Post by agito on Jan 13, 2009 17:07:46 GMT -6
WTB pompoms to go with this article in Forbes.
you know it's gotta be good (which means bad in today's economy) when the headline is "The Most Intense Period Of The Recession Is Behind Us".
take 1:
and take2:
First you have to snicker at "Lowest since november"- things are only as bad as they were 2 months ago apparently.
but for a little more analysis on those unemployment filings- i'm going to copy and past john mauldin from his newsletter i get in my in-box:
knowledge is power.. unfortunately only good enough to ignore the likes of stein and wesbury in Forbes
you know it's gotta be good (which means bad in today's economy) when the headline is "The Most Intense Period Of The Recession Is Behind Us".
take 1:
Despite this, hourly wages rose 0.3% in December and were up 3.7% from December 2007. With the Consumer Price Index (CPI) expected to decline by 1.2% in December (data released this Friday), real (or, inflation-adjusted) wages likely increased 1.5%. Moreover, those real wages are likely up 4.8% from a year-ago, the fastest increase since 1972.
and take2:
initial claims for unemployment insurance have fallen dramatically, from 589,000 the week before Christmas to 467,000 in New Year's week. If initial claims come in for last week at the consensus-expected 501,000, the four-week moving average would be down to 512,000, the lowest since November.
First you have to snicker at "Lowest since november"- things are only as bad as they were 2 months ago apparently.
but for a little more analysis on those unemployment filings- i'm going to copy and past john mauldin from his newsletter i get in my in-box:
There are some who see a ray of hope in the recent jobless claims reports, which have dropped back to only 467,000 in initial unemployment claims, down from 491,000 for the last week, after being over 500,000 for several weeks. Those numbers are seasonally adjusted. That hope disappears if you look at the actual numbers. For the current reporting week ending January 3, 2009, the advance number of initial claims came in at 726,420. Last weeks advance number was 717,000. We have been above 600,000 new initial claims every week since the third week of November. Continuing claims jumped massively, by 744,000 to 5,316,124.No conspiracy here. This is what happens when you try to smooth a volatile trend by using seasonal adjustments. If you use past performance as the tool by which you smooth the trend, when the trend changes, the seasonally adjusted numbers will be either too large or too small. Thus, the data understated the growth of jobs in 2003 because recent past performance had been bad, and it is now understating the number of unemployment claims and actual unemployment.
knowledge is power.. unfortunately only good enough to ignore the likes of stein and wesbury in Forbes