Bernanke's Box

The box Bernanke is in keeps getting tighter and tighter.

First-time jobless claims Soar

State unemployment benefits rose by 34,000 to 357,000

The number of U.S. workers applying for jobless benefits climbed by the highest amount in more than a year last week, to 357,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. First-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose by 34,000 to 357,000 for the week ending Nov. 25. The rise in claims is up from a revised 323,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said. The number of workers continuing to collect unemployment benefits jumped by 45,000 during the week ending Nov. 18, to 2.48 million. The four-week average of continuing claims also rose, by 18,750 to 2.45 million.

Chicago PMI Contracts

Chicago PMI slows to lowest level since April 2003

Business activity in the Chicago region slowed to its lowest level in more than three years in November, according to Chicago purchasing managers index released Thursday. The Chicago purchasing managers index fell to 49.9% in November from 53.5% in October. This is the lowest level since April 2003. The drop surprised economists, who were expecting the Chicago PMI index to rebound slightly to 54.4%. Readings below 50 indicate contraction in the region. The employment index dropped to 49.4% from 57.0%. The prices paid index fell to 60.2% from 62.5% in October. The new orders index fell to 52.0% from 54.1%. Inventories fell to 57.7% from 67.2% in the previous month. The deliveries-diffusion index fell to 43.0% from 54.1%. This is the lowest since March 2001.

Employee Compensation revised lower

It's all an illusion

A huge spike in wages and salaries in the second quarter proved to be an illusion, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Affairs. The revisions released Wednesday show that growth in unit labor costs (and therefore in inflationary pressures) has been much lower than assumed. That's good news on the inflation front.

But they also show that consumers don't have as much money as everyone thought they did ... $100 billion less on an annual basis.

The new data show that, instead of growing at a 7.4% annual rate in the second quarter, employee compensation actually grew just 1.4%. The revisions were reported by the BEA on Wednesday as part of its revision to gross domestic product data, based on updated BLS figures from tax records. Third-quarter compensation was also revised slightly lower.

Corporate Spending

Oh not to worry.
Corporate spending will rise to pick up the slack.
Right?

That is the mantra from the bulls but it is absurd. There is absolutely no reason to expand business heading into a recession. Once the current wave of in flight commercial construction is complete we are going to see massive layoffs. Those job numbers today are likely the start of it. But let's look at some other headlines to see what we can find.

Please consider Wolseley Cuts 2,000 U.S. Jobs to Tackle Housing Slump.

Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Wolseley Plc, the world's biggest supplier of plumbing and heating equipment, said it cut 2,000 U.S. jobs after a housing slowdown reduced earnings.

How about this headline: Sales Falloff Kills Staff Increase Plan.

November 30, 2006 -- Home Depot abruptly shelved a much-touted plan to improve customer service by hiring more store-level employees - just a month after rolling it out.

The about-face appears to be the result of a sales slowdown that is far more severe than the company anticipated, sources said. Rather than hiring additional employees, all stores - even those $40-million-plus high-volume locations - were told to cut staff hours by 200 per week because of falling sales.

The reason? Sales were falling short of internal projections, the result of a housing market that had stopped booming.

For Home Depot to go from hiring plans to firing plans in a single month, things must have gone to hell in a handbasket in a hurry. There is no other rational explanation.

Inquiring minds might be wondering if this just a housing related thing. For an answer to that question please consider Pfizer to slash U.S. sales force 20 pct.

Pfizer Inc. said Tuesday it will cut its U.S. sales force by 20 percent, or 2,200 people, as part of a cost-cutting program to transform the company into a more nimble organization as it struggles with sluggish sales.

The drug company has 11,000 sales representatives, and the cuts will be made by the end of the year, according to company spokesman Paul Fitzhenry.

Still the myth persists that corporate spending is going to pick up the slack. This belief is based on corporate cash levels. But if one looks at what corporations are doing (blowing their cash on buybacks at ridiculous prices and buying other companies for even more ridiculous prices, all while insiders are bailing like mad) then you have to be smoking something to think corporate spending is going to be a savior for this global trainwreck. It simply makes no sense to be expanding right into a recession that is obviously headed our way.

