ShareThe Canadian daily National Post has a good piece out today that highlights how the ‘Buy American’ provision is being seen in Canada.  Many see it as an affront that America could and would favor domestic firms over those of its largest trading partner and next-door neighbor despite the North American Free Trade Agreement.
For the [...]

ShareChina on Friday accused the US of protectionist and biased trade policies less than a week before president Barack Obama’s first visit to Beijing.
In a stinging rebuke to Washington, China’s commerce ministry promised to take measures to protect its domestic industry after the US slapped anti-dumping duties on $2.6bn of Chinese steel pipe imports. [...]

ShareWhile 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 [...]

ShareThe 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,, [...]

ShareAverage weekly hours a record low of 33.0. Stock futures now down. The household survey says we have lost 1.3 million jobs in three months. 17.5% U-6 unemployment. Median duration of unemployment is now 18.7 weeks from 15.4 just 3 months ago – ugly.
Here is an excerpt from the release (bolding added).
The unemployment rate rose [...]

ShareThe Department of Labor data released this morning indicated that 512,000 people filed initial claims for unemployment insurance in the latest week.  This is down 20,000 from last week and marks the last data points we are to get on employment before tomorrows employment numbers are released.
All indications are that the number will come in [...]

ShareThe sale to Canadian auto parts maker Magna International and its partner, Russian lender Sberbank is off. With bankruptcy now behind it, General Motors now feels confident it can proceed with Opel under the GM umbrella.
From the GM press release:
Given an improving business environment for GM over the past few months, and the importance of [...]

ShareThe data released this morning by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis on personal income somehow managed to show weakness in income and consumption as well as savings.  I see this as proof that Americans are not saving and hence not deleveraging, but they are also so income constrained that their consumption [...]

ShareWhen it comes to the housing meltdowns in the richest economies, the US has been matched only by Spain, Ireland and the UK. All four countries have seen spectacular losses of wealth in the housing sector over the last two years.
The response by all four governments was to apply as much stimulus as they reasonably [...]

ShareThat’s what we seem to be expecting based on the huge uptick in equities since March. While stock markets have long since moved it up a gear, the employment market is stuck in neutral. The latest seasonally-adjusted jobless claims numbers came in at 530,000. The widely-followed four week average is still 526,250 and is not [...]