This is not your ordinary recession.
The graph below shows the number of people unemployed by the duration of unemployment. It was created at St. Louis Fed's FRED site. Shaded areas indicate recessions.
The spiking blue line is the number of civilians unemployed for 15 weeks and over. For the first time since 1980s, people out of work for 15 weeks and over zipped past people out of work for less than 15 weeks. And it happened early on in the recession.
In the recession in early 80's, people out of work for 15 weeks and over didn't surpass the other two categories until at the very end of the recession. In early 90's and 2000's, the blue line never went above the other two lines until after the recessions were over.
A sudden, spectacularly huge spike like this reminds me of other data like bank excess reserve, and monetary base. Another indication that this recession is "credit-driven". Debt-driven is probably more apt description, though.
So a "lagging" indicator is spooking the market again. Job loss in June was larger than expected, at 467,000. The unemployment rate was 26-year high, at 9.5%.
467K jobs cut in June; jobless rate at 9.5 percent
(7/2/09 AP via Yahoo Finance)
"Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Workers also saw weekly wages fall, suggesting Americans will have little appetite to spend and the economy's road to recovery will be bumpy.
"The Labor Department report, released Thursday, showed that even as the recession flashes signs of easing, companies likely will want to keep a lid on costs and be wary of hiring until they feel certain the economy is on solid ground.
"June's payroll reductions were deeper than the 363,000 that economists expected and average weekly earnings dropped to the lowest level in nearly a year.
However, the "real" unemployment rate, as many call, which includes people who have stopped looking for job or settled for part-time jobs, is much higher: 16.5%.
"If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 16.5 percent in June, the highest on records dating to 1994."
PLEASE read the post below about "credit-driven" recession by Karl Denninger (or click here). We are looking at the WRONG parameter (unemployment number) to assess the depth and severity of the current "credit-driven" recession.
As of 9:35 AM PST, Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 177 (over -2%) to 8,326. S&P 500 is down 21 (-2.3%) to 901. Nasdaq is down 45 (-2.5%) to 1,799.
On my stock screen, greens are scarce. TLT (20-year+ Treasury bond ETF), POT (Potash, fertilizer company), UUP (long US dollar ETF), MA (Mastercard), AIG.
On his Market Ticker on Tuesday, Karl Denninger took a swipe at CNBC's Dennis Kneale, whose harangue against bloggers has been widely disseminated over the Internet (like my post below). But his ticker also has a very good explanation of why the current resession may be very different from the previous recessions in the U.S., except for the Big One in 1930s.
Here is his take on "inventory-driven ressession" and "credit-driven recession". We are in the latter, credit-driven recession.
To Dennis Kneale: You're An Idiot (6/30/09 Market Ticker)
[emphasis is mine]
"Inventory-driven recessions are primarily about excessive industrial capacity for demand. That is, manufacturers and suppliers of services get too bullish about prospects, build too much capacity and inventory, and wind up engaging in a destructive price war in an attempt to "win". This drives down profits and ultimately forces the weaker firms out of business, ergo, recession - GDP and employment decline. Having cleansed itself of the excess, the economy recovers. The trigger for these recessions is often (but not always) an external shock such as the oil embargo in the 1970s or the collapse of the Internet fraud-and-circuses games in 2000.
"The second sort of recession is a credit-driven recession. Excessive credit creation - that is, loans going too far toward "fog a mirror" qualifications (and in some cases, such as the most recent event, actually reaching "fog a mirror") drives one or more asset bubbles. These pop when effective interest rates in the economy reach an effective level of zero, usually because the amount of leverage available becomes for all intents and purposes infinite (Bear and Lehman at 30:1, Fannie/Freddie at 80:1, AIG at god-knows-what, and duped "home buyers" buying with zero down for a true infinite leverage ratio.) This excessive credit creation drives a speculative asset bidding war which in turn causes prices to go sky-high for one or more types of asset."
"Recessions cannot end until the conditions that caused the recession are removed from the economy. This is elementary logic and obvious to anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size.
"For an inventory recession growth returns when enough capacity is destroyed through layoffs and inventory selloffs to bring capacity and demand back into balance. Employers then hire new workers and the economy recovers.
"For a credit recession, however, there is a much larger problem: The reason real interest rates went negative is that debt has a carrying cost and consumes free cash flow; so long as the debt taken on in the credit binge remains the cash flow impact also remains.
"Default and bankruptcy clears excessive credit (debt) from the system - if it is allowed to occur. But if it is not, then the bad debt remains on the balance sheets somewhere and the cash flow impact remains in the economy. Employment remains weak, capital spending restart attempts falter as demand fails to return and credit quality continues to remain insufficient to support new credit demand."
So, when we see the inventory number reduced and unemployment number stop going down further, and we say "Look, the economy bottomed!", we are looking at TOTALLY WRONG PARAMETERS to assess our CREDIT-DRIVEN RECESSION.
Almost all economists being paraded on TV, or writing for big newspapers and magazines, take it for granted that the recession we are in is INVENTORY-DRIVEN recession, the one most of them are familiar with. If Denninger is right (I think he is), it doesn't matter if the inventory level is reduced to zero or the unemployment number stops going down. Until the bad debt is purged from the system somehow, there will be no recovery. As Denninger says, at best we'll be turning Japanese. At worst, worse than the Great Depression.
In addition, Denninger has this to say about U.S. consumers "saving": [emphasis is his]
"Consumers are not saving, they are paying down debt in a furious attempt to avoid defaulting on nearly $1 trillion in outstanding credit card balances that have gone from 11% interest to 29.6% along with OptionARMs that are experiencing a tripling of payments while the home's value is underwater and precludes refinance, all while consumers are being laid off by the hundreds of thousands monthly."
In other words, consumers are barely treading water. And the likes of Dennis Kneale are wondering why consumers are not spending, so that we can get out of this inconvenient pesky little recession. Hope and fortitude. LOL.
from so-called mainstream media (MSM), in case you haven't noticed. Here are two latest "attacks" from the professional, high-caliber high-standard media personalities.
Dennis Lets Zero Hedge Have It (6/30/09 Zero Hedge)
CNBC host Dennis Kneale calling bloggers "digital dickweed, including Zero Hedge.
Another bit stock, GMGMQ, General Motors' pinksheet, has been trading rather well since bankruptcy, as it shouldn't. The value of common stock will be zero in all likelihood. So the company put out the warning today.
GM Statement re: GM stock price and volume (7/1/09 GM)
"GM management has noticed the continuing high trading volume in GM's common stock at prices in excess of $1. GM management continues to remind investors of its strong belief that there will be no value for the common stockholders in the bankruptcy liquidation process, even under the most optimistic of scenarios. Stockholders of a company in chapter 11 generally receive value only if all claims of the company's 
secured and unsecured creditors are fully satisfied. In this case, GM management strongly believes all such claims will not be fully satisfied, leading to its conclusion that GM common stock will have no value. "
That seems to have done the trick. GMGMQ is trading at 85 cents, down 23 cents or 21% from yesterday's close. (The chart to the right is an intraday chart of GMGMQ.)
American International Group (AIG) did the 1 for 20 reverse split, hoping that would boost the stock price. Today is the first day that the stock is traded after the reverse split. So far, it is not working as they hoped.
AIG is currently trading at $18.79, or pre-reverse split price of $0.94, down 19% from Tuesday's close of $1.16. It is down 36% from Monday's open, which was $1.46.
The U.S. government has 79.9% stake in AIG, 0.1% short of 80% so that the government doesn't have to bring AIG's books on to the government's equally dismal books. So in two short trading days U.S. taxpayers lost about $20 billion. Nice trade, if you were shorting.
Remember the article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of Telegraph on Monday, saying China is having a credit bubble and not a real economic recovery?
No, says Bloomberg, it is the real growth and real recovery, and it's only beginning.
China Manufacturing Expands a Fourth Month, PMI Shows (7/1/09 Bloomberg)
"China’s manufacturing expanded for a fourth month as a 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus plan and record bank lending revive the world’s third-largest economy.