Even if a recession was not headed our way (it is but some refuse to believe it) can someone please tell me what we need more of?

Home Depots?
Lowes?
Pizza Huts?
Restaurants of any kind?
Strip Malls?
Furniture Stores?
Nail Salons?
Wal-Marts?
Office Supply Stores?
Grocery Stores?
Appliance Stores?
Auto Dealers?
Banks?
What? What? What?

Nothing is what. There is a veritable glut of every kind of store imaginable. The construction of all those places provided jobs. The staffing of all those stores provided jobs. Now what? Consumers are tapped out is what. Please don't try and tell me how expansion in India and China is going to save us either unless you tell me how many construction and retail jobs it will create here and how it will help tapped out consumers here.

Black Friday

Check out how quickly this story changed.

In NRF Black Friday Distortions we exposed as nonsense the Bloomberg headline U.S. Shoppers Spend 19% More on Thanksgiving Weekend.

Now just a few days later you have to laugh at this Business Week headline: Xmas Gloom?

'Tis a season retailers might not find so jolly. Despite massive discounting and earlier-than-ever openings, the Thanksgiving weekend kickoff to the holiday spending spree proved soft. Wal-Mart clouded Black Friday (so called because it's when retailers traditionally move into the black), announcing that it expected its worst November sales in over a decade. JPMorgan Chase retail analyst Charles Grom says that while industry sales momentum started strong on Friday, "it seemed to lack follow-through." Indeed, sales for the week fell 0.4% from the previous week, reports the International Council of Shopping Centers.

"In 20 years doing consumer research on Christmas sales, I've never seen such bargain-driven shoppers," says America's Research Group's Britt Beemer. That won't help retail profits.

Given the anemic job growth we have had this year even a slowdown in commercial expansion would cause a lot of hardship. But not only are we going to see a slowdown in commercial, we are going to see a veritable freefall in commercial activity. That will be on top of the massive slowdown in residential. But that is not the whole story because even places like Pfizer are wielding the axe.

The government can play whatever games it wants with some numbers (like the recently revised up GDP numbers) but other numbers are hard and generally believable. One of the hard numbers is first time claims. Initial claims are not seasonally adjusted, not based on surveys, not guessed at, and not hedonically adjusted based on hat size of the applicant. Furthermore there is every incentive for someone who is eligible to apply (to get benefits).

There has been a massive uptick in unemployment claims including the 4-week average of claims. Real wages are down, claims are up, and we just hit our 19th consecutive month of negative savings. Bernanke is not going to know what hit him, once this traction really gets going. Discounting inventory buildup and fictional imputations we are likely in a recession right now.

Notes:
I did two more podcasts this week.
One with Tom Jeffries on HoweStreet about Black Friday and Catch 22.
One on the Wall Street Examiner Real Estate Roundtable with Lee Adler myself and Steve Northwood about the real estate market.
Interested parties may wish to tune in.

Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Canon Powershot A540

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Ecuador Dos

Here's some more photos from my recent class trip to Ecuador. This post focuses on a long bus ride from Quito (pictures here) to the Amazon basin.


Out the window of the bus as we descend from Quito (elevation approx. 2,800m) to the Amazon basin (approx. 500m).


A building nestled into the eastern Andes. Note the power line to the house's right, an indication of the country's eastern colonial expansion in the late 20th century.


Another (less subtle) indication of Ecuador's expansion, linked to the discovery of oil in the Oriente in 1967. This petrol processing station sits within an otherwise untouched section of the eastern Andes.


To get the oil to that plant one needs a pipeline, and here it is, suspended over this small river. Everything needed to make the pipeline happen (the guardrail and suspension structure above, for example) are also made from pipeline.


Getting closer to the rainforest.


Much of the population in the rainforest -- or Oriente region -- is rural. This church is just off the main road that connects some of these small towns.


The sun in Ecuador can be brutal during the day but it also makes for beautiful times around sunset.


The Napo River separates the Sucumbios region (which borders Columbia) from the Napo region, home to the Yusani National Park, one of the most biological diverse areas in the world.

Next time: into the rainforest.

It's all an illusion

MarketWatch is reporting Fed's big worry gets revised away.

