[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he rule of thumb in the economic world is that weekly initial jobless claims must be in the 300,000 range in order to get to actual job growth. We haven’t been at 300,000 since the beginning of the recession in December 2007. During the worst spell of the recession, in early 2009, the number was at 650,000. But today’s jump brings us to 500,000, a high for the year.

You can see the trajectory in this Calculated Risk graph. We’ve basically gone sideways since last year, but the last month has moved upwards. “The economy ran into a wall in August,” according to one analyst quoted in the story.
http://firedoglake.com/

[rockdoc123]

It has always struck me as odd that over the past 6 months or so, whenever I am visiting in the US and have the need to drive to a mall that there seems to be no parking and the shops/restaurants are full. This just did not make sense to me when you read the doom and gloom on Bloomberg each day….effectively suggesting there is no recovery and the economy is in the tank. I just plotted up something that is interesting in light of the unemployment plot….retail sales. The graph shows sales for January through June from 2002 to 2010. It is pretty obvious there is an uptick since 2009 suggesting some recovery…at least to the level of sales in mid 2007. So why the discrepancy with the jobs data? Are more and more people buying on credit, hoping for recovery and a new job? Is there more and more underground economy in motion (i.e. no official jobs but money available to spend). I certainly don’t have the answer but it makes me wonder if the economic nabobs really understand what is going on.

[Pretorian]

there is nothing to do for people. 5 % of employed Americans are feeding , heating all America. How many people each of them needs to serve their fancy? 19? I dont think so. One lettuce picker does not need 19 servants, let alone another 50-60 of their relatives, free-loading neighbours, ets.

[Pops]

YOY sales at gas stations was up 21%!

Green Shoots baby!

http://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/ ... rrent.html

[copious.abundance]

I knew Sixstrings would bring this up.

I'm not going to explain it in detail because I doubt anyone here will believe it, but today's number - and the initial claims from the past few weeks in general - are an artifact of the seasonal adjustment process. Specifically, the fact that there were fewer than normal layoffs (and initial jobless claims) in July due to GM not furloughing so many workers during the model year changeovers, has resulted in a much-smaller-than-normal decline in not seasonally adjusted claims between the 2nd week of July and the current week. The smaller-than-normal decline in NSA numbers has resulted in a rising SA number.

I can show you the calculation if you want to see it, but as I said, I doubt anyone will believe it, or at least they will dismiss it all away. If I am right (and once you see the #'s it becomes pretty obvious), this will begin to correct itself in about a month, maybe less.

So, I will once again put my money where my mouth is: $50 says that by the last week of September, the seasonally-adjusted initial unemployment claims number will be back below 475,000. Bet goes to the first taker.

[copious.abundance]

I tried to point this out to peripato in the "US economy could recover . . ." thread a couple days ago, but I was met with the predictable denial.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'I')t has always struck me as odd that over the past 6 months or so, whenever I am visiting in the US and have the need to drive to a mall that there seems to be no parking and the shops/restaurants are full. This just did not make sense to me when you read the doom and gloom on Bloomberg each day….effectively suggesting there is no recovery and the economy is in the tank. I just plotted up something that is interesting in light of the unemployment plot….retail sales. The graph shows sales for January through June from 2002 to 2010. It is pretty obvious there is an uptick since 2009 suggesting some recovery…at least to the level of sales in mid 2007. So why the discrepancy with the jobs data? Are more and more people buying on credit, hoping for recovery and a new job? Is there more and more underground economy in motion (i.e. no official jobs but money available to spend). I certainly don’t have the answer but it makes me wonder if the economic nabobs really understand what is going on.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'I') tried to point this out to peripato in the "US economy could recover . . ." thread a couple days ago, but I was met with the predictable denial.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'I')t has always struck me as odd that over the past 6 months or so, whenever I am visiting in the US and have the need to drive to a mall that there seems to be no parking and the shops/restaurants are full. This just did not make sense to me when you read the doom and gloom on Bloomberg each day….effectively suggesting there is no recovery and the economy is in the tank. I just plotted up something that is interesting in light of the unemployment plot….retail sales. The graph shows sales for January through June from 2002 to 2010. It is pretty obvious there is an uptick since 2009 suggesting some recovery…at least to the level of sales in mid 2007. So why the discrepancy with the jobs data? Are more and more people buying on credit, hoping for recovery and a new job? Is there more and more underground economy in motion (i.e. no official jobs but money available to spend). I certainly don’t have the answer but it makes me wonder if the economic nabobs really understand what is going on.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'S')o, I will once again put my money where my mouth is: $50 says that by the last week of September, the seasonally-adjusted initial unemployment claims number will be back below 475,000. Bet goes to the first taker.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'I')t has always struck me as odd that over the past 6 months or so, whenever I am visiting in the US and have the need to drive to a mall that there seems to be no parking and the shops/restaurants are full. This just did not make sense to me when you read the doom and gloom on Bloomberg each day….