"The official Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to a seasonally adjusted 53.2 in June from 53.1 in May, the Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said today in Beijing in an e-mailed statement. A reading above 50 indicates an expansion. "
"China’s economy may keep improving in the third and fourth quarters, enabling the nation to meet its 8 percent economic growth target for this year, central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said this week. Export orders expanded for a second month, adding to signs that the global economy may be over the worst of its slump."
They have the 8 percent growth target to meet - after all, it is still a Communist country. But wait, "export orders"?? To where? Who is buying?
In case anyone doubts the official government statistics in China, we have analysts from Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase who vouch for the validity of the numbers:
"“China’s recovery is gathering further momentum,” said Lu Ting, an economist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong. “It has been recovering faster than the market had expected.”"
"“China’s stimulus program is having a demonstrable effect on domestic spending, which has resulted in increased manufacturing activity,” said Jing Ulrich, Hong Kong- based chairwoman of China equities at JPMorgan Chase & Co."
Domestic spending? Increased manufacturing activity? It feels like we're reading about two different countries: one according to Telegraph, which is blowing a credit bubble resulting in speculation in stock and commodity markets, the other according to Bloomberg, which looks set to pull out of recession by producing goods.
Both can't be true, can it? Remember Telegraph's Evans-Pritchard:
"China's banks are veering out of control. The half-reformed economy of the People's Republic cannot absorb the $1,000bn (£600bn) blitz of new lending issued since December.
"Money is leaking instead into Shanghai's stock casino, or being used to keep bankrupt builders on life support. It is doing very little to help lift the world economy out of slump."
I tend to side with Telegraph that it is a destructive bubble that China is having. But with their economy and their stock markets going nowhere fast, many Americans and many more Japanese may be wishing they too had a bubble, any bubble - ah the good old days when every asset class kept going up in price until one day the sky fell ....
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in its analysis of the climate bill titled "The Estimated Costs to Households From the Cap-and-Trade Provisions of H.R. 2454" says the following about the emission allowance under the Cap and Trade provision of the bill:
"CBO estimates that the price of an allowance, which would permit one ton of GHG emissions measured in CO2 equivalents, in 2020 would be $28.2. H.R. 2454 would require the federal government to sell a portion of the allowances and distribute the remainder to specified entities at no cost. The portions of allowances that were sold and distributed for free would vary from year to year. This analysis focuses on the year 2020, when 17 percent of the allowances would be sold by the government and the remaining 83 percent would be given away. Entities that received allowances could sell them or use them to meet their compliance obligations."
One of the big problems (there are many) with the Cap and Trade way of reducing the pollution (whether it's sulphur dioxide or nitrogen oxide or carbon dioxide) is how the initial allowance is priced and allocated. Initial allowance will be arbitrarily set by the government, both allowance amount and price. And when the allowance is not auctioned off entirely but is given away free to certain companies/industries as seen appropriate by the government, the entire process is screaming "manipulation", "corruption", "collusion".
So, entities that received free allowances from the government could sell them for profit if they don't need them. Get them for free, sell them for some price: infinite return on the money. Or they can choose to keep them, waiting for future price appreciation as the emission limit gets lower and lower. Some entities may get 4 free allowances for 1 paid allowance, others may get 2 free for 1 paid, yet others may get 10 free for 1 paid. Who knows? No one knows.
Is it just me, or do you also see a dot-com bubble era practice of investment banks giving pre-IPO shares to certain people at a low price so that these people can turn around and sell after IPO for filthy profits?
Now comes valuable middlemen (like Goldman Sachs) who will offer to manage the allowances. I can envision a whole set of derivatives coming out of this allowances business. Futures market, options on the futures to start. Then, to smooth out the allowance cost over the years and hedge against allowance price fluctuation, they will develop an allowance swap, much like interest rate swap. Since the number of allowances are set to decrease over the years, the price of allowances is assumed to be increasing all the time. So what better product, if they can package it right, to sell to pension funds and college endowments who want to hold long positions only (like they did during the oil bubble in 2008)?
Just like CDS, at some point there will be buyers and sellers of derivatives on allowances without underlying commodity (in this case, source of pollution), even if there is no intrinsic value to the allowance other than what the government mandates. (U.S. dollar bill does not have intrinsic value either, other than as a piece of paper and the word from the Federal Reserve "Trust us".)