A huge spike in wages and salaries in the second quarter proved to be an illusion, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Affairs.
The revisions released Wednesday show that growth in unit labor costs (and therefore in inflationary pressures) has been much lower than assumed. That's good news on the inflation front.

But they also show that consumers don't have as much money as everyone thought they did ... $100 billion less on an annual basis.

The Fed had been expressing concern that wage pressures were building that would inevitably feed into higher prices. Compensation had surged 12.6% in the first quarter, but that was explained away at the time as a one-time payout of bonuses and stock options to a relatively small group of high-paid executives, many of them on Wall Street.

When the compensation surge repeated in the second quarter, policymakers began to worry that raises were showing up in weekly paychecks as well. That set off some alarm bells at the Fed. A recurring and widespread rise in wages is more inflationary than a one-time bonus given to a selected few.

Compensation up 1.4%, not 7.4%

But the new data show that, instead of growing at a 7.4% annual rate in the second quarter, employee compensation actually grew just 1.4%. The revisions were reported by the BEA on Wednesday as part of its revision to gross domestic product data, based on updated BLS figures from tax records. Third-quarter compensation was also revised slightly lower.

Unit labor costs should see a "very marked downward revision" next week, said Steven Wieting, an economist for Citigroup Global Markets.
Stephen Stanley, chief economist for RBS Greenwich Capital, figures that second-quarter unit labor costs will be revised from 5.4% annualized to negative 0.6%, and third-quarter unit labor cost growth could be cut from 3.8% to 3%. On a year-over-year basis, unit labor costs are probably growing at a 3.6% pace, rather than 5.4%.

"At a stroke, therefore, fears of surging unit labor costs boosting inflation, cited by Mr. Bernanke yesterday, should be greatly reduced," wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics. "You'd have thunk someone at the BEA could have called him..."

This would be funny if it was not so pathetic. Month after month we listened to the Fed and bulls and treasury bears talk about how great things were and how fast wages were rising and the inflationary impact and yadda yadda yadda.

The Bond Market is wrong.
The Bond market is manipulated.
The Bond market is in a bubble.

All of the above are near universal opinions.
All are also wrong.
All this does heighten is the fact that the box Bernanke is keeps getting tighter and tighter and tighter.

The US dollar is collapsing once again.
Housing starts are still plunging.
Commercial real estate and jobs will both follow housing down.
But speculation in stocks is still running rampant with merger mania, leveraged buyouts, and debt induced stock buybacks.

What is one to do?

Lie is the answer and that is just what all these so called "inflation fighters" at the Fed have been doing. Where were they when the PPI and CPI and housing were soaring? Now all of a sudden they are worried about inflation when energy and home prices have both collapsed. The last lie was exposed today. Real wages are NEGATIVE and that includes the effect of huge bonuses for top end workers. The average Joe is getting crucified.

Wage Inflation?

Please try another lie. That one just got flushed today.
Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Today's archidose #47

�rbol Clim�tico - Climatic Tree IV by TwOsE
The Eco-boulevard in Vallecas, Madrid, Spain by Ecosistema Urbano.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

Starting a career in Web Analytics

Web Analytics is one of the hottest fields these days. A lot of people are planning to switch careers and many students are looking to start their career in Web Analytics.
�I am very interested in Web Analytics fields�, �It is a very interesting field, but how do I start a career in Web Analytics?� I have come across this question (and variations of it) a lot. So I thought, why not write an article to help people who are looking for a career in this field.

Skills required to be a Web Analyst

First and foremost you need desire and passion to be a web analyst. Desire and passion will get you where you want to go. I believe (and this is my opinion only), if you have the desire and passion then you can acquire other skills. Not everybody will agree with me but again that�s my view.

Other most important skill that you need is Analytical skill. If you are a person who always looks at the problem from a different angle than most of the other people, you have what it takes. If you can put different pieces of the puzzle together to form a complete picture you have the skills to be a web analyst. If you can critically look at things, you have the skills.

Other Skills and education that will come in handy are
1. Business
2. Marketing
3. Statistics
4. Technical


You don�t need a college degree but a lot of employers look for it and I look at it when hiring a candidate. Business, Marketing, Accounting, Statistics and Technical degrees will be very helpful in getting you the job but I have seen Web Analysts having diverse educational background.

Learning about web analytics

There are several resources available to learn about Web Analytics. There are several blogs on Web Analytics where you can get all levels of information on this subject.

First and foremost you should join WebAnalytics group on Yahoo. This forum is a great source of information. You will find all levels of web analysts in this forum. This is a free for all forum, even if you want to stay on sideline and just read message, you can learn a lot. If you have any question on this subject, feel free to ask at this forum.

Buy a copy of Web Analytics Demystified by Eric Peterson, this is the best resource for all levels of web analyst especially for those who are just starting. Other books that I recommend are also by Eric Peterson.
1. Web Site Measurement
2. The Big Book of KPIs


If you are prefer to learn in formal way then I recommend, the course offered by University of British Columbia. You can learn more about this course at http://www.tech.ubc.ca/metrics/curric.html. (I am one of the associate instructors for this course). This course is offered in partnership with Web Analytics Association (WAA)

Reading blogs, articles and whitepapers is another way to expand your knowledge.
Most of the blogs are of advanced nature, so I would recommend you familiarize yourself with the Web Analytics field (see above) before reading these blog. Two of the blogs that I recommend are Occam�s Razor by Avinash Kaushik and Web Analytics Demystified by Eric Peterson, the author of the books mentioned above. Both of these blogs have a list of lots of other blogs on Web Analytics. The more you read the better you will understand this field.


Gaining Practical Experience

Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics) has made it real easy for anybody to get a web analytics tool. This tool is completely free with all the documentation to help you get rolling. If you have a website, deploy this tool and play with it. This will help you understand how web analytics tools and reports work.
To gain further experience, tap into your network, I am sure somebody (a friend of a friend of a friend�) will allow you (especially if you are willing to do it for free) to provide reporting and analysis on their site (real site).

Getting Paid, while you learn

There are several companies who are looking for entry level analyst. You don�t need any experience, all you need is desire to learn and grow. They will hire you, train you and provide the support to help you grow in this position.

Since you have read this article in it�s entirely, I am convinced you have the desire. Now let me see your passion. Go ahead and email me your resume if you want to get paid while you learn.

Note: I just added a list of books on Web Analytics, you can check them out at Web Analytics Bookstore

Catch 22

Many of you have been asking for an update on the Florida housing scene from Mike Morgan at Morgan Florida. Although we chat several times a week, it has been hard to come up with a new angle given the steady deterioration in things. Hopefully the following post accomplishes the mission. It is an attempt to look at things from the perspective of the homebuilder rather than the home buyer, with a brief preliminary discussion on stock prices. Here goes... From Mike Morgan:

Chicken Little

I�ve been receiving quite a few calls regarding the surge in home builders� stock prices. Well, first off, I am not a financial advisor. My research and consulting services are purely information for the end user to incorporate into their financial analysis.

I think that what�s going on nationwide in housing will effect the country to levels we have not seen since the Depression. Some of you may be equating me with Chicken Little. After all, Cramer is bullish on the home builders and so is Bill Gates. Well it�s not Bill Gates making the call. It�s his financial advisors that run the foundation that are making the call. Second, even if it were Bill Gates, he�s been wrong more than right for the last few years. Bill Gates is not Warren Buffet. As for Cramer, I have no comments except to say that his show speaks for itself. I think you can read between the lines. Finally, the market seems to have bought into the "Goldilocks" soft landing theory. Well housing has never seen a soft landing ever and I fail to see how this time can possibly be different given the affordability problems and the disparity between housing prices and rents, not just in Florida, but pretty much nationwide. With that comment, let's now turn our attention to the situation facing the homebuilders.

Catch 22

Following are the three business strategies builders are using to survive the downturn in home building.

