The numbers all change with each month, but nothing really changes. And that includes how the economy changed in 2012 and clearly again in 2015. By raw count of the payroll figures, there were positive numbers in every location in the latest update as only full-time employment was close to zero growth (only +3k for November). The labor force grew [...]
As the manufacturing recession becomes more and more unassailable (and I mean that in more than one way), the fact that it still shows no end or let up suggests still greater difficulty beyond manufacturing. As feedback loops become more established and robust, and thus convince more and more non-manufacturing firms to adjust instead of waiting out for Janet Yellen’s [...]
Language itself being imprecise, it is often difficult to assign terminology that exactly fits the circumstances or processes being described. So often convention thinks and writes and speaks of monetarisms as if they were drugs like speed or heroin; the efficacious inducement toward uninhibited recklessness. Thus, “markets” are the addicts that only perform in the presence of the intoxicant. This [...]
Volvo Trucks announced yesterday that they were laying off a quarter of the 2,800 people employed at its plant in Dublin, VA. Notifications were made according to regulations about mass layoffs, these set to take place in February. While the loss of 730 jobs clearly falls within the “12%” of the manufacturing recession, the reason for them lies outside that [...]
The GDP statistics for Brazil as of Q3 2015 were worse than expected in every way imaginable. Real GDP fell 4.5% Y/Y, which is nearly double the worst quarter Brazil experienced during the Great Recession. Household spending fell 1.7%, the third consecutive quarter of contraction, while fixed investment declined an astounding 15%. That was the sixth straight reduction and the [...]
For the tenth straight week, dating back to the week just before the global liquidations in August, reported domestic crude inventories increased. At 489.4 million barrels, the current level of oil stock (excluding the SPR) is only slightly less than the record high of 490.9 million barrels reached the week of April 24. “Transitory” is dead. The increase in oil [...]
There isn’t much as far as confirmation, but it increasingly appears as if “something” just hit the triple hooks (CCC) in the junk bond bubble. At least as far as one view of it, Bank of America ML’s CCC implied yield, there was a huge selloff that brought the yield to a new cycle high (low in price) above even [...]
The call for minimizing the onrushing downdraft has continued, particularly in the wake of yesterday’s huge disappointment in the ISM. Where the “12%” figure had slowly entered the mainstream lexicon before, it has fast become fully incorporated into any article’s template. There are hardly any pieces about the curious manufacturing recession that don’t mention it, as it has evolved into [...]
To this point, I have refrained from presenting Morgan Stanley’s balance sheet reporting on gross derivative exposures because, quite frankly, it fits too perfectly. The bank follows the wholesale “dollar” narrative so closely that it almost seems too good (bad for the financialized economy) to be true, and thus almost diminishes the value of the evidence by extension. Because of [...]
On November 9, the OECD issued its twice-yearly Economic Outlook statbook, updated for projections into Q3 for most national economic accounts. Despite past enthusiasm for global prospects in 2015, the narrative has not-so-subtly shifted, a major transformation coming from an orthodox bastion like the OECD. Global growth prospects have clouded this year. Global growth has eased to around 3%, well [...]
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