Valero Energy has just announced it is shutting down its Delaware City Refinery.  This is a major news announcement because refiners should be seen as a canary in the coalmine for end-user demand and Valero is one company in the oil patch which has been loath to cut workers to improve the bottom line. This [...]

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Initial jobless claims for the past week were 505,000, tied with last week for the lowest since January. This brings the 4-week average down to 514,000, the lowest since November of last year and the 11th consecutive week of declines. 
Clearly, fewer people are losing their jobs.  But, 505,000 is still a large number – [...]

Today, I want to run a few thoughts by you courtesy of John Mauldin.  In his recent weekly newsletter, he makes a number of points I have made here over the past few weeks and comes to a similar conclusion about the weakness of recovery and the likelihood of a double dip recession.
John Mauldin, Best-Selling [...]

From Bloomberg:
Confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly dropped in November as the loss of jobs threatened to undermine the biggest part of the economy.
The Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary sentiment index decreased to a three-month low of 66 from 70.6 in October…
Rising joblessness puts the economy at risk of slipping into a vicious circle of firings [...]

This morning, David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff had another wonderful piece. I am only going to take on one part of it here. I have linked to the full article below so that you can read his analysis in it’s entirety (registration free but required).
The part I want to focus in on has to [...]

The latest number on unemployment claims shows a seasonally-adjusted 502,000 people applied for unemployment insurance last week, bringing the more meaningful 4-week average down to 519,750, the lowest since late November 2008. That is a good thing because it shows the labor market is improving.
Nevertheless, 500,000 initial claims in an environment of reduced hiring is [...]

I have just taken a look at the consumer credit figures for September, released just yesterday by the Federal Reserve. The data do show some modest deleveraging, especially when looking at the recent increase in nominal GDP. However, it is still not clear to me that the scale of deleveraging is great enough to induce [...]

While I see the job numbers as pretty much what was expected, the data do make clear that we are seeing a major jobless recovery. David Rosenberg has a piece out today that goes right to the heart of the issue:
All we can say is that if the overwhelming consensus is correct that the recession [...]

The employment market is pretty grim. We’re talking a double digit unemployment rate – and that’s just the base rate. The comprehensive unemployment rate is now 17.5% in the US.  This is a fact not lost on our politicians. Today, Barack Obama signed a bill that extends unemployment benefits and home buyer tax credits. But,, [...]