October 2011
6 posts
This note is [no longer] legal tender for all... →
Reminds me that Greece recently banned cash transactions over €1500 and Italy recently banned cash transactions over €5000.
And if the thought “Wouldn’t it have been easier to take financial jobs and divide by the total population?” crosses your mind, you obviously haven’t had enough to drink.
If you are curious, though, it’s still 2%-ish (7.6m / 311m).
Also, I’m part of that 2% I just calculated. Not part of the top 1%, though.
Who Are The 1%? →
They’re mostly pissed at 13.9% of the top 1%. Realistically, I think it’s 5.7% (financial jobs) of the 90.9% (percent employed) of the 64.2% (labor force participation rate) of the 66% (working age Americans). And note that I’m not going to try to factor out the portion of the top 1% and worry about claims of double-counting. (NB: the 5.7%, 90.9%, and 64.2% number just comes from...
As Many as 24 People Arrested for Trying to Close... →
I found this interesting. This was followed up later with this link. (I half-heartedly suggest following the last link. The bongos and chanting really make the video for me—Santa Cruz and protesters and drums? Isn’t that like salt and pepper and cumin? I’m surprised the 99% don’t find the drums annoying.)
Oral Sex May Cause More Throat Cancer Than Smoking... →
Most read headline in Bloomberg on a day with 400 point Dow swings.
Oral sex causes smoking in men?
Anti-HPV Vaccine: Who knew it could be this easy to be homophobic and a slut-shamer?
This gives me new ways to propose a “…because cancer sucks” ad campaign for Gardasil.
Actually, that last bullet makes me want to point out the following from the article:
Pamela Eisele, a...
September 2011
1 post
Bank of America to charge debit card use fee →
Remember how consumers were going to be protected?
Bank of America has a great defense for many of these fees. Our GDP reports include consumer spending numbers for things that aren’t actually paid for, like the value of free checking accounts. If the US government says such accounts are worth more than people actually pay, why shouldn’t banks charge more?
But seriously, time to...
August 2011
12 posts
5 tags
“Having only two parties makes sense, I guess, because if you believe that school...”
– jakke
Only semi-automatic?
BNY Mellon to Cut 1,500 Jobs, 3% of Workforce →
This goes with the headlines today saying “Banks lead the way.”
Just returned from Pismo Beach, where we booked a room at the Sea Venture. Good place. Hot tubs on balconies overlooking the beach while still providing enough privacy for that punchline to that lightbulb joke. They had an anniversary special. In addition to a nice rate, they dumped rose petals on our entry way, gave us chocolate-covered strawberries, and delivered a bottle of champaign.
3 tags
Unemployment: 9.1%
The unemployment rate dropped to 9.1% according to the July Employment Situation Report. The headline jobs number was +117,000 vs a Bloomberg consensus range of 25,000 to 125,000. Without the seasonal adjustment, things look substantially worse. 1.32 million people lost their jobs in the month of July. These job numbers are highly focused into a single industry that undergoes a rather pronounced...
2 tags
Unemployment: Celebration Ends
Crossing below the 400k new claims barrier is something worth celebrating. We celebrated. The celebration ends. Today’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report gave us a headline number of 400k. Last week’s number was revised up 3k to 401k. From the report:
In the week ending July 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 400,000, a decrease of 1,000...
When nobody you know can afford a house, it’s a housing bubble. You hear that Vancouver?
“By now it should be obvious to anybody who is not a banker or a real estate...”
– Philip Soos at The Conversation: Should we be bracing for an inevitable housing bubble bust?
Ha! I had a real-estate agent tell me last week that the market, which is in an obvious stagnation in my area, would experience “another boom” in the next six months. Six months was, coincidentally, when I...
Wait...
As a result of the debt deal, the Federal Government is going to spend more this year than last year. They are going to spend more next year than this year. This is true for both military and non-military spending. So why is John McCain is crying over military cuts? When you spend more than the prior year, I don’t think you really get to complain about cuts. If your favorite program has less...
HSBC Says It Will Cut 30,000 Jobs by 2013 →
I thought we were done with the massive job cut headlines.
