Drudge Retort: SHEEPLESHEPERD's blog

Chicago PMI Misses, Dashes Hopes For Rebound

SHEEPLESHEPERD — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:46:38 -0500

And so, the predicted gradual softening of the economy is starting to materialize in order to fit with the Chairman's world view (and to set the stage for QE X with a healthy helping of LSAPs). The January Chicago PMI just printed at 60.2, missing expectations of an increase to 63, and down from December's 62.2. And it gets worse: the employment index was the lowest since August at 54.7, while the order backlog number came at 48.2, the lowest since October 2009. This also means that the upcoming manufacturing ISM will also likely be a miss. What recovery again? Or is it China's turn to bail out the world all over again

Using Booze and Unemployed Alcoholics to Explain Finance

SHEEPLESHEPERD — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:18:13 -0500

"Courtesy of reszatonline, who brings us the following allegory by way of Tim Coldwell, we are happy to distill (no pun intended) all of modern economics and finance in a narrative that is 500 words long, and involved booze and broke alcoholics: in other words everyone should be able to understand the underlying message. And while the immediate application of this allegory is to explain events in Europe, it succeeds in capturing all the moving pieces of modern finance."

Miley Penis Cake

sheeplesheperd — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:44:04 -0500

Miley enjoying a giant chocolate phallus.

Skools of Edukashun

sheeplesheperd — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:38:43 -0500

According to the Chicago Sun-Times (9/6/01), 5,243 Illinois teachers failed their teacher certification tests. The Chicago Sun-Times also reported, "One teacher failed 24 of 25 teacher tests – including 11 of 12 Basic Skills tests and all 12 tests on teaching learning-disabled children." Yet that teacher was assigned to teach learning-disabled children in Chicago. Departments of education have solved the problem of teacher test failure. According to a New York Post story (11/14/11) titled "City teacher tests turn into E-ZPass," more than 99 percent of teachers pass.

Jobless Claims, Housing Starts, CPI, OH MY!

SHEEPLESHEPERD — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:54:28 -0500

*Initial claims drop from revised 402K (as expected) in last week, to 352K this week, 50K swing in one week, on expectations of 384K. All in the seasonal adjustment, which tries to compensate for the 124K drop in Non Seasonally Adjusted claims. Fired bankers and everyone else no longer registers to the B(L)S.

*This number was below the lowest Wall Street estimate of 363K. Continuing claims: 3.432MM, below expectations of 3.590MM, previous revised naturally higher from 3.628MM to 3.647MM. The reason? People on EUC and Extended benefits in last week: +105,000. More and more people move away from 6 month support to extended 99 week cliff.

OOOPS... Debt Limit Reached Again!

SHEEPLESHEPERD — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:55:09 -0500

So with Congress in recess, will Obama succeed in passing another automatic vote using base trickery? The same Obama, who as recently as 3 hours ago warned Congress that any attempts to pass approval on the Keystone Pipeline without his involvement are "counterproductive"... In other news, America' new debt ceiling of $16.3 trillion, or 107% of GDP is now just a formality, about to be interrupted by a little circus clowning.

Weekly Initial Jobless Claims Sans MSM Spin

sheeplesheperd — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:10:35 -0500

In the week ending January 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 399,000, an increase of 24,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 375,000. The 4-week moving average was 381,750, an increase of 7,750 from the previous week's revised average of 374,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9 percent for the week ending December 31, unchanged from the prior week's revised rate.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending December 31, was 3,628,000, an increase of 19,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,609,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,605,000, unchanged from the preceding week's revised average.

Unemployment Claims Rise by 35k, Fudged to Show Decrease

SHEEPLESHEPERD — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:19:53 -0500

This weeks UI report full of its normal revisions upwards for prior weeks and initial claims fudged downward nearly 200k.

Yeah, just keep on believing in the "recovery".

MF Global sold assets to Goldman before collapse

SHEEPLESHEPERD — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:06:50 -0500

(Reuters) - MF Global unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of securities to Goldman Sachs in the days leading up to its collapse, according to two former MF Global employees with direct knowledge of the transactions. But it did not immediately receive payment from its clearing firm and lender, JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), one of the sources said. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that George Soros' fund was a buyer of securities sold by MF Global, scooping-up some of its European sovereign debt at a deep discount.

World Owes Itself Additional $8 Trillion

SHEEPLESHEPERD — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:07:30 -0500

As households are supposedly deleveraging and European nations face austerity, one might suspect that global debt levels were stabilizing or even dropping. Think again. It will likely come as no surprise when we point out that the G-7 nations alone face a massive $7.3 Trillion (with a T) of sovereign-only maturities (and a further $566 Billion in interest payments) in 2012 alone.

US Housing Market Was Artificially Inflated By 14%

sheeplesheperd — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:56:25 -0500

Just the headlines for now:

*EXISTING U.S. HOME SALES REVISED DOWN BY 14% FROM 2007-2010 *EXISTING HOME SALES REVISED DOWN BY 15% IN 2010 TO 4.19 MLN

Thank you NAR for proving what everyone knew: that the US housing market is one big lie. And next: here come the historical GDP revisions.

The truth behind the BLS BS. No, Virginia there are no jobs

SHEEPLESHEPERD — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:12:48 -0500

While the BLS unemployment number, fudged strategically to lower the denominator, or the total labor force, may have come well better than expected (as somehow miraculously ever more people find the shadow economy a more hospitable place where to make their money and drop off the BLS roll forever) we once again go to that trusty fallback, the monthly Gallup poll of underemployment. What we find here is rather different from what the BLS, and the administration would like us to believe, namely that "underemployment, a measure that combines the percentage of workers who are unemployed with the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work, is 18.1% in November, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment.