Posts under ‘The Economy’

The ISM Services Index fell a much larger then expected 2.8 points to 51.5 in August, Weakness was seen across the board, employment went negative at 48.2, New Orders slipped to 52.4 while Business Activity fell to 54.4.

This suggests that labor based cost control may have reached its limit. While 1-month does not make a trend if this continues it will have a negative impact on profits going forward and also market valuations.

The sad reality is that the first package did little in the way of promoting real organic economic growth despite goosing the GDP figures, primarily because most of it was horribly misdirected.

The FDIC 2nd Quarter Banking Profile is out. Problem banks increased by 54 to 829 involving 403 billion in assets, a decrease of 28 billion from the first quarter.

The result will be that markets don’t recover which means the economy wont recover as we pursue an extend and pretend strategy just like the Japanese.

The amount of time between actual default and foreclosure which has reached 469 days or 15.4 months a figure that has been steadily increasing and provides a strong financial incentive to pursue strategic default.

A detailed look of the banks deliberate promotion of the sub-prime lending fraud and other credit bubble blowing strategies that ultimately precipitated the housing crash and financial crisis we have today.

A discussion of the roles played by the Federal Reserve, Congress, the banking sector and others in the current crises. Essentially they new it would end badly yet deliberately promoted and fostered it.

Retail sales as per the Census Bureau have increased on average .34% per month this year which is not going to support an economic recovery or employment growth, which is why we have neither.

The FHFA or Federal Housing Finance Agency reported that home prices fell 1.6% in the 2nd quarter from a year ago, as foreclosures became an increasing percentage of available inventory. Following a record 269,962 2nd quarter foreclosures.