![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdIt's been a bad day, so here's only two bits of economics to throw at you before I go to bed. Well, three, I guess:
1. Third quarter 2007 jobs data - the real data - is finally out. Instead of the jobs gains manufactured by the birth/death model and other black-box devices, the actual, best count on the ground shows outright job losses of 100,000 per month in the private sector. Fourth quarter will probably be a similar ratchet downwards.
2. The new H3 report is out, showing bank reserves to have set a new round of, um, insolvency, higher even (in preliminary numbers) than the April 9 report; bank non-borrowed reserves are at US$-111B against US$42B required, indicating that without loans from the Fed, the banking system as a whole would be failing to meet reserve requirements by US$152B, or Billion. (The numbers aren't straight adds due to rounding.) There had been a couple of steps of improvement in the previous four weeks; this is a new negative record. There are rumours of possible FDIC actions this weekend, but even if something does happen, it'll be hard to know too much immediately because the FDIC website is being taken partially down for maintenance over the long weekend. Here's a MarketWatch story talking about some of the banks under particular pressure. Relatedly, Mish updates his coverage of one particular Washington Mutual mortgage pool, in the context of several others.
3. On the other hand, bond and stock markets behaved normally today; the stock selloff was not paralleled by a bond selloff; people bought treasuries as you'd expect. Again, one day is not meaningful, but I mention it because I've been mentioning the atypical days. Until we have May's overall treasury flow data, the clock remains started.
PS: Okay, fine, a bonus round: over at RGE Monitor, you have a look at Asian country fuel subsidies, and what kind of changes - if any - are forthcoming in those subsidy regimes. Controlled consumer prices mean no demand changes in response to higher crude costs, and you know what that means...
1. Third quarter 2007 jobs data - the real data - is finally out. Instead of the jobs gains manufactured by the birth/death model and other black-box devices, the actual, best count on the ground shows outright job losses of 100,000 per month in the private sector. Fourth quarter will probably be a similar ratchet downwards.
2. The new H3 report is out, showing bank reserves to have set a new round of, um, insolvency, higher even (in preliminary numbers) than the April 9 report; bank non-borrowed reserves are at US$-111B against US$42B required, indicating that without loans from the Fed, the banking system as a whole would be failing to meet reserve requirements by US$152B, or Billion. (The numbers aren't straight adds due to rounding.) There had been a couple of steps of improvement in the previous four weeks; this is a new negative record. There are rumours of possible FDIC actions this weekend, but even if something does happen, it'll be hard to know too much immediately because the FDIC website is being taken partially down for maintenance over the long weekend. Here's a MarketWatch story talking about some of the banks under particular pressure. Relatedly, Mish updates his coverage of one particular Washington Mutual mortgage pool, in the context of several others.
3. On the other hand, bond and stock markets behaved normally today; the stock selloff was not paralleled by a bond selloff; people bought treasuries as you'd expect. Again, one day is not meaningful, but I mention it because I've been mentioning the atypical days. Until we have May's overall treasury flow data, the clock remains started.
PS: Okay, fine, a bonus round: over at RGE Monitor, you have a look at Asian country fuel subsidies, and what kind of changes - if any - are forthcoming in those subsidy regimes. Controlled consumer prices mean no demand changes in response to higher crude costs, and you know what that means...
no subject
Date: 2008-05-24 03:38 pm (UTC)What she didn't mention - it's not an answer to your question but is a further elaboration on the situation - is that is that most exporting countries do not allow domestic oil and products prices to float, resulting in a similar situation in the most important oil exporting countries. This is described in the "export land" model, wherein as production falls, domestic consumption continues to rise, resulting in an even steeper export falls and, accordingly, an even faster reduction in the amount of oil on the actual world market.
Countries which try to address this by raising prices/reducing the subsidy typically get rioting as a result. Iran finally managed to raise prices a bit, but it cost them a lot in terms of street riots and hurt regime legitimacy. You may remember these riots in the news some months ago.