July 2011
13 posts
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Below 400k
A toast to small victories, easily celebrated. Today’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report greeted us with a headline number of 398k. Last week’s number was revised up 4k. Compare this to the Bloomberg consensus range of 405k to 436k and you can find multiple reasons to celebrate. No special factors were cited in today’s report. Speaking of which:
In the week ending...
5 tags
Thanks, moorewr
Very, very helpful.
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Up
A little discouraging information from the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report: new claims increased to 418k (last week’s number was revised up 3k). This was toward the middle of the Bloomberg consensus range of 385k to 430k. It’s still rather unfortunate that we can’t seem to bust through that 400k barrier again. The report makes note of the special circumstance that...
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Down
Close. Very close. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report is about as close to the threshold as we can get. New unemployment claims came in at 405k. That’s a drop of 22k from last week’s revised number. Last week’s number was revised up 9k, but remember that there were several estimates that guaranteed a bit of uncertainty in the data. The Bloomberg...
Greece Gets World’s Lowest Rating by Fitch →
3 tags
Unemployment: 9.2%
The unemployment rate crept up to 9.2% according to the June Employment Situation Report. The headline jobs number was +18,000 vs a Bloomberg consensus range of 65,000 to 160,000. This disappoints. Without the seasonal adjustment, things are mixed. The unadjusted jobs number is +376k, but the unadjusted unemployment rate is 9.3%.
The biggest losers (seasonally adjusted) were Government (-39k)...
European Financial Crisis: Portugal Update →
When the multi-decade bull run in US Treasuries ends, the US will try similar stalling tactics. While they will likely work better than the ECB’s attempt, they will also fail (as a matter of market dynamics, independent of faith in ratings). But unlike the ECB, the US will have a plan B (and perhaps C, D, E…). It turns out that there are advantages to having a political union to go...
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Down
Today’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report is the second awkward weekly report in a row. Last week’s technical glitches were followed by this week’s holiday. Another 6 states had their numbers estimated due to incomplete data. The report shows that the numbers are improving, though slower than anyone would like. New claims came in at 418k. This is within the Bloomberg...
jtem asked: I know you're not a huge, huge fan of Krugman, but did you ever start to think that maybe he was right. I mean, like back in 2003 when he was not only predicting this collapse, but that it was intentional?
"Starving the beast."
Come on, you call yourself "Crazy Nut Job" so why not entertain a seemingly kooky though supported-by-the-evidence...
"Starving the beast."
Come on, you call yourself "Crazy Nut Job" so why not entertain a seemingly kooky though supported-by-the-evidence...
Debt Discussion →
jakke:
Wow, yeah, creating more US$ and using them to pay creditors would solve the debt ceiling problem pretty neatly. (Except for the likely steep devaluation of the dollar and the fall in demand for US Treasury bonds and all the fun knock-on effects there, obviously.)
But wouldn’t the Fed have to agree to do this? Like, it’s not like the Treasury can order the Fed to just print indefinitely...
Debt Discussion →
The link is to a post by jakke. It prompted these thoughts (equal credit should probably be given to the wine), though any article you’ve seen regarding zany default-avoidance schemes could probably stand in as a substitute:
I still believe this is all political theater.
I am not convinced that default is required. The Federal Reserve has the ability, if not outright authority, to...
June 2011
23 posts
It's Official: China Is The "Mystery" Daily Buyer... →
This is rather significant. Tracking China’s FX flows has been used to help explain the position that the increase in London purchases that coincide with decreases in Chinese purchases have historically just been Chinese purchases in disguise (TIC data lags a bit, but offers no reason for concern). With China actively selling the dollar and buying Euros, we could be experiencing a trend...
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Flat?
Today’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was a bit of a disappointment. Sure, the headline new claims number of 428k was inside the Bloomberg consensus range of 410k to 430k, and it was 1k less than the previous week’s number (unrevised). That must be weighed against the fact that it was 14k above the figure from 2 weeks ago and the fact that 6 states couldn’t get...
Minus 8 freshly open tabs (tl;dr … yet), I have caught up on tumblr.
Things about my 10 days in Hawaii:
Both of my feet were cut open to various depths without getting some kind of bizarre tropical infection.