1) Reduce Inventory

Housing inventory is at the highest level we have ever seen since the beginning of time, and growing daily. Back in early 2005 Centex was the first to realize the market was in trouble. They quietly contacted real estate agents and offered double commissions and huge discounts on inventory that would close prior to their fiscal year end of March 31, 2006. As this program grew, the other home builders initially ridiculed Centex, but in their own board rooms, they quickly started cooking up competitive discounts, incentives and commission bonuses. Now it�s a free for all to see who can leap frog the other on the way down, and who can get more creative with incentives. The Catch 22 here is simple. Margins after all of this nonsense are approaching zero for most builders, and the madness has not stopped. But if builders don�t dump standing inventory now, they will have heavier losses if they continue to carry these homes and watch prices further deteriorate as the competition drives prices down further. Catch 22

2) Monetize Land

As if standing inventory was not enough of a problem, builders have two additional problems. First they have land, some of which is entitled and improved. Second they have thousands of projects that are already started, with roads, sewers and utilities already in place and paid for with lots of debt. They might be able to walk from land options and land that is not entitled, but it is not very easy to walk away from land that is already in the development process with billions of dollars of debt tied up.

If the builders move forward with the developments, they are further increasing inventory. If they don't, they face problems with carrying costs of entitled land or shutting down a development that has already started. But carrying costs are not the only problems builders face. If they have already started the development, they most likely have a time frame with the local government to complete the build out. Some local governments require builders to post a bond insuring the completion of developments. And how many homes do you think a builder can sell in a ghost town of a few spec homes? People want to live in a community, not a construction site.

Thus we have the second Catch 22.

3) Scale Back

One would think this is the smartest option. When demand drops off, it is usually a good time to cut back on supply. But if the builders scale back, that means lower numbers for Wall Street. We�d see lower starts and lower sales and lower revenues and lower profit. Oh, almost forgot the "bonus factor". We�d also see lower bonuses to the top dogs who greedily reaped in tens of millions of dollars each during a market fueled by irrationally greedy speculators that essentially had nothing to do with their business acumen or experience.

One top builder has already announced they plan to continue building so they come out of this as a volume leader and capture branding. They�re losing money on each sale, but they�ll make it up in volume? That�s pretty expensive branding. Once again, we have a Catch 22. If the builders scale back, Wall Street will not see the numbers they want to see. If the builders don�t scale back, Wall Street will see some numbers, but the increase in inventory will complicate the problem with lower prices and bottom line losses will be the only numbers Wall Street will see.

Book Value

In addition to the three Catch 22 issues, Wall Street seems enamored with the low book values of the builders. I�ve got news for you. The book value numbers for this group are as misleading as a deaf and blind seeing eye dog. We�ve seen a few builders take write downs on some land, but if you crunch the numbers, it�s crystal clear that these write downs are not enough.

Homework

Look at D.R. Horton�s (DHI) recent write down in comparison to their land position. Look at Lennar (LEN) and the other builders referenced in the informative piece appearing in the October 2 issue of Barrons. Think about WCI Communities (WCI) and Brookfield Homes (BHS). Is their land old land with value, or is it relatively new land that they paid top dollar for. Finally, take a look at what happened to Kara Homes in New Jersey. A large regional builder that choked on their land and inventory. Choked right into bankruptcy.

This is where it gets tricky. It�s not easy finding out at what prices, where, and when the builders purchased land and/or options on land. For land purchased prior to 2000, the book value will most likely hold. For land purchased in 2005 or later, these guys are in trouble, and much of that land is probably worth 25-50% less than what they paid. For land purchased between 2000 and 2004, there is a grey area as to what the land is worth. The bottom line when it comes to land is that builders bought land just like the flippers bought their preconstruction homes. Price was a secondary issue. The primary concern was getting entitled land.

The crash of the housing industry is only now getting started, as it will spread virally to all of the boats it floated during the rising tide. Housing has touched every single segment of our economy, and it will darken all of those segments as the industry collapses to the worst levels we�ve seen since the Depression. The NAR and other groups producing numbers have been great cheerleaders, but when you�re pumping out misleading numbers, I don�t care how beautiful or loud the cheerleaders are, the situation is a no win catch 22 for the homebuilders no matter how one looks at it.

Thanks Mike.
I find it interesting to see yet another catch 22.
Please compare and contrast NAR Thinking Big for 07 with 2006 Subprime Loans Doing Badly.

