Newest numbers out from the Bureau of Eggnog Analysis this morning on personal consumption and expenditures:
“Personal income increased $49.7 billion, or 0.4 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $54.1 billion, or 0.5 percent, in November, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $47.9 billion, or 0.5 percent. In October, personal income increased $33.6 billion, or 0.3 percent, DPI increased $50.2 billion, or 0.5 percent, and PCE increased $63.5 billion, or 0.6 percent, based on revised estimates.
Real disposable income increased 0.2 percent in November, the same increase as in October. Real PCE increased 0.2 percent in November, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent in October.”
I know, you’re thinking “Say, George, with all those people homeless and all the folks with unemployment running out, and the unemployment rate still up around 10%, how do these people figure this?
Beats the hell outa me. But if anyone from BEA drops by for a hit of Christmas cheer, I got a pee cup out so we can send out samples.
Here’s more of the myth:
“Private wage and salary disbursements increased $16.1 billion in November, compared with an increase of $3.2 billion in October. Goods-producing industries’ payrolls increased $0.4 billion, in contrast to a decrease of $2.0 billion; manufacturing payrolls increased $1.6 billion, in contrast to a decrease of $2.4 billion. Services-producing industries’ payrolls increased $15.7 billion, compared with an increase of $5.2 billion. Government wage and salary disbursements increased $1.7 billion, compared with an increase of $2.8 billion.”
Only thing I can figure is they over weighted the number of banksters in their sample, skipped the underpasses and didn’t talk to the folks in line at the food banks. But wait! The real punchline to this statistical joke is what?
“Personal saving — DPI less personal outlays — was $525.1 billion in November, compared with $516.7 billion in October. Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income was 4.7 percent in November, the same as in October.”
Yeah, sure, you bet’cha. Banker over-sample again?
New Home sales due out in a while. Santa rally is like a couple of hits of ecstasy down on Wall Street where they have more uppers lately than a…well, you know. Future’s so bright, gotta wear shades kind of thing. Grinch me.
I wonder if inspectors general ever audit this stuff, or if they just keep their noses down on the credit card slips from govt. travel?
Eye of the Beholder
I love to put up charts – you know, a picture worth a thousand words kind of thing. So here’s the delayed Mass Layoffs report for the month in my handy-dandy chart:
This leaves me in a three-way debate with myself. Part of me says “Dang! Things are improving!” Then another side of m e says “Naw…probably the WH figured out how to lean on the BLS folks…” And the third side says “Everyone is out of benefits, so of course the mass layoffs end at some point…” Then the three voices start arguing violently and one picks up a rock, another picks up a stick, and I get a headache.
Christmas Presents for Taxpayer
Gee, those thoughtful good-old boyz in the senate – about to spring the healthcare bill and a hike in the federal debt limit on us. One size fits all…except for the elected rulers who have their own healthcare bill and if this was really such a great deal why are they excluded from it?
I must not understand clearly how global fascism is rolling, huh?
Christmas Travel
File this in your “Good will toward men” file as an “Out of Control Crowd at JFK” didn’t like the delays and got rowdy.
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Meantime, move evidence of the joke to “We’re from the government and we’re here to help” as the Department of Transportation is “Promises big fines for long tarmac delays…” which sounds good until you read how the clock doesn’t start for three freakin hours.
Of course, we get what we get. Kinda like all those “executive comp limits’ enacted in the financial community until – after a flurry of TARP pay-backs suddenly they largely disappeared once the real ‘bone us’ season showed up. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
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You saw where an American Airlines plane overshot the runway down at Kingston, Jamaica last night in a heavy rainsquall? 40 reported injured and looks like the gear collapsed at the end of the runway which ends in the Caribbean.
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Continuing on to Grandma’s house, if you were flying over the river and were simply planning to drive through the woods, gasoline was up a penny a gallon in the latest reporting week, but more could be coming since oil is up to $74 now. Crude of me to mention it, but our writers & editors are on vacation this week…
“Arbeit Macht Frei” Redux
Our Poland correspondent sends this bit of follow-up:
“Again, not always the most obvious reasons for things happening are these real ones. As our polish portals proudly state, guys who stole this (in)famous sign from former Auschwitz camp were not just hools or thieves trying to prove something to someone, but freelancers working for “mad collector”, probably from Sweden
Yeah…somehow a couple of guys doing the heist on a lark didn’t sound right…wonder who Mr. X with the dough will turn out to be? An NWO’er? We shall see…maybe….
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BTW 79 dead in sub-zero temps in Poland…which gets us on to…
Globull Warming, Redux
A reader wants to know (WRT the “NASA shows quiet sun means cooling of earth’s upper atmosphere” that was linked yesterday and I guess to state the obvious, again here this morning):
“The mention of CO2 in there will still get the Global Warming bobble heads up in a tizzy even though the jist of the article is low sun spots equals climate cooling lots of sun spots equal warming duhhhh…”
Yeah…well…there you go thinking again. So for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t go read the Robinson, Robinson, and Soon paper from the Oregon Institute of Science & Medicine because it’s only 12-pages long and lays out some really ugly charts if you are still swallowing the climategate laced numbers hook, line, and sinker lest you have to reconcile pictures like this one:
Nice of them glaciers to anticipate carbon use, huh? Obviously, I’m not the only one (NASA and the OISM guys just to name two groups) who is looking at the solar cycle and the temps and seeing a correlation, but I suppose I’ve beat this point pretty well to death. Good news in CO2 climbing? Sure…trees are growing 30% faster…and with that I’ll tell you how I know this to be true… (you’re braced for the worst pun of the week, right?) I’ve been keeping a log….
ROFLMAO… Didn’t I warn you?
Still only two sunspots today when we should be in the 5-10 range at least…meantime the “Climate change alliance crumbling” says the Financial Times and oh, so sorry about your plans to become a carbon gazillionaire: the FT also reporting that “Carbon prices fall in wake of Copenhagen” for reasons that we hold self-evident.
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I see where the Washington Examiner is asking “Who is more respected: Sarah Palin or Al Gore?” Since most UrbanSurvival readers are bright enough to figure out that the whole myth and legend of Right vs. Left politicks is nothing more than a put-up job by the PowersThatBe to keep us all distracted and sharpening our pitchforks for their bought & paid for minions instead of them , I won’t remind you that my editor, Zeus The Cat consistently polls higher than both Palin & Gore combined… since he spends his time on Bing looking at the gray literature for papers like the OISM one…but then again he doesn’t have eyes on the White House or carbon trading.
Who took my eggnog?