You see that "create content" on the navigation menu? You have to open that and then write your post. The navigation menu has a header "navigation" and you'll see create content and that's what you need to click on.
The forms open are comments and I just closed them so one has to click on "add comment" to make it more confusing. Hopefully I will fix the recent comment click to the actual comment instead of the "display comments" bar tomorrow.
Hey Numerian…, great piece as usual. I was especially interested in the housing market segment. You may remember that I have said from the start of the financial crisis that the thing to watch for signs of an impending recovery was housing starts. A couple weeks ago Mauberly asked me for my comments on real estate on his blog. I of course, focused my reply on housing starts and said that I thought they were indicating a real recovery. Existing home sales may tell us something about what’s going on out there…, but housing starts create jobs and jobs are key to any economic recovery. Especially this one.
I hate to disagree with you…, and it doesn’t happen often…, but I don’t think we are seeing a “real estate boom” or “a mini-bubble or a full bubble”. We have barely bounced off the bottom…, a very deep bottom. I feel that we have a long way to run on this and if the housing start numbers hold up the next couple months we may be off to the races. If investors are already in the game, prices are rising, and interest rates are rising, there could be a lot of people wanting to get in before they go even higher. For how long…, I won’t venture to say…, but it could be well into 2014. I hope it does not turn into a bubble…, or the Fed may pull the plug too quick. I’d like to see us slowly and steadily work our way through this rough stretch.
The inflation question is a tough one. Is it inflation when housing prices crawl 10% off a bottom…, when that bottom fell 50% or more from its top? Or do you have to claw that 50% drop back before you start measuring inflation again? At any rate…, I don’t think we have to be concerned about hyperinflation of the Weimar-Zimbabwe type. Unless Ben Bernanke really drops the paper Bens from helicopters…, we won’t be wheeling around wheelbarrows full of Ben Franklins to buy loaves of bread. At least not us working stiffs. Housing starts will help the employment picture tremendously…, but it won’t replace all the jobs lost to technology and low wage emerging markets. There isn’t going to be anything to put pressure on employers for wage increases. You are right about a permanent jobless class…, and the need to develop a strategy to deal with it soon.
A stock market bubble? There is no doubt that the Fed’s prime objective is to keep the market afloat…, and they have made a believer out of me that they can do it. I was hoping that we would get a 10-20% correction over the fiscal cliff or debt ceiling thing. I would feel a whole lot better about slipping back into the market to take advantage of what I see developing in housing starts…, but I don’t think the Dow or S&P are really in big bubble range. We have had five years of pension fund money being steadily and dutifully (I hope) invested in the market and we are only almost back to where we started. I think we have to realize that the market is different these days. In the old days investors invested for dividends. Now they are investing for stock prices and we have big institutional investors and pension funds and IRA accounts and mutual funds. If us mom & pop investors start getting back in…, start funding our IRA’s again…, it could get interesting.
I guess the bottom line is…, anything could happen.
I'm working on debugging the comments. The idea is to have super fast loading comments but to get it all to work right requires debugging and much more to enable anonymous comments.
Yes, I do know that when clicking on a recent comment you have to reclick on the show comments link. Working, but whatever other issue let me know.
Another reason to keep comments closed initially is simply page load, how fast an article displays. We are a chatty bunch and write great detail so our articles and discussions in terms of web page load are really big.
That's what I read - the decline in Defense spending was the biggest seen since the 1970s. I don't know if they are measuring this by dollars or percentage. What could be find out about this decline? If it is a relatively small number as a percentage of total Defense spending, then what is going to happen if we have to chop $100 billion or $200 billion off their budget? Maybe the problem here is that Defense is such a huge part of the economy that we can't afford to pare their budget without throwing the country into a recession.
Especially on top of the last quarter's defense cuts, if we are to see even larger cuts in defense how bad can GDP get? Some people project a 3.0% or worse drop. The Republicans may want to see that happen.
But since this is part of the "let's delay and focus on the deficit instead of jobs and growth"
that figure may change.