"Thinking Big" outlines additional (and unwarranted) handouts the NAR wants from the Democrats including:

• Subsidized flood and hurricane insurance
• Eliminate of the FHA's 3 percent down payment requirement
• Raising the cap on loan terms to 40 years
• Getting the "FHA and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back on track and working in every state"

Following is an additional snip from the article.

Lereah called the big Democratic congressional win a "positive turn." "From a regulatory perspective, I think it's great," the economist said. "The Bush White House, a White House that has been pro-banking, not pro-real estate, has been declawed."

As he sees it, the GSEs have "had their hands tied behind their backs" while the administration and Congress battle over which agency will regulate the agencies and how to control the growth of their retained portfolios. But not for much longer.

"Now I see something different," Lereah said. "They will get a tough regulator, but they will be able to participate in a robust way once again. That's very good for all of us." The NAR senior vice president also called on the group to take a leadership roll with regard to housing policy. "We are the biggest association in America and I think the most powerful," he said. "We should develop our own housing agenda and lead rather than follow."

Lereah is a Loser

The policies Lereah espouses are the very same policies that made housing unaffordable in the first place: An ownership society promoting housing, subsidized insurance, decreased lending standards, and unmitigated growth in GSEs. I see four policies attempting to make "housing more affordable" all doing the exact opposite. Now Lereah's solution to the problem is the same solution that led to the bubble in the first place.

While pondering that idea, please consider 2006 Subprime Loans Doing Badly:

Subprime loans _ or loans made to borrowers with less than perfect credit _ from 2006 aren't just performing badly. The loans, in particular those used to back mortgage bonds, could prove to be one of the worst-performing groups yet, according to UBS.

In a conference call titled "How Bad is Subprime Collateral?" Tom Zimmerman, head of ABS research for UBS, and David Liu, head of mortgage credit, discussed how much higher loan delinquencies and foreclosures are for 2006 subprime loans compared with similar subprime loans from earlier years _ the result of deteriorating underwriting quality from lenders combined with a slower housing market.

Still, despite the adverse conditions, "I guess we are a bit surprised at how fast this has unraveled," said Zimmerman. While it's "not a secret that subprime collateral has performed pretty disastrously so far," he said, "I must say we were a bit surprised by the magnitude with which" the loans "deteriorated this year."

The rate of subprime loan delinquencies of 60 days or more _ meaning borrowers are that far behind in their payments _ has climbed to about 8 percent, up from about 4.5 percent a year ago.

These 60-day plus delinquencies jumped up fairly sharply in the past few months, to 3.63 percent for the 2006 loans in October, up from 2.95 percent in September and 1.62 percent in July, according to UBS research.

The Ultimate Catch 22

Learah is quite simply a huge part of the problem and zero part of the solution. Anyone that wants a house already has one or can not afford one. Looser lending standards will have a negative impact on both writeoffs and affordability.

Long term what is sorely needed is an enormous housing bust to deal with affordability issues as well as put a final end to the credit bubble we are in. But that will eliminate some of Lereah's perceived power and arguably all of his credibility so he can not go along with it. Instead he promotes the policies that got us into trouble in the first place.

Addendums

The above post first appeared on Whiskey & Gunpowder.

Unrelated to this post (but not an ad for anything) I was on two podcasts today taking about liquidity issues, Monday's decline, Open Market Operations and other related topics. One was on a Christian radio station of all places (no link yet available) and the other was a roundtable discussion with Lee Adler, Steve Northwood, and Lee Wheeler on the Wall Street Examiner. Those interested may wish to tune in.

Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

NRF Black Friday Distortions

Over the weekend I received some taunts about how "great" Black Friday was.

Bloomberg reported U.S. Shoppers Spend 19% More on Thanksgiving Weekend.

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. shoppers spent 18.9 percent more over the Thanksgiving weekend than last year, kicking off holiday gift buying with purchases of discounted wide-screen televisions and clothes, the National Retail Federation said.

Consumers spent an average $360.15 each over the weekend, up from $302.81 a year earlier, the NRF said today in a statement. Fewer people shopped, with about 140 million visiting stores during the four days including Thanksgiving, down from 145 million last year.