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 't')here is nothing to do for people. 5 % of employed Americans are feeding , heating all America.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 't')here is nothing to do for people. 5 % of employed Americans are feeding , heating all America.

[eXpat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'Y')OY sales at gas stations was up 21%!

Green Shoots baby!

http://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/ ... rrent.html

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eXpat', 'Y')ou are soooooooooooooooooooooooo last year , "Green Shoots" is not fashionable anymore between Kool-Aid drinkers ”sideways economy" is in now.

[eXpat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eXpat', 'Y')ou are soooooooooooooooooooooooo last year , "Green Shoots" is not fashionable anymore between Kool-Aid drinkers ”sideways economy" is in now.

[efarmer]

The American middle class was economically unsustainable, it has been an increasing problem for corporations for decades, the plan was to loan it tuition and borrowed money and morph it into a service economy on a scale unimaginable historically. It didn't work. The corporations and investors have to leave the debt incurred in the attempt in the hands of the government and take their profits and plow them in where emerging middle classes will drive their continuing profits elsewhere.
This ends up being kind of hard to spin for this government, or any government.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('efarmer', 'T')he American middle class was economically unsustainable

[TonyPrep]

Where did you get your data, rocdoc? And what do the lines on the chart represent?

From the census data, it looks like sales were rising in the few months up to April but have slid away since.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'I')t has always struck me as odd that over the past 6 months or so, whenever I am visiting in the US and have the need to drive to a mall that there seems to be no parking and the shops/restaurants are full. This just did not make sense to me when you read the doom and gloom on Bloomberg each day….effectively suggesting there is no recovery and the economy is in the tank. I just plotted up something that is interesting in light of the unemployment plot….retail sales. The graph shows sales for January through June from 2002 to 2010. It is pretty obvious there is an uptick since 2009 suggesting some recovery…at least to the level of sales in mid 2007. So why the discrepancy with the jobs data? Are more and more people buying on credit, hoping for recovery and a new job? Is there more and more underground economy in motion (i.e. no official jobs but money available to spend). I certainly don’t have the answer but it makes me wonder if the economic nabobs really understand what is going on.

[rockdoc123]

Its US Census data, downloaded from that site. I had to dig around a bit to get the right spreadsheet.
Note that this is the data that is "adjusted" I'm assuming for seasonal variability. I'm on the wrong computer right now so will have to find the link later. Each of the lines represents a year through the first two quarters in order to compare to 2010.
To be honest I'm somewhat baffled by the data. I read one thing on Bloomberg and then go looking for the backup data and it seems to suggest something different. I suspect this is somehow related to the volatility out there....the market is moving on pretty much any news and not taking time to evaluate it. My broker continues to scratch his head over the whole mixed message thing going on out there.

[TonyPrep]

If you look at the press release for July, the "increase" in July (from June) was not statistically different from zero (see the footnote). The May to June figure was -0.3% (with a 0.2% margin of error, which I guess means it was definitely down but may have been only 0.1% down, but up to 0.5% down) and, from the chart, the April to May figure was -1%. So the last three months figures have not been following the trend of the previous months.

[kmann]

I have always considered 500k to be a "red flag" number. If it holds at or above that number, bad things could be in store. One explaination is that census workers are being laid off at a rate of about 30-40k per week so this number is inflated by about that much. I think by the middle of fall things will be more clear, if this is trouble coming or not.