I saw another report stating $604 billion, so need to dig out some official numbers and sure didn't find them. One reason this overview was so late in being published.
As you know I go over the numbers with a fine tooth comb and there is nothing in this report that indicates it's an illusion or "not real" and will magically improve. Those inventories I found really not a good sign for Q1 2013.
Imports and even exports are always revised almost wildly since exchange rates plus Census data comes in late. The price indices for trade I find beyond funky as well in terms of tracing through did someone make a killing by offshore outsourcing something and assigning to U.S. domestic growth sort of hidden values.
The entire report is really across the board bad news and bummer to rain on the super-rich Wall Street party like the rest of America doesn't exist.
The press is cranking out articles on how today's GDP report is meaningless and oh gee, it's all good. That frankly is false. Now, one can point to the cuts in defense spending as preparation for the fiscal cliff cuts, but the reality is more cuts are coming so defense spending is projected to contract. As our Congress does lobbyists bidding instead of sane policy for the good of the nation, we will not get a focus on jobs (unless it is a pack of lobbyist lies claiming up is down and black is white).
That said, the figures in this report show weak demand and inventory contraction is usually an indicator of weak demand. There are problems through this report so read the facts and weep instead of the press spin claiming we all should ignore today's Q4 GDP contraction. I do not think so.
Argentina is facing a "red card" from the folks at the IMF for manipulating inflation statistics to reduce the true numbers. So why exactly is Argentina so different from the USA, the EU, or the People's Republic of China?
Who believes that unemployment in the US, according to the BLS, is at 7.8%? How is that not laughable? What's the real labor participation rate and real unemployment rate? Many sites not linked to the US Government give pictures closer to three times the official unemployment rate. And if there's one "objective truth," why has the US government insisted on changing the way it measures inflation and unemployment over the years? Is the government somehow getting closer to the "truth" or just becoming more insistent on covering it up?
Who believes the EU debt + unemployment crisis is solved and the Euro will last another 10 years? Who thinks Italy, and France, Greece, Portugal, etc. are solvent?
Who thinks China's ghost cities aren't real and trust the Chinese statistics folks? How can China still be booming and continuing to grow its export-based economy when the rest of the world (from mineral exporting Australia to i-consumers in the US) are losing jobs and have less money?
So why exactly do some nations suffer threats and sanctions while others can so blatantly manipulate whatever they please with no repercussions? Because while the Argentines may be rioting, Americans, Italians, and Chinese citizens are dealing with the same very real issues, misery, and concerns that leaders insist on covering up. It's just that those countries aren't called out for the public relations/lies as others are.
Why would they change anything? They screwed up the globe, we bailed them out against our will. We saw nothing come out of it (e.g., no return to Glass-Steagall, no punishment of banksters or corporate bigwigs, or anyone else, and certainly no prison + forfeitures, Greenspan still viewed by the criminal cabal as the Wise One, Dimon and others still risking the globe with trillions in derivatives they don't understand, NAFTA still in full force, etc.) and actually things got/are getting worse for us regarding unemployment while they made record profits.
So they know they never suffer or lose any $ or power - why not go full bore once again, they won't lose anything.
1) Are they still partying in Davos? Check.
2) Still getting their asses kissed on MSM and actual control of MSM? Check.
3) Unearned massive salaries for lying and theft and criminal cartel conduct? Check.
4) Bonuses? Check.
5) Running Treasury, Bank of England, ECB, controlling the White House, EU, World Bank, etc. through donations and favors and appointments at top levels (including legions of Goldman Sachs alum)? Check.
6) The small criminal elite still talked about like they are the only people worthy of "public service"? Check.
7) The media still lying through its teeth? Check. Why just today, USA Today and other newspapers were claiming the contraction in GDP was a sign that the economy was still on its slow, perpetual recovery, no need to worry. Yes, that's right, normally that means we are in a recession or headed for one, but in 2013, it means "recovery right on course" along with unemployment levels near Great Depression I levels with no improvement.
And the lies continue and the criminals and liars get richer, and richer, and richer.
