Nothing like a Thursday morning ahead of a long holiday weekend with a little humor, mirth, and levity to set up the fun ahead this weekend, But rather than look for it in either of the political party charades, we’ll instead get right into hard-core humor this morning with the latest press release from the government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis which puts out the personal income and expenditure report which just crossed the wire in the past few minutes…
Personal income increased $42.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $39.9 billion, or 0.3 percent, in July, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $46.0 billion, or 0.4 percent. In June, personal income increased $46.1 billion, or 0.3 percent, DPI increased $37.4 billion, or 0.3 percent, and PCE increased $3.5 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, based on revised estimates. Real disposable income increased 0.3 percent in July, compared with an increase of 0.2 percent in June. Real PCE increased 0.4 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 0.1 percent.
But wait! There’s more…like the really juicy stuff about personal savings…
Personal saving — DPI less personal outlays — was $506.3 billion in July, compared with $516.2 billion in June. The personal saving rate — personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income — was 4.2 percent in July, compared with 4.3 percent in June.
(blah…blah…blah…)
Normally, somewhere in here I would point out the ludicrous claims of personal savings, but if you have a calculator and know that the working portion of the US population may be found in any recent BLS Unemployment Report (the latest is here) you will be able to amuse yourself at least until the first coffee break this morning.
Where is Disney When We Need Them?
The story on Russia Today Wednesday (“Fitch threatens to downgrade the US“) brings me to a grand marketing plan to solve all our country’s financial problems. We will simply have Disney officially open a government accounting practice.
Of course, there is the chance that they already have and it’s just not public…
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All eyes on Printer Ben’s talk tomorrow at Jackson Hole where the Fed is trying to figure out polilcy for the bumps ahead.
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Market, being unsure about uncertainty will likely blow off a few points at least in today’s early going. I sure like Disney as an accounting play, though, lol.
Mitt & Paul Show
How long can this possibly drag out?
Nice Hurricane, Bad Hurricane
Like we suggested earlier, the Mississippi will get filled up with the passing of Isaac upriver now. Barges will be able to move grain again. But it’s a mixed blessing…another one of those be careful what you wish for’s….
Leaky Nukey
A reader 39 miles west of tghe Davis-Besse nuke plant sent us a heads up about the article in Counterpunch about the nuclear power/safety issues along the Great Lakes. Been meaning to mention this for a few days now…
The Enemy of My Enemy is Myself Dept.
A (Muslim countries) summitt of the Non-Aligned Movement has seen Egypt calling out Syria on recent violence again people in their own country. Which caused Syria to walk out. And while this is going on, seems like Egypt and Iran are vying to see who’s gonna be the alpha dog in kennel.
Gnawing on Diet Data
I’m sure you have heard of the so-called “restricted calorie diets” that are out there and make all kinds of claims about their [purported] ability to extend people’s lives. Why mention? Ah…article in the NY Times reports that in another major study of calorie restriction, doing it for your whole lifetime doesn’t seem to help. On the other hand, there does seem to be some inference that adopted later in life it can help, at least on the disease front, if I’m reading it right.
All of which goes into Ure’s Crackpot Medicine Journal, editted by my colleague Dr. Zeus d’Cat, in which it states that the reason calorie restricted diets (CRDs) might make sense is that the volume and calories of food taken in by a human should probably be profiled something like what a cro magnon dude would be able to catch/kill/or harvest in less financially-crazed times. You get old, you catch less, right?
In other words, you’d be at your height of catching wild-beasts (like spaghetti and meatballs) in middle age when you’re fit and fast. By the time you’re in your 60′s, the kids have bled you dry so the number of wild boar you could successfully club (without being gored to death) would naturally begin to decline a bit, and by the time you’re into your 80′s, perhaps all but a very fit eldster would become tiger-food.
Tiger food, tax fodder, wtf. Life gets old after geting up 33,000 times, know what I mean?
No Chocolate Mess…
Yes, let’s let this one melt on your screen and not in your head, as long as we’re on Beat the Reaper – Reality Version this morning: Yet another study says eating chocolate may reduce the chances of men getting a stroke. Something I’ve always considered bad, where in the head or on the golf course.
This study, says the report in the Times of India, was mainly about milk chocolate which as we all know comes from homoogenized and pasteurized cows bred just outside Hershey, Pennsylvania..
Epidemiologcal Note
While the MSM has been wailing about West Nile cases on the rise, something else to keep an eye on (as opposed to an ion, right?) is the shocking rise globally in TB cases.
Unless you’re majoring in radio/television, in which case you would focus on alarming rates of TV, of course. (rim shot)
More after this…
