January 2011
24 posts
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Up
This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report brought bad news. New unemployment claims came in at a seasonally adjusted 454k. This is the second big increase in a month to wipe out recent gains. The DoL indicated that the weather was largely to blame. On the bright side, last week’s data was revised down 1k. The Bloomberg consensus range was 375k to 425k, so this was a bit...
Lowe's to Cut 1,700 Management Jobs, Hire More... →
This headline doesn’t look good, but the hiring exceeds the firing by 4x. The downside is that most of these will probably not be full time positions.
Google to hire thousands at record pace →
Good jobs headline.
Bill Black: Why our Fundamental Approach to... →
Bill Black is one of those people that libertarian nutjobs, such as myself, need to read. His primary flaw is in holding the view that there could ever be such a thing as a non-corrupt government. As a consequence, he keeps proposing fixes that require competent government officials as a prerequisite. Sad. Not all officials can be a Bill Black or an Elizabeth Warren. Still, he’s very good at...
Bye Bye Blackbird: USDA acknowledges a hand in one... →
Saw this on naked capitalism. Strangely, I feel better knowing that one of the instances was intentional. The cold snap seems to be a reasonable explanation for the other two. It reminds me of a historic heat wave in Santa Barbara and Goleta that caused birds in flight to drop to the ground dead. I thought it was another tall tale grandpa used to tell until last year’s heat wave caused the...
Plans
I will wake up at 4:30 am so that I can meet a friend for breakfast in Paso Robles at 7:00 am. We will then head to the coast and up to Monterey via the 1. There we will decide where to go next (probably just San Francisco). I’ll gunbarrel the 101 back to Santa Barbara and should be home before sunrise on Sunday.
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Down
Hope and confusion are two appropriate reactions to this week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report. In an unusual move, last week’s data was revised down 4k. Including the revision, this week’s drop to 404k seems even more impressive. The Bloomberg consensus range was 397k to 435k, so this move came in at the low end of expectations. From the report:
In the week...
The Trenta →
This gives me the shakes, not alcoholism.
Tunisia President Hands Power to Prime Minister →
Congratulations to the people of Tunisia. Now, familiarize yourself with the concept of odious debt.
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Up
With the celebration still on pause, this report offers us week 2 of growing new claims. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report offers us the largest weekly increase in new claims in roughly six months. Last week’s data was revised up 1k. This week’s new claims came in at 445k. The Bloomberg consensus range was 400k to 415k, making this rather disappointing news....
AIG expects to repay government on Friday →
Fingers are crossed.
Drunk scientists pour wine on superconductors and... →
hilker:
[via @ebuie]
Wine makes everything better!
3 tags
2 tags
Car Manufacturers in the News
For some reason there has been quite a flurry of auto headlines recently. Most of these are good news, so it seemed reasonable to gather a list.
Ford to Hire 7,000 to Help Make Electric, Hybrid Cars - Ford manufacturing jobs typically have a high multiplier for the economy at large (directly for suppliers, indirectly through simple economic activity multipliers).
Toyota Plans Higher Output as...
Lazy...
Now that I’m home, I’m too lazy to run through the Birth/Death model changes to the employment situation report. It’s not a revision month and with only +24k jobs, it’s a low-shenanigans month.
2 tags
Unemployment: 9.4%
The unemployment rate fell in December to 9.4% as the economy added fewer jobs than anticipated. December’s Employment Situation Report tells us that 103,000 non-farm payroll jobs were added last month. This is toward the low end of the Bloomberg consensus range of 98k to 225k (with 160k as the consensus number). Note that this is worse than the 125k Robert Reich says is needed to maintain the...
gatm replied to your post: Now that the US national debt is $14 trillion,…
Is this snark? Fuck. Dying inside because I never took economics. It’s on my list though. Keep up the good work. You and c2n are my go-to’s.
It is snark, but it is also true. Economics is not really necessary for this. The national debt data is here, and gdp data is here (annualized Q3 gdp was $14,745.1...
Now that the US national debt is $14 trillion, it’s looking rather promising that we’ll hit a debt/gdp ratio of 1.0 sometime this year.
Scientists Ruin Everything Good About Heroin →
(via)
2 tags
Unemployment: New Claims Up
The party is on pause until further notice. That was the sentiment from this week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report. New unemployment claims came in at 409k. The Bloomberg consensus range was 400k to 415k, so this number was largely expected. Last week’s number was revised up 3k. From the report:
In the week ending Jan. 1, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted...
gilmoure:
I thought, after the 2010 census bump was taken out, gov’t employment has been going down? And isn’t Texas one of those states that has a large budget deficit.
As far as total government employment goes, you are correct. Total government employment has fallen. My statement was “Local governments have already shrunk. The federal government has grown. But this will be the year...
jakke replied to your post: Unemployment: Time to Celebrate
Is this totally unrelated to people not wanting to lay off employees immediately before Christmas?
Many apologies. I abandoned tumblr while on vacation except for the single post. I’m easing back into it (particularly since work commitments are still high).
Since there’s actually a seasonal pattern to...