Category: Economy
On The Jobs Numbers
I was on RT TV America last Friday talking about the jobs report. The video from that discussion is below (it runs about 5 minutes). Here’s the deal: The US is in the midst of a technical recovery that has been on-going for about 17 months now. When I say technical recovery, I mean "the
A Few Thoughts on the Employment Numbers
By Dr. Lacy Hunt, Hoisington Investment Mgt. Co. The October employment situation was dramatically weaker than the headline 159k increase in the payroll employment measure. The broader household employment fell 330k. The only reason that the unemployment rate held steady is that 254k dropped out of the labor force. The civilian labor force participation rate
Stat of the Day: Ireland soars to number three for highest government default probabilities in the world
Despite austerity in Ireland, things have gone decidedly pear-shaped for the Irish government as its bank bailout-ridden deficit has ballooned to a magnificent 32% of GDP and debt spreads to German bunds are at record levels. Despite the sentiments expressed in the CNBC interview above by the Irish premier, bond market action is showing great
ADP: U.S. private employers add 43,000 jobs in October
The ADP number is higher than expected and is the last piece of major economic data we will see before the Fed’s FOMC meeting announcement. I am not sure whether the Fed will have seen the Labor Department number, but these jobs data should factor into their announcement on quantitative easing. The ADP numbers were
Spain’s Troubling Unemployment Statistics
by Edward Hugh Spain’s statistics office continue to issue worryingly confusing press releases. The latest example is one published in connection with the quarterly labour force survey which came out last Friday. Now the data the INE assemble in their report is very interesting, and as many observe, the complete survey gives far more reliable
ISM Manufacturing Index PMI rises to 56.9%
The Institute for Supply Management (formerly the National Association of Purchasing Management) releases the widely-followed Report On Business® each month. This is considered the most important data set in the manufacturing sector. This morning the latest numbers from the ISM for October 2010 showed a substantial rise from 54.4 to 56.9, putting the manufacturing sector
Mortgage default as economic stimulus
Early in the year, I posted a few times on a coming wave of mortgage defaults generally and the economic effect of living in defaulted accommodation specifically. My conclusion at the time was that, while the consumer spending due to the free rent defaulters received was large, it was not a major factor in the
What Goes Up…
by Edward Hugh Spain’s troubled banking sector is back in the news again. Despite the apparently successful stress tests carried out over the summer problems persist, and don’t seem likely to go away soon. Foremost among these is the steady rise in problem loans which have now risen to an all-time high, potentially endangering the
Unemployment and Foreclosures
There seem to be some weak and also some fairly good correlations between foreclosures and unemployment. However, there are likely be housing bubble factors as well
Zombie Households
by Annaly Capital Management Thursday’s third quarter GDP release provides a ton of fodder for the data dorks among us. There will be more to follow on this in the October monthly commentary, but today we’ll look at just one of the stand-out drivers of GDP in Q3: private residential investment. The chart below shows
Government Sponsored Spending
The first reading of 3rd quarter GDP was released this morning, with the headline coming in right on top of estimates at 2%. The happy surprise of the report was personal consumption expenditures (PCE), which were better than expectations at 2.6% annualized growth. The strength in PCE, which is now effectively back at its former
Video: Hugh Hendry on UK growth prospects on BBC’s QuestionTime
Here’s a good town hall-style video featuring Simon Schama and Hugh Hendry on BBC QuestionTime. The ever-combative Hendry gave his opinion on the prospects for the UK economy going forward from the Austerian viewpoint. He said that he doubts whether the private sector has the dynamism to carry the country forward economically as the government