Isn't this the plan? Someone's making money off the bubbles and those people are banksters and politicians. They are keeping the Ponzi going as long as possible, taking their %s while it lasts, and then will sit there with fake sad faces when it blows up again and ask with crocodile tears, "Who could have known?" as they fly off to their coke-fueled parties in one of their secure retreats.
Education bubble - what happens when people have every degree imaginable, pay the academic banksters (i.e., loan companies, the politicians that own their stocks, and university administrations) $50,000 - $500,000 for no jobs (overqualified for Starbucks, sorry, they tell them so too) and the bastards in control still want more visa recipients to take any job that might open up? No jobs, massive debts, and wiping one's ass with a BS in Chem. E.? Loan bubbles, baby. While jackasses on TV that dropped out because they couldn't hack school call the engineers and everyone else with all these degrees dolts and lazy. Yup, that's how the USA rolls in 2013.
Stock market - Bernankster wanted the bubble, just like Greenspan did, "feeling good"/wealth effect bubble. ZIRP, Fed loans to private dealers = trillions being pumped into everything under the Sun. Geniuses at work, really, they are.
Housing? Sure, artificially keep houses off the market and/or not speed up foreclosures or short sales to jack up prices.
Plenty more bubbles out there, obvious to anyone that looks. Me, I know for sure Facebook's stock is definitely here to stay and will hit the moon soon. Apple too will come back and hit $1000 or even $2000 because they told me so and people on TV and in power are smart, honest, and paid to tell me the truth and not sell me snake oil.
The news is truly hyping these figures and the current "buying" frenzy has much more to do with massive shortage of supply due to so much inventory being kept off of the market and also record low interest rates.
Complain to the BLS. They are their maps and frankly I'd love to find an easy way to create dynamic maps for economic data that did not look horrific and am considering new software to do so. These are the best of the lot one can get for economic mapping data and I agree, their color levels are from 2009. Sorry to give your exercise answer away. Good luck class.
We're still working on the site, seems like a css black hole at this point. That said, when embedding videos make sure they fit into the small comment space and don't embed the full 640 width version. Also, click on the rich text editor to position.
Not a big deal, I didn't test this previously and comments have bugs when are "in process".
The sentiment, watching this massive propaganda on "immigration reform" we are being blasted with is we are in Zombie land.
to flood the labor market. It is the same old song and dance that was defeated in 2006, 2007 and the reason it was defeated is jobs. They spin it to be a bunch of racists but the entire country was outraged because these politicians spin it as humanitarian and the bills contain almost an unlimited amount of worker imports, all skill levels, flooding the U.S. labor market.
It's so outrageous and obvious that the average citizen here legally is screwed, screwed, sold out, and screwed some more. What's truly pathetic is how the propagandists in govt., business, the media, and academia just ignore basic supply and demand and claim this is good for American workers. Really? In what world? Because it seems every other country in the world has very strict labor and immigration policies to ensure its own citizens get jobs first, you know, because governments are supposed to look out first for their own citizens.
Look at the EU and the UK. Brits have had enough of immigrants coming in to their country when they can't find jobs. Backlash too in Germany, Greece, and elsewhere.
Look at Steve Jobs' widow. She's lobbying hard for illegal immigrants. She was married to a guy that loved slave labor aka "interns" aka sweatshop workers making i-crap in China and elsewhere. And that's exactly why she feels she can dictate immigration policies that destroy us. Nice to know people like that get a seat at the government table but the average American is completely ignored. Marrying i-crap man + his wealth + cheap labor destroying America = good enough to sell out American citizens.
So, Mrs. Jobs, when should we start installing suicide nets in the US to keep those Foxconn workers from leaving work too early when we can match China's sweatshop wages? Kind of obvious the agenda these people have when the methods by which they got rich are examined and the fact that they never actually talk about the long-term unemployed American citizens that are suffering and dying daily.
You see that "create content" on the navigation menu? You have to open that and then write your post. The navigation menu has a header "navigation" and you'll see create content and that's what you need to click on.
