It’s really one of those good news – bad news affairs. Yes, it is a Depression, since the only way the economic numbers can be read is that we’re out of bubbles to inflate, there are millions of jobs that have been outsourced and will never return to America, and the housing report Tuesday just plain old sucked.
Yes, this is the site that started writing about the long wave of economics and the theoretical end of the great boom from the last depression through present day which had to come to an end not later than 83.5 years or so after its inception because no matter how the numbers get pushed around, the magic of compounding swaps every nook and cranny of the economy with debt burden by that point, no matter what.
So this morning we’re likely to have another downer/bummer on Wall Street, since Europe started off down this morning, and Japan shaved another 1.66% off the Nikkei overnight.
An optimist could say that things aren’t so bad: The Fed and the Treasury seem to have managed things OK…at least so far. The Housing Bubble is being unwound and there’s light at the end of the tunnel, right?
Let me interject here with the Durable Goods Order report, hot off the Xerox machine…
New Orders New orders for manufactured durable goods in July increased $0.6 billion or 0.3 percent to $193.0 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase followed two consecutive monthly decreases including a 0.1 percent June decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 3.8 percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 0.3 percent. Transportation equipment, also up following two consecutive monthly decreases, had the largest increase, $6.1 billion or 13.1 percent to $52.6 billion. This was due to nondefense aircraft and parts, which increased $4.0 billion.
Shipments Shipments of manufactured durable goods in July, up four of the last five months, increased $4.4 billion or 2.2 percent to $200.6 billion. This followed a 0.2 percent June increase. Transportation equipment, also up four of the last five months, had the largest increase, $3.4 billion or 6.9 percent to $52.7 billion.
Unfilled Orders Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in July, down following three consecutive monthly increases, decreased $1.1 billion or 0.1 percent to $802.8 billion. This followed a 0.1 percent June increase. Computers and electronic products, down following four consecutive monthly increases, had the largest decrease, $0.5 billion or 0.4 percent to $121.1 billion.
Pardon me while I put on the green eyeshades for a moment and point out how we’re not even back to 2008 levels which is why statistics with only a one-year window in the rearview mirror are both useless and largely for idiots:
| Ure’s Durable Thinking | |||||||
| Current | Jun-10 | ? v. ‘Jun | Jul-09 | ? v. ’09 | Jul-08 | ? v. ’08 | |
| New Orders | 193.02 | 192.45 | 100.30% | 168.4 | 114.62% | 219.3 | 88.02% |
| Shipped | 200.6 | 196.26 | 102.21% | 173.1 | 115.89% | 215.3 | 93.17% |
| Unfilled | 802.8 | 803.9 | 99.86% | 720.2 | 111.47% | 824.4 | 97.38% |
If that sounds a little less than encouraging, consider the headline that the “…Number of Americans receiving long-term Unemployment Benefits has risen a whopping 60 Percent in just One Year...”
Later on this morning, new home sales figures will be released. While the so-so Durables orders might leave room for a short bounce after the open, you might not want to be standing under windows around 9 AM Central (10 A Eastern) when the home sales come out. Or, at least look up once in a while. Bound to be better than the existing sales of Tuesday, but not much since I’ve been talking to a few local builders who’ve hinted that the only want to get money out of a bank lately is at gunpoint.
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While Robin Landry’s work still points to a short term (6-month?) low around 8,500 down to 8,100, then a bounce and then going down to around the 4,400 level (or lower) over the coming year or two, the others eyheing the data are starting to gin up some headlines, too. Like this one who says the the “Dow Faces a Bouncy Ride to 5,000“.
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Why is it that when I give you great market calls and perspective since 1997, no one pays attention, but when a PR piece hits the wire, Bingo! It’s somehow more real? (sigh, grumbles, slurps of cold coffee…). Pearls before Sheep, I tell yah!
Futures look weak. Maybe not everyone’s an idiot… yes it’s a Depression, but these things take a lot of time to work out.
Scared Sheep
One reason might have to do with the sheep just recently being stampeded into pulling in their spending habits. Latest evidence is that overall credit card debt has dropped to the lowest level in 8-years.
Don’t tell anyone (but this is the secret sauce behind the market collapse…) If their ain’t no spending, ain’t no new jobs, and we sink deeper into Depression 2.0. (We’re geniuses for getting this figured out, huh?)
Then, once people notice prices falling, they will begin to postpone big ticket purchases which will make things like Durable Goods crater….or weren’t you paying attention earlier on in today’s report?
Protecting the Boss Dept.
You see where WIBW is reporting “Corruption Investigators: Blago Investigation Cut Short to Protect Obama”?
Must be something about Chicago politics that screws people up, you think? Maybe it’s the water…
Vodka and Eggs
“Yum!” No, you sot! Not that way….this way explains a reader:
“Okay, so help me out here. The diseased eggs that are all being recalled. Salmonella on eggs is on the exterior shell. The eggs are washed to prevent this. All a person has to do is wash the eggs (as farmers have done for thousand of years) or swab it with alcohol if your really paranoid and bingo, its gone. So instead of putting out a “swab your egg advisory”, they have destroyed billions of food items? WTF Now if the salmonella is inside the egg, that’s impossible, unless it was put there. Jeez George, this passes my usual pissoff ratio, when I see forty million Americans needing food stamps and the gov doing this. No wonder they are removing ammo from the markets.
LOL…even more amazing are the headlines that people are now changing their eating habits because of it. Herd instincts, dude, herd instincts…
Six-Pack Science Dept.
The Toronto Star has a dandy one: “Party-goer didn’t notice he’d been shot in head. For five years…“
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Hmmm… Zeus the Cat says I should hold off till Friday afternoon, then…
Iran War Drum Beating
China reports on the new Iranian surface-to-surface missile with a range of 250 kilometers. Pencils to about 155.34 miles.
So this one I don’t think is too big a deal. Fired from Tehran, this wouldn’t even make it outside their own country, although if fired from Iran’s western border area, it could hit Baghdad….
Then again with dozens being killed there by bombings now, seems kinda redundant.
War over, huh?
Hitler’s DNA: Jewish & Black?
The Daily Mail headline “DNA tests reveal ‘Hitler was descended from the Jews and Africans he hated’” is certainly going to ripple around the supremacist circles, we imagine.
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Me? Just a slightly overweight T6 haplotype. Try putting that on a job application. Speaking of which…
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Last time I filled out an employment ap, years ago and they asked “Race: (answer for HR statistical purposes only) I put in “Sailboats, bikes when younger“. In the future I will simply put T6 and let them wonder if I’m a Terminator or what…depends how sharp the HR group is, I suppose….
Then again, I also answered for “DOB:_Yes_
For some odd reason, never got a call back…