No wonder big businesses support this bill. If E.U.'s experience is any indication, the carbon emission will not decrease because of the cap and trade (in E.U.'s case, it decreased by 3% but not due to the cap and trade; it is due to the recession), but the taxpayers will be presented with increased energy bills and attendant price increase on just about every product with no appreciable benefit.
This is the new bubble that the government wants to blow. It is set to feed on the money of people who have hardly any say in the matter: the taxpayers money. So the bubble will keep on blowing at the expense of the taxpayers until they realize they've been had.
According to the Conference Board, consumer confidence in June dipped unexpectedly, and that's supposed to be the cause for today's sizeable dip in the stock market.
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index™ Retreats (6/30/09 The Conference Board)
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index is based on a monthly survey of 5,000 U.S. households. The Conference Board says in the above announcement that consumer sentiment soured in all parameters:
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes for Telegraph U.K.; he is known for his British version of "Doom and Gloom", which, amid global proliferation of "green shoots", has fallen out of favor somewhat. Now the stock markets around the world seem to be hitting the wall at the same time, and people have started to doubt if green shoots were just weeds.
In this article, Evans-Pritchard casts grave doubt about the global "growth engine" that the rest of the world seem to depend on to pull out of recession. Instead of the stimulus money going to the real productive economy as many analysts and investors have claimed, China seems to have created a huge credit bubble.
China's banks are an accident waiting to happen to every one of us (6/28/09 Telegraph) [emphasis is mine]
"China's banks are veering out of control. The half-reformed economy of the People's Republic cannot absorb the $1,000bn (£600bn) blitz of new lending issued since December.
"Money is leaking instead into Shanghai's stock casino, or being used to keep bankrupt builders on life support. It is doing very little to help lift the world economy out of slump."
"Fitch Ratings has been warning for some time that China's lenders are wading into dangerous waters, but its latest report is even grimmer than bears had suspected.
"Fitch's "macro-prudential risk" indicator for China threatens to jump from category 1 (safe) to category 3 (Iceland, et al). This is a surprise to me but Michael Pettis from Beijing University says China's public debt may be as high as 50pc-70pc of GDP when "correctly counted".
"The regime is so hellbent on meeting its growth target of 8pc that it has given banks an implicit guarantee for what Fitch calls a "massive lending spree".
"Bank exposure to corporate debt has reached $4,200bn. It is rising at a 30pc rate, even as profits contract at a 35pc rate.
"Fitch traces the 2009 bubble to the central bank's decision to cut interest on reserves to 0.72pc. Bankers responded to this "margin squeeze" by ramping up the volume of lending instead. Over half the new debt is short-term. Roll-over risk is rocketing. China's monetary stimulus since November is arguably more extreme than the post-Lehman printing of the US Federal Reserve, though less obvious to the untrained eye."
So the Chinese central bank did what the Fed has been unwilling to do so far: cut interest on reserves, or even charge a fee on reserves. This is a sure-fire way to squeeze banks so that they increase lendings. And since the U.S. government's, and this administration's, expressed concern is that the money/credit is not going to the real world, I expect this to happen in the U.S. in non-too-distant future.
"... New loans doubled in May from a year earlier, almost entirely to companies.
"China's Banking Regulatory Commission fired a warning shot last week. "The top priority at the moment is to stop explosive lending. Banks should carefully monitor the process of credit approval and allocation, and make sure that loans flow into the real economy," it said."
Well, the Chinese government unleashed the "hot money" by cutting interest on reserves. What did they expect banks to do? Hold on to the money while they carefully evaluate the credit-worthiness of the borrowers? Then the banks will risk being accused of "hoarding" money and probably penalized in some way (like being charged fees for reserves).
Given all that, I don't quite understand Evans-Pritchard's deflationary stance. Probably he means price deflation, but even there, it's simply hard to picture 10% or even 5% price contraction in the face of massive monetary inflation around the globe. But this topic will be another post entirely.
(Update: 7/13/09 Here's the link to the article at Rolling Stones magazine. Finally.)