The forms open are comments and I just closed them so one has to click on "add comment" to make it more confusing. Hopefully I will fix the recent comment click to the actual comment instead of the "display comments" bar tomorrow.
Hey Numerian…, great piece as usual. I was especially interested in the housing market segment. You may remember that I have said from the start of the financial crisis that the thing to watch for signs of an impending recovery was housing starts. A couple weeks ago Mauberly asked me for my comments on real estate on his blog. I of course, focused my reply on housing starts and said that I thought they were indicating a real recovery. Existing home sales may tell us something about what’s going on out there…, but housing starts create jobs and jobs are key to any economic recovery. Especially this one.
I hate to disagree with you…, and it doesn’t happen often…, but I don’t think we are seeing a “real estate boom” or “a mini-bubble or a full bubble”. We have barely bounced off the bottom…, a very deep bottom. I feel that we have a long way to run on this and if the housing start numbers hold up the next couple months we may be off to the races. If investors are already in the game, prices are rising, and interest rates are rising, there could be a lot of people wanting to get in before they go even higher. For how long…, I won’t venture to say…, but it could be well into 2014. I hope it does not turn into a bubble…, or the Fed may pull the plug too quick. I’d like to see us slowly and steadily work our way through this rough stretch.
The inflation question is a tough one. Is it inflation when housing prices crawl 10% off a bottom…, when that bottom fell 50% or more from its top? Or do you have to claw that 50% drop back before you start measuring inflation again? At any rate…, I don’t think we have to be concerned about hyperinflation of the Weimar-Zimbabwe type. Unless Ben Bernanke really drops the paper Bens from helicopters…, we won’t be wheeling around wheelbarrows full of Ben Franklins to buy loaves of bread. At least not us working stiffs. Housing starts will help the employment picture tremendously…, but it won’t replace all the jobs lost to technology and low wage emerging markets. There isn’t going to be anything to put pressure on employers for wage increases. You are right about a permanent jobless class…, and the need to develop a strategy to deal with it soon.
A stock market bubble? There is no doubt that the Fed’s prime objective is to keep the market afloat…, and they have made a believer out of me that they can do it. I was hoping that we would get a 10-20% correction over the fiscal cliff or debt ceiling thing. I would feel a whole lot better about slipping back into the market to take advantage of what I see developing in housing starts…, but I don’t think the Dow or S&P are really in big bubble range. We have had five years of pension fund money being steadily and dutifully (I hope) invested in the market and we are only almost back to where we started. I think we have to realize that the market is different these days. In the old days investors invested for dividends. Now they are investing for stock prices and we have big institutional investors and pension funds and IRA accounts and mutual funds. If us mom & pop investors start getting back in…, start funding our IRA’s again…, it could get interesting.
I guess the bottom line is…, anything could happen.
Anyway…, right on partner…, write on.
I posted an "Argentina - IMF" Instapopulist, but then it just shows up as a Comment and Instapopulist doesn't have it.
I'm working on debugging the comments. The idea is to have super fast loading comments but to get it all to work right requires debugging and much more to enable anonymous comments.
Yes, I do know that when clicking on a recent comment you have to reclick on the show comments link. Working, but whatever other issue let me know.
Another reason to keep comments closed initially is simply page load, how fast an article displays. We are a chatty bunch and write great detail so our articles and discussions in terms of web page load are really big.
and I can capture the figures from the GDP report via database queries.
That's what I read - the decline in Defense spending was the biggest seen since the 1970s. I don't know if they are measuring this by dollars or percentage. What could be find out about this decline? If it is a relatively small number as a percentage of total Defense spending, then what is going to happen if we have to chop $100 billion or $200 billion off their budget? Maybe the problem here is that Defense is such a huge part of the economy that we can't afford to pare their budget without throwing the country into a recession.
Especially on top of the last quarter's defense cuts, if we are to see even larger cuts in defense how bad can GDP get? Some people project a 3.0% or worse drop. The Republicans may want to see that happen.
But since this is part of the "let's delay and focus on the deficit instead of jobs and growth"
that figure may change.
I saw another report stating $604 billion, so need to dig out some official numbers and sure didn't find them. One reason this overview was so late in being published.
