Archive for June, 2009

I normally don’t do this here.
But.
This is just plainly stupid.  It is so far from anything even vaguely sensible, legitimate, or responsible that I had a hard time taking it seriously.
But.
This is Oklahoma after all.  A state with its rather full quota of lunatics and fringe idiots.
So with no further ado, I present to you:… »

This has been a fairly quiet week for news.  Everyone seems to be headed for a break earlier than usual, maybe hoping that the entire recession has been a bad pre-summer dream.  Undaunted I continue to scour the data for signs of those green shoots promised us by Ben Bernanke three months ago.
This morning’s home… »

One of the fallacies being thrown around in the health care debate, such as it is, concerns the damage that would be done to the free market by the introduction of a lumbering government plan as competition.  The problem stems from the little known fact that there is practically no market to speak of amongst… »

We are back, apparently, to the thorny discussion of inflation.  Depending on who you talk to inflation is an imminent scourge and thus Obama should stop all he is doing and become a Republican immediately, or else it is, at mots, a medium term threat that in no way inhibits whatever is left of Obama’s… »

Well at least those checks sent out to individual Americans seem to have arrived.  Their impact was to jolt personal incomes in May and send the savings rate up to levels not seen for years.
The release this morning tells quite a positive story on the surface with some not so good news underneath.
Overall personal incomes… »

While everyone seems to be convinced that the recession is now approaching its end, or is at least getting worse less slowly, the data continues to wobble back and forth.  So I repeat: look at trends, not single pieces of data. This morning’s release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics ['BLS'] of last week’s claims… »

Our mid week green shoots watch produces two contradictory data points:
Durable goods orders rose 1.8% in May, that’s better than expected, there have been gains in three of the past four months, and this is an excellent leading indicator of manufacturing.
Great.  Ring the bells.  Blue skies ahead.
Not so fast.
Sales of new homes fell 0.6% in… »