Neubarth
At the Ballpark July 30th
Worried about the economy and the massive deception that I see in the Rah, Rah, Rah trumpeting crowd that keeps on saying the Recession is done and everything will return to normal. It is not going to return to normal soon.
The latest trumpet call about GDP and how it had gone down in the second quarter after they raised the GDP numbers for the first quarter from -5.5 to -6.4. They are doing this "raising on the previous reporting period" on almost everything in their economic reports. Most people don't even know what GDP is.
The broad components of GDP are: consumption, investment, net exports, government purchases, and inventories. Consumption is by far the largest component, totalling roughly 2/3rds of GDP.
Most (90%?) of the consumption is still there as people are still buying what they need to get by. In fact, it is going up with the increase in population. Investments, well you know how the stock market rallied in the second quarter. That is a positive for GDP, (even though we know that Goldman Sachs was largely responsible for the recent StockMarket rally with timed "Machine sales" using TARP money to decrease their losses from derivatives coming due.) Government purchases in the second quarter for weapons was high. Inventories are up. That is why they expect GDP was only down a little. In a time like this GDP is a very misleading indicator.
I still think that what Goldman Sachs is doing to manipulate the market with government funds should be declared illegal because a lot of people think that it is a real rally in the market. I went out of my long (DIA) position on Thursday and Double Shorted the market on Friday when DXD went to 39.9. I made a quick profit and decided to let it ride over the weekend. I may regret that.
To know what is really happening, watch the Industrial Production numbers.
Here are the last few months. The economy is still crashing and it ain't pretty:
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION
JUN -0.4%
MAY -1.2%
APR -0.7%
MAR -1.7%
FEB -1.5%
JAN -1.9%
DEC -2.4%
NOV -1.3
OCT +1.5%
SEP -2.8%
AUG -1.1%
JUL +0.1%
JUN +0.4%
MAY -0.2%
APR -0.7%
Real Unemployment is frightening. Of course if we accept the government figures everything is improving and improving and improving.
"Initial Claims" FOR THE PRECEDING WEEK were 584,000 on Thursday.
There was also an announcement about Continuing Claims, which supposedly declined slightly to 6.416 million on a 4-week rolling basis.
Don't believe a word the Obama administration says. Those numbers don't include the people who rolled off the original 13 week unemployment rolls and onto the extended programs (which go out to 52 weeks in many cases), and as such, the actual number of unemployed is being dramatically under-reported. Most intelligent people can look at the approximate 600,000 who are filing for unemployment insurance ever week and realize that adds up to Two and a half Million every month.
That's a problem with eventhe corrupt reporting from the DOL. There are are 2,656,879 people in that Extended Benefits bin, an increase of 24,518 from the prior week, and worse, 352,482 people rolled off the 13 week program last week!
So the real increase was about 50,000 people, not 24,000 in the current week, because you have to add back in those that have been removed from the count but are still unemployed!
Again, 352,483 people, or well over half of the newly-filed claims, rolled off the original 13 week benefits onto the Extended Benefits. This is where the imagined "decrease" in the 4-week moving average came from. This little machination means that there was not actual decrease in the 4-week moving average of people on unemployment. On the contrary, those on unemployment increased! They did not decreased regardless of what the administration says to keep the people duped and happy!
"Extended benefits" are people who cannot find work within three months of being laid off, and are being forced onto the expanded benefit programs. Until the moving average change drops to close to zero including extended benefits the labor market is not slowing its rate of contraction!
Worse, we're going to start losing people off the "Extended Benefits" next month which will make it nearly impossible to count the real number of unemployed, and those who drop off extended benefits will have no income whatsoever, which means they won't be paying taxes - or spending. That, of course, will only add to the depression.
The total count of people on both 13 week and extended benefits (raw numbers, not seasonally adjusted) is 8.718 million, another new record. Remember these are people who qualified for Unemployment Insurance. Think of all the millions who do not qualify because they had not worked a full year before being laid off.
