Steven Hansen

Existing Home Sales on a Sugar High

Tim,
i like your work, and i do follow it.

there is good reason to believe the housing market is acting artificially. the government must restore wealth to have any chance of avoiding the dreaded japanese L. unfortunately, if you look at the home sales prices in this same report - there is a continued degradation of prices.

this market cannot stabilize until the foreclosure rate returns to normal. tighten your seatbelt.

Show Me Economic Expansion, Chairman Bernanke

TheSnail
you are right, import container counts were down YoY - except in export container counts. there we saw the first YoY rise.

my whole point in discussing import container counts is that there are those who argue we will see a good Christmas.

but if retail inventories are down YoY, and transport is down YoY - the stock in the stores are less than last year. you make profit on the merchandise you sell - less merchandise, the less you can potentially sell.

Show Me Economic Expansion, Chairman Bernanke

JM Bishop,
my goal is to provoke thought. there are many possible outcomes economically.

you will find that i have found no real expansion in my articles. remember i deal with coincident indicators which have a very small timeframe forecasting ability. i read that a weather forecaster will average 85% accuracy if he continues to say the weather today is the same as tomorrow.

"America's Multiple Choice Economy" was not one of my provoking articles. my message here was that it appears the contraction was ending. 30 days later i am saying the same thing based on the data i am seeing.

30 days from now i will be saying the same thing or something different - coincident data does not give me enough forecasting ability to say anything for certain without a trend.

we are still in a period of an economic turning point. the only thing trendable is that the data continues piece by piece to say it is no longer contracting. there is no piece that i see which is truly expanding.
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Show Me Economic Expansion, Chairman Bernanke

Joe Shareholder
i agree that unemployment is not a lagging indicator like many economists want you to believe. In fact, a bigger problem is that all the indicators we have used for historical metrics all are compromised in one way or another.

i laugh when i think back of the punters who argued that this recession would be no different than past recessions. our first confirmation that things are different this time is that the leading indicators are not working as historically advertised.

we almost need to throw out our previous understanding of economic dynamics - and pay closer attention to the effects of our actions.

ZIRP is condemning us. it is not stimulating the economy and is creating enough future obstacles that it frankly is scary.

Show Me Economic Expansion, Chairman Bernanke

Dr. Jackpot
i do not confuse the economy with investing. as much as coincident indicators separate the bullshit from the corn, they are only useful to investors at economic turning points.

i want to be clear that i believe companies can be just as profitable as before with lower volumes. they will not be as profitable if we tax the hell out of them or over-regulate. it is for this reason that i think the markets are ahead of themselves.

so your million dollars becomes a problem if and only if you choose to invest in a savings account. the Fed with its ZIRP has screwed you. ya gotta find a more risky investment that works for you. if you find one that works email me. i am retired too and can use all the advise i can get.

Show Me Economic Expansion, Chairman Bernanke

OwenB
i am not saying the economy will not expand - i am saying the economy overall has not expanded YET. I am saying the expansion will be weak based on the coincident data i am seeing.

the ECRI coincident going positive is a sign the contraction is over. we have many metrics out there. I want to see the data from the second 3Q2009 GDP before i comment further on this point.

10 Reasons to Believe That We're in a Depression

Marvin, it is hard for me to argue we are not in a depression.

the real question is what is next. i see no relief from unemployment into the visible future - so this item alone puts deflationary pressure on the economy, and adds headwinds to the natural tendency of the economy to want to expand.

i want to point out that china may not be the problem - but it is our government who does not understand how to nurture jobs growth. we did not solve this problem in the 2001 recessions, and it has gotten bigger and created an even larger imbalance.

the first step out of this mess is to get employment rising faster than the birth rate. this will be no easy feat based on the policies of the last two presidents.

Depressed Detroit: The Sale of the Pontiac Silverdome

John, at $4600 an acre, maybe it can be converted back to farmland, and convert the inside of the dome to growing vegetables. with truck farming you can grow three crops a year.

better yet, get a grant from the government for biofuels productions and purchase the property.

or create a windfarm in the parking lot.

how about making it a giant health care facility and naming it obama land?

The Twenty Year Stock Bubble Is Still Inflated

John, nice comment stream. provocative and questioning.

the problem for people like me in the trenches analyzing economic metrics is that the market is reacting to events they believe will occur - and these events are beyond my view. from an economics point of view, this market is overbought as the economy has not evolved the way most expected.

i see no signs that the economy is stalling as it was never growing anyway. the economy is still recovering and will have to suffer many more months due to the commercial real estate crisis now unfolding. BUT THE KEY POINT IS THAT THE ECONOMY HAS FOUND ITS FOOTING.

the people who are getting scared are the one who believed the hype that the recovery would be a big "V".

let me assure you that business within the next year will be as profitable as before the Great Recession. right now the rationalization to the new normal is occurring.

the reason corporate profits are taking so long to re-inflate is that the big boys lied about the strength of the recovery - and the type of recovery which would occur.

if business had rationalized properly based on good forecasts, the market today would be properly valued.

Chinese Wind Power Plant Coming to U.S. Soil

being a boat person, we have used wind generated power for some time. the real key to wind power is storage so that the available energy is constant over 24 hours.

without good storage devices (and i have yet to see a good storage device), then the power is simply delivered to the grid. our grid is not really powered by imported fuels - so where is the economic gain??

we still must build conventional plants as wind is not 24/7?

so, i assume joe taxpayer will fund this fiasco.

Goldman Tries to Combat Its Bad Image

for once i am speechless.

a year ago, most would not have considered this a publicity stunt. now gs has soiled itself with greed and gains made by taking advantage of a destructive environment they helped cause.

most Americans are worse off, gs is better off. maybe i am just jealous.

Employment Outlook Isn't as Bright as Slate's Daniel Gross Thinks

John,
anything can happen with the data from the BLS.

there is no evidence in the coincident data that a REAL recovery is underway. no increase in retail. no real increase in goods production except for the inventory bounce.

what the hell is the driver for growth? cap and trade? green technologies?

PBGC Is Not Only Underwater, It's Drowning

John, the government is faced with a crisis - it is a crisis of collapse of the funding for social insurance and social programs.

we actually need a caretaker (not activist) government right now to try to get us out of this mess. and this would take a special person to take control - i see nobody who can fill these shoes.

U.S. Government Practices Restrict Jobs Growth

old trader..
re: your instablog link: seekingalpha.com/insta...

we have two issues - one is to stop the jobs bleed, and second to create jobs. my recommendations were an attempt to create a tax level environment for domestic goods to compete against imported products.

i find your point on valves specifically humorous as this situation has existed since the 70's - and is not a function of NAFTA. castings have been non-competitive in America for many years. no nuclear submarine in America does not carry Canadian valves (with Chinese castings or forgings).

you are correct in targeting small business - but i would use a university / business partnership where universities would have senior projects and grants to provide low or zero cost labor and research to get business off the ground. this would not involve loans - and there would be no burden for taxpayers.

the win for universities is that their graduates would have real world experience.

U.S. Government Practices Restrict Jobs Growth

apppro...
i am confused on what your point really is as you are confusing stock evaluation (shorting and trading) with ability to create jobs.

i have one of your textile compatriots with me, and i have been advised the issues in the textile industry were significantly wider than wages.

if wages were the only issue, there would be no goods production in America.

America is not creating jobs with the same employment multipliers as the lost manufacturing jobs. i have seen few green technologies with high job multipliers.

as technologies mature, you will always have an erosion of jobs in that technology into the developing world. therefore new technologies must always be evolving. it should scare the poop out of you when new technologies evolve out of china or korea.

the economic formula right now in America must change to create and foster jobs creation without the need for incentives.