SAR #9215

Did I miss the part where we all suddenly got rich?


Crass Clunkers: Estimates claim that 200,000 of the 250,000 trade-ins would have happened anyway, over the next few months. It's cutting a foot of one end of the blanket and sewing it on the other - today's rushed sales will be next year's drought. Crushing the cars shrinks the used car inventory, driving up prices. At the very least the program should have required that the new car be a Chrysler. Save your old hair dryer, next week it'll be worth $750...

Dross into Gold: Am I alone in wondering how many framitzes went into Barclays $4.9 billion in profits? What do these people actually do? Where did the money actually come from, if not from some poor guy on a production line, oil rig, drag line or tractor?

Constructive Data: Total residential construction in June fell 30% y/y while single family residential construction was off 51% y/y.

No-Shows: Year to date, federal income tax receipts are down 22% y/y, which suggests that (even after adjusting for the effect of the stimulus tax reduction) consumer spending must contract? And corporate tax receipts are down 57% y/y. Doesn't that call into question recent earnings reports?

History, Anyone? Before the US hires even more mercenaries and sends even more troops to Afghanistan, perhaps someone in the administration should consider if it is possible that the mujahadeen - who were trained and equipped by the US - remember just what it was they did to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan.

Analogy: Describing our leaders - political and economic, but I repeat myself - as Jelly Men seems strained, but on reflection has just the right qualities...

Exhaustees (ig*zôst!-tees) n. Those who have been looking for work for 18 months and have thus exhausted their eligibility for unemployment payments. By Christmas, 2009 there will be 1.5 million such creatures.

Inventorying the Inventory: The historically high numbers of houses on the market, joined with the hidden inventory of REO houses held off the market by banks and the pent-up desire of some 12% of house owners to put their places on the market pretty soon all argue that down is going to happen long before up happens. Four years is one estimate.

Q & A: Will scientists lose their aura of authority? When did the public ever grant them any to start with? Evolution? Smoking? Global warming? Phah! They don't know nothing.

Words of One Syllable: The sticking point in health care reform is the regulation of insurers. Insurers don't want to be regulated and without regulation and independent competition, there will be no meaningful health care reform.

Meanwhile, at the Dollar Store: The dollar reached new lows for the year against the euro and the pound, while US manufacturing continues to shrink. But we're a service economy, right? That's why the market rises while the dollar shrinks, no?

Prime Mover: This recession began with people defaulting on their mortgages. Nothing has happened to erase that blot on the system. Then it was equity loans and credit card defaults, and nothing has changed those metrics either. The 3% or so deleveraging by the consumer to date is estimated to be about 15% of the debt that needs to be shed before a solid recovery can occur.

Pot, Kettle: Economist Paul Krugman says that it is hard to see what social value commodity speculators bring to the world.

Porn O'Graph: Real GDP, really.