and makes imports more expensive, encouraging consumers at home to buy American.

On Tuesday night, a Federal Reserve banker seemed to hint at that view, saying the drop in the dollar’s value had not been “disorderly” and that interest rates were likely to remain low for an extended period, Reuters reported.

As the dollar fell, gold reached $1,116.82 an ounce early Wednesday.

The zeal from strong trading days in Europe and Asia seemed to perk up Wall Street. In afternoon trading, the major stock averages in Britain, Germany and France were up more than 0.5 percent. Overnight, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose by 1.6 percent, while the Nikkei in Japan stayed flat.

In mid-afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 33 4 points, or 0.33 percent. The broader Standard and Poor’s 500-stock index rose 0.42 percent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 0.58 percent. Crude oil settled at $79.25 a barrel, up 20 cents.

Strong economic outlooks from China gave investors hope that the global economy was on track to recovery.

As the market continue to rise, many investors ignored signs that consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the United States economy, might not bounce as rapidly as some analysts might hope.

“The consumer is still not spending well,” Mr. Neale said. “Until there’s some sign of strength in the jobless market and housing market, then the consumer will remain on the sidelines.”

In a sign of retail spending, Macy’s reported that its third-quarter losses were $9 million less than the year before. However, its projections for future profits did not meet Wall Street expectations.

The United States bond market was closed on Wednesday because of the Veterans Day holiday.

Certainly leaned a bit on the darn ‘delete’ key, didn’t he?

I’d inclined to ask what your thoughts are good citizen? Do you think the ‘patriotic’ investor class took the day off to honor peace and give thanks for the military might that lets these same weasels exploit the resources of the planet for their own personal gain?

Which begs the question as to whether or not the investors actually think the market is ‘overbought’ or are they ‘taking a breather’ as the pundits like to say when the markets are inexplicably quiet?

Personally, it feels like a ‘Wile E. Coyote’ moment to me as there is nothing but ‘hot air’ under the current market and it’s going to be devastating to watch the Dow plunge below 5,000 when the promised ‘recovery’ fails to materialize…

Just something to ponder until next time…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner