What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

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Truth is this is the second week in a row a false report was released designed to help the President get re-elected.

Jobless claims dropped 30k. Just eyeballing this figure, even if California only reported their weekly numbers and not their quarterly ones, the figure wouldn't change that much. 339k total jobless claims - there's no way that Cali's quarterly re-applicants would equal 30k and cancel out the improvent. That would mean about 10% of total unemployment applicants in the nation (new and renewal) came from just California renewals. That seems... unlikely.
 
US foreclosure filings hit 5-year low
On national level foreclosure filings last month fell 16 percent from Sept. 2011

On a national level, overall foreclosure filings last month — including home repossessions — fell 7 percent from August and 16 percent from September 2011. There were 180,427 foreclosure filings reported for September, the fewest since July 2007.

LINK

Still more bad news for America-haters like Vetty, AJ and Koaladear.
 
if they really wanna find J Hoffa

they should stake out

a voting booth in Chicago

HE WILL BE THERE

ALL DAY

PUSHING THE SAME DAMN BUTTON

OVER AND OVER:cool:
 
Since the financial crisis of 2008, the Federal Reserve has created trillions of new dollars. The Fed creates money when it buy assets, which is called "quantitative easing," or QE. The assets the Fed buys can be "whatever assets it likes: government bonds, equities, houses, corporate bonds or other assets from banks." For instance, when it launched QE2 in Nov. 2010, the Fed bought back $600B of its own Treasury bonds.

Just as the Fed creates money, it also destroys money. The Fed destroys money when it sells assets. When the Fed sells its assets, it takes money out of the system; that money is then no longer out in the economy where folks can use it. (I'm not sure if the Fed hits the delete button when the checks for its sales clear, or if that even matters.)

One would think with so many trillions of new dollars pumped out into the world that "price inflation" would erupt. That hasn't happened because the Fed's new money isn't circulating; it's "sitting on the sidelines." That the Fed's new dollars are idle may be a boon as regards price inflation. If commercial banks were indeed loaning their new money out, the number of dollars in circulation would be even greater than what the Fed has created. That's because of the money multiplier effect of our "fractional reserve" banking system. But, if the Fed's new money started to be used in the economy, price inflation should return with a vengeance. In which case the Fed would need to end QE and begin what analysts call the "exit strategy."

But the Fed's exit strategy for preventing price inflation -- i.e., sucking money out of circulation by selling assets -- has snags. One snag involves the prices the Fed's assets will fetch. If the market for the Fed's assets is down, the Fed might have to accept a lower price than it paid for them, thereby leaving money in the system.

If the sales of its assets doesn't go as well as is needed to drain money out of the system, another snag might trip us up: the Fed may have to sell new Treasuries. And to attract buyers, the Fed may have to pay higher interest rates for those new bonds. Those higher interest rates can spread throughout the entire market and affect the price of everything. So the Feds' very strategy for combating price inflation... can produce it.

Not only that, those new Treasuries will someday mature, and unless Congress starts running a budget surplus, those Treasuries will have to be rolled over by finding yet more buyers for U.S. debt. So the total number of U.S. bonds would continue to grow, placing the taxpayer on the hook for an escalating number of interest payments whatever their rates.

The Fed has recently embarked on QE3, the third round of money creation. But QE3 is different, as it is an open-ended commitment to create $40B a month -- money creation without end. And this time the Fed will not use its new money to buy back its own bonds, as in QE2. The Washington Post reports:

One of the key benefits from the easing policy is to push down interest rates for mortgages and other long-term loans, such as certain corporate investments. The policy includes buying $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities, issued by the likes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, each month. That means the Fed is funneling newly created money directly toward home loans to try to make it cheaper for Americans to buy or refinance a house.
This seems very similar to the easy money policy that caused the mess in the first place.

With QE3, the Fed is not only manipulating the money supply, it is also intruding into the real-estate market, trying to prop up the prices of houses. The Fed thinks deflation is the problem, not inflation. But one fix for deflation is simply to create more money, exactly what they've been doing. Regardless of whether it is successful in raising the price of real estate, QE3 will more likely jack up commodity prices, such as costs for food and fuel.

Another problem QE3 could create is when interest rates return to normal -- while the banks will be paying higher interest to depositors, their cash flow from making loans under QE3 will be less. Perhaps you remember the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, when "S&Ls, stuck with long-term loans at fixed rates, often had to pay more to their depositors than they were making on their mortgages."

What does it say about the health of a nation's economy when its central bank is in a long-term program of buying assets no one else seems to want? Perhaps it says previous programs that were aimed at fixing the economy, including the previous QEs and the various stimulus programs, have failed. QE3 is an indication that nothing has worked. We have this stagnant economy and yet, after four years, we still haven't fixed the structural problems, particularly entitlements, that threaten to unravel everything. So now the Fed is yet again devaluing our money through inflation exactly as if the dollar isn't weak enough. The Fed must think that Americans don't mind that their dollars buy less.