As you know I go over the numbers with a fine tooth comb and there is nothing in this report that indicates it's an illusion or "not real" and will magically improve. Those inventories I found really not a good sign for Q1 2013.
Imports and even exports are always revised almost wildly since exchange rates plus Census data comes in late. The price indices for trade I find beyond funky as well in terms of tracing through did someone make a killing by offshore outsourcing something and assigning to U.S. domestic growth sort of hidden values.
The entire report is really across the board bad news and bummer to rain on the super-rich Wall Street party like the rest of America doesn't exist.
The press is cranking out articles on how today's GDP report is meaningless and oh gee, it's all good. That frankly is false. Now, one can point to the cuts in defense spending as preparation for the fiscal cliff cuts, but the reality is more cuts are coming so defense spending is projected to contract. As our Congress does lobbyists bidding instead of sane policy for the good of the nation, we will not get a focus on jobs (unless it is a pack of lobbyist lies claiming up is down and black is white).
That said, the figures in this report show weak demand and inventory contraction is usually an indicator of weak demand. There are problems through this report so read the facts and weep instead of the press spin claiming we all should ignore today's Q4 GDP contraction. I do not think so.
Argentina is facing a "red card" from the folks at the IMF for manipulating inflation statistics to reduce the true numbers. So why exactly is Argentina so different from the USA, the EU, or the People's Republic of China?
Who believes that unemployment in the US, according to the BLS, is at 7.8%? How is that not laughable? What's the real labor participation rate and real unemployment rate? Many sites not linked to the US Government give pictures closer to three times the official unemployment rate. And if there's one "objective truth," why has the US government insisted on changing the way it measures inflation and unemployment over the years? Is the government somehow getting closer to the "truth" or just becoming more insistent on covering it up?
Who believes the EU debt + unemployment crisis is solved and the Euro will last another 10 years? Who thinks Italy, and France, Greece, Portugal, etc. are solvent?
Who thinks China's ghost cities aren't real and trust the Chinese statistics folks? How can China still be booming and continuing to grow its export-based economy when the rest of the world (from mineral exporting Australia to i-consumers in the US) are losing jobs and have less money?
So why exactly do some nations suffer threats and sanctions while others can so blatantly manipulate whatever they please with no repercussions? Because while the Argentines may be rioting, Americans, Italians, and Chinese citizens are dealing with the same very real issues, misery, and concerns that leaders insist on covering up. It's just that those countries aren't called out for the public relations/lies as others are.
Why would they change anything? They screwed up the globe, we bailed them out against our will. We saw nothing come out of it (e.g., no return to Glass-Steagall, no punishment of banksters or corporate bigwigs, or anyone else, and certainly no prison + forfeitures, Greenspan still viewed by the criminal cabal as the Wise One, Dimon and others still risking the globe with trillions in derivatives they don't understand, NAFTA still in full force, etc.) and actually things got/are getting worse for us regarding unemployment while they made record profits.
So they know they never suffer or lose any $ or power - why not go full bore once again, they won't lose anything.
1) Are they still partying in Davos? Check.
2) Still getting their asses kissed on MSM and actual control of MSM? Check.
3) Unearned massive salaries for lying and theft and criminal cartel conduct? Check.
4) Bonuses? Check.
5) Running Treasury, Bank of England, ECB, controlling the White House, EU, World Bank, etc. through donations and favors and appointments at top levels (including legions of Goldman Sachs alum)? Check.
6) The small criminal elite still talked about like they are the only people worthy of "public service"? Check.
7) The media still lying through its teeth? Check. Why just today, USA Today and other newspapers were claiming the contraction in GDP was a sign that the economy was still on its slow, perpetual recovery, no need to worry. Yes, that's right, normally that means we are in a recession or headed for one, but in 2013, it means "recovery right on course" along with unemployment levels near Great Depression I levels with no improvement.
And the lies continue and the criminals and liars get richer, and richer, and richer.
Right, they are trying to return to 2006/2007 with the same bad policies and same mentality. It is astounding considering what happened.
