Friday, June 5, 2009

SAR #9155

There is no such thing as sustainable growth.

Stimuless: About $50 billion of Obama's $787 billion stimulus package has been paid out. We're saved!

Pot/Kettle: Chairman Bernanke wants the government to reduce its deficits.

Money Quote: Global warming (and to a lesser extent peak oil) went mainstream for two hours on ABC Tuesday night. Watch for the re-run. The message was, "We really have less than a decade to start getting this right. If we're still dragging our feet in 2015, it really becomes at that point almost impossible for the world to avert a degree of climate change that we simply will not be able to manage without intolerable cost and consequences." Five years and counting.

Not Really News: "Cheney now says there had never been any evidence that suggested Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.

Dueling Data: Time for the May payroll extravaganza. ADP sees 532,000 jobs lost in May (and raised the April reading by 11% to 545,000). The consensus estimate had been 525,000.Wanted Technologies predicts the number of jobs lost will be closer to 565,000. Either way, that's about 6 million gone since the recession started. Yet Macroeconomic Advisers, claims the US may lose "another million or so jobs for the remainder of 2009." That's an average loss of than 150,000 jobs a month from now on. Happy Days!

Moreclosures: Foreclosures are increasing. Some is 'catch-up' from the earlier moratoriums, some is due to rising unemployment and even more is due to falling house prices. It seems that many of the 15 million underwater owners simply give up. Until there are good jobs and steady paychecks, there will be no end. As of now, there is no end in sight.

Three, then Four: British PM Gordon Brown has lost a fourth minister within 24 hours. Imagine resigning a job in the UK with unemployment what it is...

Roadmap: "Credit is so loose today that I can buy the groceries I need on a credit card, eat the food tonight, discard the food by tomorrow at noon and finance my debt on a 30-year, amortized loan. How stupid is that? But people do it all the time - and then they wonder why they're in foreclosure."

One Potato, Two Potato: The $800 million Raptor hedge fund and the $550 Gyrfalcon hedge funds are shutting down and returning money to investors. JPMorgan is closing its unit that handled hedge funds, leveraged buyouts and real estate. Why call it quits now? Good question, with only scary answers. Voting with their feet on the green shoots question?

Party Line: Keith Stevenson, a county GOP chairman in Wisconsin, has lost his job for criticizing Rush Limbaugh. The faithful want to keep the party pure. Small, but pure.

Encore: Remember how the monetary reward for al Qaeda big shots lead to Bagram and Guantanamo filling up with innocent folks? Fast forward: The CIA is handing out "locater chips" which Pakistani tribesmen can hide in places where Taliban/al Qaeda leaders hang out. Or that guy you owe money to, or Bashier's husband, or... Then pray for Predators.

Euphemism: A UN expert says that soon Donald Rumsfeld could "face difficulties" when he travels outside the US. Difficulties like being tried as a war criminal. Why should it be limited to outside the US?

Tit for Tat: The US urges China to publicly account for those killed in the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests 20 years ago. China would like to see an accounting of those subjected to extraordinary rendition in various dungeons around the world. I'd like to know what they did with the 2008 Democratic candidate.

Preview: Nearly 20% of Spain's workers are unemployed, and those who still have jobs are seeing their wages cut. After a 10-year debt-financed boom, the average person is $25,000 in debt. Rising unemployment, lowered wages, unpayable debt - coming to a neighborhood near you.

Shoot! US business bankruptcy filings jumped 40 percent in May y/y. Been down so long, looks like up.

Assembly: In 2002, 12 million vehicles were made in the US, 9.6 million of them (80%) by US carmakers. This year about 5 million will be made, only half of them by US auto firms. (Only half the cars sold in the US are put together in the US.) If Detroit had just the right number of factories and employees in 2002, that's 75% too many for today's production.

Porn O'Graph: Balancing act, or only acting balanced?

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