And looming over everything is the anxiety over the Fed's "exit strategy," and whether the brainiacs in charge will have the wits to take that exit before they go too far and inflation turns into hyperinflation, which leads to doom, "deep and darker than any sea-dingle."

With the power of creating and destroying, it must be very heady being a central banker. Hell, one might even start to think of oneself as... a god. Central bankers should guard against taking themselves too seriously, though, even if their egos require it.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/the_weight_of_the_fed_in_the_voters_decision.html
 
Stocks Rebound; Dow Jones Industrial Average Heads Higher

Following in the footsteps of its European brethren, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) is pointed higher ahead of the bell. Investors are brushing off Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgrade of Spain's credit rating, instead turning their attention to the slew of domestic economic data on today's docket.
 
Truth is this is the second week in a row a false report was released designed to help the President get re-elected.

RobDownSouth's Political Endgame Axioms #1: When Vettebigot is reduced to yammering about "truth","freedom", and/or "liberty", you've won.
 
California Demands Business Insider Retract False Story On Jobless Claims Misreporting; Business Insider Refuses
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/12/2012 09:24 -0400




After yesterday Zero Hedge first reported the reason for the surprising plunge in yesterday's initial claims, which as the BLS explained was due to "a state" (whose identity despite all tabloid speculation to the contrary is still unknown) not reporting "some" figures, assorted blogs picked up on what has since been confirmed to be an incorrect report by Business Insider's Henry Blodget claiming that "Well, we're glad to say that we've finally gotten to the bottom of what happened" and that the state in question is none other than California (supposedly as opposed to Illinois to shut up those wacky conspiracy theorists). Turns out the site known best for its slideshow presentations (which will soon double down as advertisements) may have once again fibbed just a little, following an official demand by none other than California state Employment Development Department direct, Pam Harris, that BI retract its article. To wit: "Reports that California failed to fully report data to the U.S.
Department of Labor, as required, are incorrect and irresponsible... It’s unfortunate this ‘reporter’ and others who repeated the article’s
erroneous statements chose to speculate rather than report, failing to
confirm this information with EDD." Sure enough, the 'reporter' in question replied, and it appears that Business Insider is better informed than California when it comes to matters such as these, and has refused to retract.

From California:


SACRAMENTO – California Employment Development Department Director Pam Harris today issued the following statement in response to an un-sourced and unsubstantiated media report from Business Insider that erroneously asserts the state failed to fully and properly report unemployment insurance weekly claims data – also known as the jobless claims report – to the U.S. Department of Labor.



“Reports that California failed to fully report data to the U.S. Department of Labor, as required, are incorrect and irresponsible. The California Employment Development Department, which administers the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program in the state, has reported all UI claims data and submitted the data on time.



The original article also erroneously claims that there is a backlog of UI claims in California. California continues to file UI claims on a timely basis. Data on UI claim activity is required to be reported to the Labor Department every week and California has fully complied with the weekly reporting deadlines.



It’s unfortunate this ‘reporter’ and others who repeated the article’s erroneous statements chose to speculate rather than report, failing to confirm this information with EDD. We demand an immediate retraction and encourage writers to verify these ‘stories’ before publishing them.”

Cue Business Insider's response:


In response to our story, California's Employment Development Director issued a statement saying the state "has reported all UI claims data and submitted the date on time." A spokesperson for the department also offered an alternative explanation for the drop in California's unemployment claims: "Our weather has been unusually warm which has had some typical seasonal patterns in employment delayed."



The California spokesperson also demanded a "retraction" of what the Labor Department told us. We accurately reported what the Labor Department told us, so we stand by our story. In a follow-up exchange, we asked the spokesperson how California could be sure it had submitted all of its claims on time. The spokesperson did not respond to the question. She simply reiterated that the Labor Department analyst we spoke to was "wrong."

Leave it up to "reporters" to determine what data is right and wrong, even after being chastised by those who actually do know and are not pressured by Series ZZ investors for page views.

Ironically this brings up two amusing side effects. One is that the state which actually is exposed as being responsible for this misreporting will be seen as politically in bed with the administration. Which would then beg the question: why? Is said state so desperate for a Federal bail out that it would do anything to perpetuate the current administration, even if it means being responsible for misreported critical economic data. And heaven forbid the state is found to be Illinois...

Or, worse, the BLS did get California claims data, and simply chose to ignore it, which in turn will make allegations that the BLS is purposefully manipulating jobs data which it claims it does not have yet turns out it has, even louder, and most likely result with precisely what Darrell Issa is contemplating: a hearing on the accuracy and validity of economic data in a pre-election context, which if nothing else, will confirm that the US economic reporting apparatus is just as broken as that of other banana republics of which everyone enjoys making fun day in and day out, such as China, yet which are merely doing just what the US has been doing for years.

Because remember: grand conspiracies never exist. Libor-gate (as a very recent example) aside of course.
 
I'm noticing a distinct upswing here in links to one of the fringiest tin-foil-hat websites on the Internet "zero hedge".

Not surprisingly, the charge is being led by the Vettebigot and his buddy TurnerLeaf.
 
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