Tuesday, August 30, 2011

SAR #11241

Energy is the master resource.

Not So Fast: The FDIC has filed an objection – as an investor, not as a regulator - with the State Supreme Court of New York regarding the $8.5 billion MBS accord. A number of states and other investors have also objected to the settlement, claiming there was not sufficient information provided to evaluate the terms of the agreement. BofA claims there are "compelling reasons" why the settlement should be approved. Such as avoiding bankruptcy.

Getting Better? Personal income in the US was up 0.3% in July, m/m, and spending was up by 0.8%, which is a neat but unsustainable trick. The core PCE price index was up a miserly 0.2% in July. For some mysterious reason, this tidbit drove up U.S. stocks more than 2%.

Quickly: The European debt crisis has taken a turn for the worse, as the problems with their banks, and ours, have returned. Money markets are seizing up as the global economic recovery stalls. A full-scale credit crash may be ahead. Or it may already be here.

Pin Money: Bank of America, which does not need to raise any capital, sold 13 billion shares of China Construction Bank for $8.3 billion, bringing its ten day total unnecessar increase in capital to $13.3 billion. Smells a lot like Denmark from here.

Silly Question: The question was: Does the US even need manufacturing jobs? If we don't make things and continue to turn our agricultural output into carbon emissions via ethanol, what are we going to trade to others for the stuff we need? Are we going to offer to flip their burgers for them? No... that won't work. What magical services can we export to pay for all the clothing, cars, shoes, diapers and soccer balls? Should we become like Venice and all be in the tourism business - making beds and taking tickets? A sign of the Times.

The Explanation:A key fact that brought us where we are today is that global oil production basically stagnated between 2005 and 2009.” Read the article, follow the data.

Tea Leaves? Since 1948, every time the four-quarter change has fallen below 2 percent, the economy has entered a recession. The second quarter has now been revised downward from a preliminary 1.3% to 1.0% in real terms.

Easy Come, Easy Keep: Corporate profits – at $1.45 trillion – made up a record part of the country's GDP in the second quarter. That works out to a profit-per employee of $15,278.72 -- up 22.3% from last year – which was mostly achieved through offshoring and job and wage cuts.

Unbelievers: The IMF has cut its forecast for US GDP growth for 2012 to 2.0% (down from a 2.7% guess earlier) and has marked down Eurozone growth to 1.4% for 2012.

Present At The Creation: When you hear 'Social Security is a Ponzi scheme... It won't be there for you... Social Security is broke..." you are hearing echoes of a conservative attack on Social Security that started with the Cato Institute in 1983. These things were not true then and are not true now. Conservatives hate Social Security because it has worked and continues to work and by so doing demonstrates the value of progressive governance. It is We, the People, taking care of each other. And that is not a world the GOP wants to live in. Remember, Social Security is entirely self-funding and has $2.3 trillion in its piggy bank. The military, on the other hand, has no money in its trust fund; does that mean we'll have to do way with invading places at will? Or that we can't expect the military to be there for us in 2038?

Delinquents: This summer's employment/population ratio for the 16-24 year-old population was 48.8% the lowest on record.

Porn O'Graph: Facts is facts, sort'a.

5 comments:

tulsatime said...

Once again, dark clouds gather ominously on the horizon. The forces of chaos rise, threatening our fragile republic. Little do they know that our hero, in his might fortress deep within the earth's crust, labors mightily to save the day. To soon rise, and make the planet safe, once more, for Godmann Sacks and high finance.

I'm Not POTUS said...

Dick Chaney?????

Anywho, FYI 80% of the raw material needed for pharmaceutical productions is imported into the US.

Most production is in New Jersey.

I can't fathom how either factoid is going to harm us in the long run or short.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

What's with the pharmaceuticals? And New Jersey? Sorry, this one went way over my head.

ckm

Blissex said...

«What magical services can we export to pay for all the clothing, cars, shoes, diapers and soccer balls?»

Well, the industrial policy of the USA government has been for the past few decades to export financial services and products, in particular derivatives. This is one reason why the finance sector has been recapitalized free of charge, and interest rates (but only those to finance businesses, not their clients) have been kept to near zero.

Other USA government sponsored industries are software and movies (supported by extra wide intellectual property laws and treaties), pharmaceuticals (supported by extraordinarily generous pricing and price support programs as GWB's medicare extension), airplanes and weapons (supported by military funding).

Except for airplanes and weapons all those sectors were targeted be cause they were non-union, and since 1980 the USA government industrial policy has been to undermine as much as possible unionized sectors (e.g. manufacturing except weapons) and to support non unionized sectors (e.g. services and in particular finance).

I'm Not POTUS said...

NJ/Pharma is a potential black swan.
NJ is a basket case, budget wise.
A sudden urge for protectionism could cripple big pharma.
We already have a shortage of drugs in hospitals for generics, an acute problem for chemo and cancer treatments.
If NJ really does get hit with an F3, how in the heck are we gonna keep the sheeple sedated without mother little helpers.