This is a much talked-about article by Matt Taibbi that appeared in Rolling Stones magazine. As Rolling Stones magazine didn't post it online, someone OCR'ed it and now it's all over the net. I saw the article on Lewrockwell.com, which had a link pointed to Correntewire.com. In case you haven't read it, here it is:
The Great American Bubble Machine (by Matt Taibbi)
"From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression - and they're about to do it again."
The article is LONG. If you want to read it, I suggest you print it out.
Has anyone read it (other than Mr. Boehner who read it on the House floor)? For that matter, has anyone at all read the entire bill?
Here's the PDF file of what was missing.
I watched the youtube video linked above of House Minority Leader reading the bill while following the pages on the PDF file.
Financial Regulatory Reform - A New Foundation. Do we even remember such a thing was announced? It was announced by the president of the U.S. on Wednesday, June 17, 2009, a mere 10 days ago. (Can you believe it?) It is said to be the largest, the most comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. financial system since 1930s.
I forgot all about it as the administration's blitzkrieg or "shock and awe" continued unabated - health care system reform, climate bill that just passed the House, talk of comprehensive immigration reform, cyberspace regulation (military and bloggers), to name a few.
But I just saw a headline on Bloomberg that started a chain reaction in my brain:
FSB’s Draghi Sees Signs of Improvement in Economy
(6/27/09 Bloomberg)
"The world economy is showing “convincing signs of recovery,” Mario Draghi, chairman of the newly created Financial Stability Board, said today after its first meeting. "Mario Draghi? Who's this? Financial Stability Board? What is this? So I searched the net.
Familiarity can't be denied. So which came first? I'd say Financial Stability Board, which existed in other forms since 1999. The largest, most comprehensive financial overhaul in the U.S. is to be based on the international template.
What's uniquely American (so far anyway) is the provisions for:
The second item is now very curious to me, with this news on Friday (6/26) that New York Fed is taking $25 billion stake in preferred shares in two of A.I.G.'s two Asian operations:
"The troubled insurance giant, which has received multiple federal bailouts since September, said that it would give the New York Fed preferred stakes in two of the company's crown jewels -- Asian-based American International Assurance, or AIA, and American Life Insurance Co., or Alico, which operates in more than 50 countries. "
Alico may operate in more than 50 countries, but half of its revenues comes from its Japanese operation. Japanese insurance companies are crying foul because of "unfair" advantage this gives to Alico (implicit guarantee from the U.S. government). So New York Fed will own insurance companies and they want to regulate insurance industries. (Is a Federal Reserve Bank allowed to own a private company?)
A news article from AP, or so I think, but the entire article could have been simply lifted from the PR literature published by the Democratic supporters of the climate bill (H.R. 2454) that passed the House today.
Questions and answers about the US climate bill (6/26/09 AP via Yahoo Finance) written by Dina Cappiello and Eric Carvin
You can read the article by following the above link. I particularly like the last Q&A that these writers created:
Q: Why is it so important to tackle global warming anyway?
A: Left untended, scientists say, global warming will cause sea levels to rise, increase storms and worsen air pollution. For these reasons, the Environmental Protection Agency recently concluded that six greenhouse gases pose dangers to human health and welfare. And politically, without U.S. action, developing countries like China probably will not agree to mandatory pollution limits.
Not all "scientists" say that, and certainly not all of them link all of global warming to human causes. China probably will not agree, without U.S. action? My humble guess is that China probably will not agree, with or without U.S. action. (Not only that, they will probably stop buying U.S. Treasuries to punish the U.S. for trying to impose limits on them.)
I love their very descriptive consequences of global warming: sea will rise, more storms will hit us... Sky will fall, stars will go dim, mountains will crumble, cow will jump over the moon, and little dog will laugh to see such sight..
In the meantime, we'd better hope it is indeed global warming, not global cooling, as some scientists do think (see my post from 6/23/09).
American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) has passed the House, 219 - 212, closer than the trial vote but passed nonetheless. Now it goes to the Senate.
So now, the bill that hardly anyone in the House of Representatives read, with 300 pages missing ("but always available on the Internet" or the "cloak room" of the House), is going to dictate the energy policy of the world.
8 Republicans who voted Yes:
I was just watching c-span coverage of the House floor debate. It's hilarious. And they are going to vote for this bill?