I managed not to cover my entire Irish-white body with sunburn (My Achilles’ heel appears to be my actual Achilles… snorkeling burn).
I traveled with a Mexican who...
Airport hotel bar has 22oz Arrogant Bastard for 8 bucks.
United seems to be getting their computers back up.
I cut my paper down to size and beat the deadline.
I finished my project at work and won’t stress about it while on vacation.
Life is good.
Guess which Airline I'm Using →
:(
Time to Bug the Advisor
My paper is too long. Panic mode has been engaged, and countering it with copious amounts of wine* is not working**. I think I’ll leave work immediately after lunch and pester my advisor on what to cut. This is ridiculous.
* Now drinking a 2007 wine from Spain from the Zagat wine club. Pretty good budget wine club (generally a second-bottle wine. Drink the good stuff first!).
** Ok,...
Paper Deadline Tomorrow
I have half a page left before I hit the space limit and feel like I could easily fill another 2 pages with what I’m currently writing. I haven’t included my only figure, which details an important case study. My references have yet to be added (I still need to find that bibtex file I put together for my proposal). I originally thought I’d have room for three figures (all done!),...
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Down
The Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report started us off with some less-bad news today: new unemployment claims dropped. After a +3k revision to last week’s number, new claims registered a drop of 16k, to 414k. This was safely inside the Bloomberg consensus range of 408k to 425k. From the report:
In the week ending June 11, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims...
More news for cave dwellers...
Canadians do have a dark side. I’m refreshing like mad, waiting for updates from Jakke and Love & Radiation, while I sit in the comfort of my apartment and sip on a lovely red blend from Castoro Cellars (Due Mila Sette, because numbers are cool wine names if they come in a foreign tongue).
Also, I’m emailing my college friends who went on to UBC to ask if they are safe. Also, I...
Citigroup says 360,000 affected by hackers →
Yeah, there’s no information beyond the headline.
Late credit card payments hit pre-recession level →
Hey, I’m not all doom and gloom. This is good news:
Late payments on credit cards have dropped to rates seen before the Great Recession, and defaults are also heading close to normal levels, reports from the nation’s top six issuers show.
More, though this isn’t as good as the headline sounds, Lenders repossessed fewer homes in May:
The number of U.S. homeowners who...
In case you live in a cave...
… like some of my friends apparently do… Today was a bad day for the markets. Greek 3 year debt hit 28%. There will be some kind of resolution this weekend for Greece, either can-kicking or pant-pooping. However, it looks like there’s a slim chance that the markets will vote before the weekend. This is an optimal time to gamble (well, Friday near close will be an optimal time to...
1 tag
Stupid Timezones
I’m traveling a lot this summer. I will be in Hawaii on one of the most important Mondays for the market this year. I am trying to figure out whether it makes more sense to stay up until the market opens or to wake up at a ridiculous hour of the “morning.”
I’m leaning toward staying up only because it is more socially acceptable to have a drink in my hand very late at...
“We’ve been enjoying salad from our garden for the past couple nights. The...”
– Hilker, on the downsides of a US Treasury market collapse.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Retail sales fall for first time in 11 months →
The Bloomberg expectations for the month-over-month change was -1.3% to 0.0%, so an actual of 0.2% was toward the good side of expectations.
For the core (month-over-month minus autos and gas), the Bloomberg consensus range was -0.4% to 0.5%. Again, 0.3% (growth!) was toward the good side of expectations.
Still, crummy news is crummy news, even if expected.
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Up
New unemployment claims nudged up this week. The Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report put the number at 427k. Last week came in at 422k before its upward revision of +4k, so this wasn’t quite as flat as it first appears. The Bloomberg consensus range was predicting a slight drop to between 415k to 420k, so this a bit of a disappointment. From the report:
In the week ending June 4,...
Exxon Finds 700 Million-Barrel Oil Field in... →
I didn’t even realize that drilling had resumed in the Gulf of Mexico. My first thought when reading this was, “How much oil is that?” US daily oil consumption is 20 million barrels. That’s just over a month in total supply, but this is still considered a rather large find—enough to justify a deep-water well. That’s sort of spooky when you think about it.