Oh well, there is always food stamps and welfare.
The latest trumpet call about GDP and how it had gone down in the second quarter after they raised the GDP numbers for the first quarter from -5.5 to -6.4. They are doing this "raising on the previous reporting period" on almost everything in their economic reports. Most people don't even know what GDP is.
The broad components of GDP are: consumption, investment, net exports, government purchases, and inventories. Consumption is by far the largest component, totalling roughly 2/3rds of GDP.
Most (90%?) of the consumption is still there as people are still buying what they need to get by. In fact, it is going up with the increase in population. Investments, well you know how the stock market rallied in the second quarter. That is a positive for GDP, (even though we know that Goldman Sachs was largely responsible for the recent StockMarket rally with timed "Machine sales" using TARP money to decrease their losses from derivatives coming due.) Government purchases in the second quarter for weapons was high. Inventories are up. That is why they expect GDP was only down a little. In a time like this GDP is a very misleading indicator.
I still think that what Goldman Sachs is doing to manipulate the market with government funds should be declared illegal because a lot of people think that it is a real rally in the market. I went out of my long (DIA) position on Thursday and Double Shorted the market on Friday when DXD went to 39.9. I made a quick profit and decided to let it ride over the weekend. I may regret that.
To know what is really happening, watch the Industrial Production numbers.
Here are the last few months. The economy is still crashing and it ain't pretty:
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION
JUN -0.4%
MAY -1.2%
APR -0.7%
MAR -1.7%
FEB -1.5%
JAN -1.9%
DEC -2.4%
NOV -1.3
OCT +1.5%
SEP -2.8%
AUG -1.1%
JUL +0.1%
JUN +0.4%
MAY -0.2%
APR -0.7%
Real Unemployment is frightening. Of course if we accept the government figures everything is improving and improving and improving.
"Initial Claims" FOR THE PRECEDING WEEK were 584,000 on Thursday.
There was also an announcement about Continuing Claims, which supposedly declined slightly to 6.416 million on a 4-week rolling basis.
Don't believe a word the Obama administration says. Those numbers don't include the people who rolled off the original 13 week unemployment rolls and onto the extended programs (which go out to 52 weeks in many cases), and as such, the actual number of unemployed is being dramatically under-reported. Most intelligent people can look at the approximate 600,000 who are filing for unemployment insurance ever week and realize that adds up to Two and a half Million every month.
That's a problem with eventhe corrupt reporting from the DOL. There are are 2,656,879 people in that Extended Benefits bin, an increase of 24,518 from the prior week, and worse, 352,482 people rolled off the 13 week program last week!
So the real increase was about 50,000 people, not 24,000 in the current week, because you have to add back in those that have been removed from the count but are still unemployed!
Again, 352,483 people, or well over half of the newly-filed claims, rolled off the original 13 week benefits onto the Extended Benefits. This is where the imagined "decrease" in the 4-week moving average came from. This little machination means that there was not actual decrease in the 4-week moving average of people on unemployment. On the contrary, those on unemployment increased! They did not decreased regardless of what the administration says to keep the people duped and happy!
"Extended benefits" are people who cannot find work within three months of being laid off, and are being forced onto the expanded benefit programs. Until the moving average change drops to close to zero including extended benefits the labor market is not slowing its rate of contraction!
Worse, we're going to start losing people off the "Extended Benefits" next month which will make it nearly impossible to count the real number of unemployed, and those who drop off extended benefits will have no income whatsoever, which means they won't be paying taxes - or spending. That, of course, will only add to the depression.
The total count of people on both 13 week and extended benefits (raw numbers, not seasonally adjusted) is 8.718 million, another new record. Remember these are people who qualified for Unemployment Insurance. Think of all the millions who do not qualify because they had not worked a full year before being laid off.
Oh well, there is always food stamps and welfare.
