Thursday, May 28, 2009

The whole group of numbers are nonsense

Unemployment claims less than predicted? How many people on Friday decided to go do something else other than file unemployment? 1% of 630,000 is 6300, which is about where the number came in. They spin this like the figures peaked at 900,000, but from what I can remember the 650,000 range was pretty much the peak, so week after week we are having claims come in within 5% of the peak, with the better numbers I have seen come in on weeks surrounding hollidays. This next week will contain Memorial Day. I don't know how many of you have been to an unemployment office, but you have to be unemployed to have the time to go. I don't believe they are geared to process 5 days of business in 4 days.

The other news was the durable goods orders, up 1.9%. The decline in March was more than doubled to 2.1% from what I can't find without looking. Point here is that the increase was created in part off a decline that was over 1% more than stated for last month. Expectations were up .5%.

This whole matter, not just these figures, but the expectations for autos and other stuff is some of the biggest bullcrap I have seen in years. I saw yesterday where SPX earnings were actually worse than expected coming into the quarter, but the news has been about so many companies that have beaten expectations. They missed in the fall. Point is that Wall Street was trying to sell no recession in the fall, then the board that calls recessions said it started in December 2007, meaning in Wall Street statistical terms, they missed it. So since then they have been trying to sell recovery because statistically, the recession had been going on so long. But, up until it was called, Wall Street was trying to sell us on the idea we were going to miss it. Which end of this donkey does the truth come out of. It appears both ends are the rear.

My point is that I think Wall Street was right up to September, that indications were we could miss the recession. Of course, us bears would have no part of that idea because most of us were banking on this financial mess, though few of us had a clue how it was going to play out, being none of us had ever seen it. What we are looking at started September 7, not December 2007 or with the subprime crisis. This is when the unemployment claims went to the 600K mark and have stayed there. It is when the price of commodities collapsed. It is when the Treasury started crying. It is when the real depression started.

Bulls mine these figures because they have this golden fleece called consumer spending. They can't really figure out the difference between green shoots and green puke. The rest of us are at the mercy of Goldman Sachs officials appointed to government positions, where numbers can be spun. My feeling is the consumer isn't only not coming back, if that is what we are waiting for, then we might need to spot Santa Claus for evidence.

The bulls are trying to use an old horse to pull a large plow. I am reading Rothbards book, "The Mystery of Banking" and from what I can gather, their capacity to steal with credit has dried up to the point that they get the bill back now. Of course, everyone has to die except the big NY and London financial institutions, so they have the government give the bill to us, in order that they try the game again.

1 comment:

'DD' said...

I hope it's a turn of phrase when you sat that everyone has to die--maybe they'll let me be poor and live? I'm so decidedly middleclass now, I'd much prefer poverty to death.