Isn't this the plan? Someone's making money off the bubbles and those people are banksters and politicians. They are keeping the Ponzi going as long as possible, taking their %s while it lasts, and then will sit there with fake sad faces when it blows up again and ask with crocodile tears, "Who could have known?" as they fly off to their coke-fueled parties in one of their secure retreats.
Education bubble - what happens when people have every degree imaginable, pay the academic banksters (i.e., loan companies, the politicians that own their stocks, and university administrations) $50,000 - $500,000 for no jobs (overqualified for Starbucks, sorry, they tell them so too) and the bastards in control still want more visa recipients to take any job that might open up? No jobs, massive debts, and wiping one's ass with a BS in Chem. E.? Loan bubbles, baby. While jackasses on TV that dropped out because they couldn't hack school call the engineers and everyone else with all these degrees dolts and lazy. Yup, that's how the USA rolls in 2013.
Stock market - Bernankster wanted the bubble, just like Greenspan did, "feeling good"/wealth effect bubble. ZIRP, Fed loans to private dealers = trillions being pumped into everything under the Sun. Geniuses at work, really, they are.
Housing? Sure, artificially keep houses off the market and/or not speed up foreclosures or short sales to jack up prices.
Plenty more bubbles out there, obvious to anyone that looks. Me, I know for sure Facebook's stock is definitely here to stay and will hit the moon soon. Apple too will come back and hit $1000 or even $2000 because they told me so and people on TV and in power are smart, honest, and paid to tell me the truth and not sell me snake oil.
The news is truly hyping these figures and the current "buying" frenzy has much more to do with massive shortage of supply due to so much inventory being kept off of the market and also record low interest rates.
Complain to the BLS. They are their maps and frankly I'd love to find an easy way to create dynamic maps for economic data that did not look horrific and am considering new software to do so. These are the best of the lot one can get for economic mapping data and I agree, their color levels are from 2009. Sorry to give your exercise answer away. Good luck class.
We're still working on the site, seems like a css black hole at this point. That said, when embedding videos make sure they fit into the small comment space and don't embed the full 640 width version. Also, click on the rich text editor to position.
Not a big deal, I didn't test this previously and comments have bugs when are "in process".
The sentiment, watching this massive propaganda on "immigration reform" we are being blasted with is we are in Zombie land.
Zombie Interlude:
to flood the labor market. It is the same old song and dance that was defeated in 2006, 2007 and the reason it was defeated is jobs. They spin it to be a bunch of racists but the entire country was outraged because these politicians spin it as humanitarian and the bills contain almost an unlimited amount of worker imports, all skill levels, flooding the U.S. labor market.
It's so outrageous and obvious that the average citizen here legally is screwed, screwed, sold out, and screwed some more. What's truly pathetic is how the propagandists in govt., business, the media, and academia just ignore basic supply and demand and claim this is good for American workers. Really? In what world? Because it seems every other country in the world has very strict labor and immigration policies to ensure its own citizens get jobs first, you know, because governments are supposed to look out first for their own citizens.
Look at the EU and the UK. Brits have had enough of immigrants coming in to their country when they can't find jobs. Backlash too in Germany, Greece, and elsewhere.
Look at Steve Jobs' widow. She's lobbying hard for illegal immigrants. She was married to a guy that loved slave labor aka "interns" aka sweatshop workers making i-crap in China and elsewhere. And that's exactly why she feels she can dictate immigration policies that destroy us. Nice to know people like that get a seat at the government table but the average American is completely ignored. Marrying i-crap man + his wealth + cheap labor destroying America = good enough to sell out American citizens.
So, Mrs. Jobs, when should we start installing suicide nets in the US to keep those Foxconn workers from leaving work too early when we can match China's sweatshop wages? Kind of obvious the agenda these people have when the methods by which they got rich are examined and the fact that they never actually talk about the long-term unemployed American citizens that are suffering and dying daily.
is going to be the biggest cheap labor fest, U.S. worker displacement in history and they are ramping up. Make this look like child's play.
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