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September 19, 2011
U.S. Restaurant Traffic Stalls in Spring After Three Quarters of Gain, Reports NPD
"The consumer demand in the prior three quarters wasn't strong enough to overcome another bump in unemployment, rising gas and commodity prices, and low consumer confidence," says Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst, The NPD Group. "The confidence they had in the latter part of last year and the beginning of this year was eroded by bad economic news."
Real Estate Newsletter Articles this Week: Existing-Home Sales Increased to
4.15 million SAAR in November
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At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:
[image: Existing Home Sales]*Click on graph for larger image.*
• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increase...
11 hours ago
9 comments:
Inflation in the things we need, deflation in the things we want . . .
"Global energy demand will increase 53 percent from 2008 through 2035, with China and India accounting for half of the growth, the United States Department of Energy said on Monday.
"China and India will consume 31 percent of the world’s energy by 2035, up from 21 percent in 2008, the department’s International Energy Outlook projected. In 2035, Chinese energy demand will exceed that of the United States by 68 percent, it said."
Somehow I think XOM has the stronger inventory than AAPL going forward.
Troy,
Somehow I think XOM has the stronger inventory than AAPL going forward.
AAPL's human inventory is the weakest of all.
iPhone Maker to Replace Workers with Robots
“Workers are only seen as fitting production needs rather than as individual human beings.”
Alternet.org reports that at Foxconn’s highest-paying factory in China workers only receive $1.18 an hour.
Alternet.org reports that at Foxconn’s highest-paying factory in China workers only receive $1.18 an hour.
I guess the old Henry Ford model of paying workers enough to buy the products they make has been relegated to the junkheap of history. China is always said to be stimulating demand from it's emergent middle class. I get that China has megarich folks, and lots of poor, overworked serfs, but where are the middle class folks?
If even the serfs are being replaced by robots, what is the future of even lower-cost production centers like Vietnam.
Or own own lower 80%?
The futures is just not looking bright and shiney.
I don't know anything about China but AFAICT about China though is that they are printing money and that money they're printing does have some internal velocity.
Can't have their massive inflation without money hitting the masses!
My thesis of why we are po' is that the deficits are pulling money out of our paycheck economy and into the rentier economy.
The four big flows are housing rents ($600B+), health care rents ($900B+), energy rents ($600B+), and the remaining trade deficits (~$400B).
Economists have their high-falutin' equations and pretty graphs, but I don't think they understand the actual plumbing of the economy -- where the dollars are going.
The Housing Bubble demonstrated that wherever there is money there is an economy.
Even the Suskind book's portrayals of alleged Administration meetings on the economy shows the principals were stuck in theory land and not understanding the critical redistribution role the HELOC and REIC flows played for the 2000s.
I saw this going on five years ago now.
I'm not smarter than these people, I wonder what the problem is.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=2lT
Problem?
fried,
The futures is just not looking bright and shiney.
The futures just stepped into the Rubicon again. Go figure.
Troy,
Can't have their massive inflation without money hitting the masses!
Yes! That is a very important point and one I have brought up when thinking about canned goods.
If you give ten thousand people a billion dollars each then the price of canned goods may not go higher. Ten thousand people just can't eat that much.
If you give a billion people ten thousand dollars each then better buy canned goods before the next person.
I'm not smarter than these people, I wonder what the problem is.
Here are a few possibilities.
1. There's a huge difference between intelligence and wisdom?
2. If I was the Fed Chairman would I tell the truth and nothing but the truth? I think I would probably send the entire global economy back into the dark ages for speaking my mind and having people believe me. Can't you just picture it? "Hello, I don't mean to alarm anyone, but this is what I have done." In his own way, perhaps Bernanke told us and most didn't listen.
3. Fraud?
well, I wasn't talking about public pronouncements (I assume it's all lies) but the alleged private deliberations as Susskind wrote about.
Nobody there was banging the table about the $1T+ REIC flow into the middle-class that was going away.
It wasn't on their radar. Same thing with Delong and usually Krugs.
Troy,
Here's another possibility.
November 16, 2009
Why Income Inequality Really Matters
As seen through the eyes of "average" and "median" data, both situations are 100% identical. I would ask you these questions though.
1. Which situation is more unstable?
2. Which situation would be hurt most by rising oil prices?
3. Which situation would see payday loan stores become a growth industry?
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