You can watch it yourself at: http://www.cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN_wm.aspx
And that's supposedly sending the stock market lower today.
Stock market slides as savings rate jumps
(6/26/09 AP via Yahoo Finance)
"Stocks were mostly lower Friday after the Commerce Department reported that personal spending, incomes and savings all rose in May. What troubled investors, though, was that the savings rate soared to 6.9 percent, a 15-year high, while spending rose by a modest 0.3 percent.
According to the announcement released today by Bureau of Economic Analysis (Commerce Department),
However, the same announcement also says about wages and salaries:
"Private wage and salary disbursements decreased $12.4 billion in May, compared with a decrease of $0.7 billion in April. Goods-producing industries' payrolls decreased $12.9 billion, compared with a decrease of $12.2 billion; manufacturing payrolls decreased $9.8 billion, compared with a decrease of $4.9 billion. Services-producing industries' payrolls increased $0.5 billion, compared with an increase of $11.5 billion. Government wage and salary disbursements increased $3.9 billion, compared with an increase of $5.7 billion. "
Why not? Because 72% of the U.S. GDP depends on consumer spending. Let's take a look again at the 2009 1st quarter GDP announced on Thursday:
Let's check what's under "Personal Consumption Expenditures" to figure out what economists, analysts, traders, investors, government officials, everyone else but the "consumers" want "consumers" to spend. Bold typed items are major ones.
Remember earlier this year when the stock market was still very volatile and the horrendous memory of September-November 2008 market crash was still fresh, there was a chatter about confiscating the IRA accounts and about creating a national IRA system where you are only allowed to invest in Treasury securities (at that time, 30-year bond was yielding 3%, currently 4.3%) ?
Well, that talk apparently isn't dead. I found this link in Lewrockwell.com blog section.
Administration explores 'R bond' as option for retirement accounts (6/7/09, Investmentnews.com) [emphasis is mine]
"Officials in the Obama administration are moving quickly to develop the investment infrastructure behind the president’s proposal for mandatory automatic enrollment in individual retirement accounts, which could be supported by the creation of Treasury-issued retirement bonds.
"J. Mark Iwry, deputy assistant secretary for retirement and health policy at the Department of the Treasury, said that administration officials are exploring some “conservative” options for investing the assets of 78 million Americans that he estimates could be automatically enrolled in this “universal” workplace retirement system."
"He said that officials have discussed the possibility of making a low-risk life-cycle or target date fund the default investment option for these auto-IRAs, which would be mandatory for employers if they don’t offer a retirement plan to their workers.
"... there is also a chance that they could rely on a new form of bond — an “R bond” — as the basic building block for the auto-IRA, Mr. Iwry said in addressing reporters at the Treasury Department in Washington last week.
"Administration officials are discussing the exact details of these R bonds, such as their interest rates, maturities and minimums, he noted. These bonds ideally would provide individuals with a source of secure, steady returns that would protect their initial investments."
"R" for "Retirement", I suppose. So, under this mandatory IRA program, workers get to have supposedly safe and non-volatile R-bonds issued by the Treasury Department until their investment grow to a certain size (whatever the size to be determined), then they will be allowed to "graduate" to the next level (whatever that will be).
What a scam. The U.S. workers get to have their IRA accounts stuffed with low-yielding Treasury debts so the government can spend more, and they have no other choice, at least initially (however long or short that's going to be). Coaxing foreign governments to continue to buy the US government debts (Treasury bills, notes, and bonds) is one thing; it's totally another to force its own citizens to buy the government debts.
78 million Americans with mandatory IRAs that have $10,000 in this R-bonds - that would be $780 billion U.S. debt taken care of right there.
"The administration, which included an auto-IRA provision in its 2010 budget, has gained some bipartisan support for the proposal, Mr. Iwry added. However, as more specific details of the program’s features come out — such as this initial investment infrastructure — opposition could well unfold. "
You must be kidding. Opposition? But Democrats have the majority in the House, and they can simply fast-track it, just like they may be planning to do with the health care reform bill.
By the way, Mr. J. Mark Iwry is from Brookings Institution who joined the Obama administration in April.
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