That did not jive with sales at Walmart as CNN Money reported Wal-Mart sees sluggish sales for November, including Black Friday results.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. predicted surprisingly weak November sales on Saturday, but a survey of thousands of retail locations pointed to a relatively healthy start to the holiday shopping season.

Wal-Mart estimated that November sales fell 0.1 percent at its U.S. stores open at least a year - the forecast includes sales on Black Friday. At the same time, a survey by ShopperTrak estimated a 6 percent sales increase overall for the day, to $8.9 billion.

Wal-Mart's results would mark the company's first monthly same-store sales decline since April 1996. The retailer had expected same-store sales to be flat compared with the same period last year.

So who to believe, Wal-Mart or the National Retail Federation (NRF) ?
The Big Picture Blog puts this story to bed with More Bad Data from the NRF.

I�m kinda dumfounded to see this issue come up time and again, but -- there they go again: The National Retail Federation is once again putting out bad dope:

"Retailers kicked off the holiday selling season in style as shoppers across the country set their alarms for the wee hours of the morning to catch doorbuster specials. According to the National Retail Federation�s 2006 Black Friday Weekend Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, more than 140 million shoppers hit the stores on Black Friday weekend, spending an average of $360.15, up 18.9 percent from last year�s $302.81.*"

Or so said the NRF's press release. Note that little asterisk?* Follow it, and we see

"*Spending data includes Thursday, Friday, Saturday and projected spending for Sunday."

Even that disclaimer is inaccurate: First, this is not based upon actual sales data, but rather, is a survey of consumers. Not only that, but much of the survey results are self-reported projections of spending expectations -- not receipts.

Note that this has become an annual rite of error by NFR. In my opinion, based on my read of how they present this data, I suspect they are purposefully attempting to mislead the media. We saw the exact same issue last year in the way they report their survey: In 2005, the NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION said holiday Retail sales rose 22%; We later found the actual sales data was nowhere near that statement. Taking a survey forecast and reporting it as actual sales is not honest.

Given last year's debacle, as well as the more recent cheerleading back-to-school forecast, one would have hoped the NRF would make it clearer that this isn't actual sales data -- but rather, is a survey asking people how much they intend to spend, and on what items.

What I fail to understand is how Bloomberg and other places can fall for this nonsense time and time again. This is the direct equivalent of the Charley Brown / Lucy football scene being played every Thanksgiving in real life. Now let's wait for some real data.
Thanks Barry.

Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Ecuador Uno

Here's some photos from my recent class trip to Ecuador. This post focuses on Quito.


Quito sits in a valley in the Andes Mountains. One of the tourist activities is taking the TeleferiQo cable car up to approximately 4,100m (13,500 ft) above sea level. On this day, views of Quito were not to be had, but it was thrilling regardless.


This clearer view is from El Mosaico Cafe, a Greek-Ecuadorian-American restaurant with great food and stunning views. This collage was taken right before Quito's daily dose of rain. Best viewed mas grande.


Another general view of Quito, this time from the 12th floor of the Hilton...


...the building to the left of the tall concrete building in the foreground.


The Historical, Colonial district of Quito is one of the most beautiful and well-preserved in South America, here in front of Monasterio de San Francisco.


And here next door in the courtyard of the Museo Franciscano.


One of the many lively and beautiful roads in the Colonial district.


Here's another.

Next time: the road trip from Quito into the Amazon basin.

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Musical Studies Centre in Santiago de Compostela, Spain by Ensamble Studio.

The updated book feature is Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador by Suzana Sawyer.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

empty streets
"Like an architectural photograph without people ... the built world is hallucinatory: empty streets, empty portals."

archistorm
A French architecture magazine I just learned about, though it's already at issue #22.

Leftovers
A Chris Ware comic and various covers for this week's New Yorker.

A Mortgage Broker's Synopsis

The following post is an email from Michael J. Dorff, a mortgage broker with Trans World Financial about the state of affairs in Orange County California. Monday evening I will have an update from Mike Morgan to share.

Mish,

Here is a synopsis of the mortgage side of things here in Orange County and for that matter California in general.

What people don't see, the NAR in particular, is the upcoming train wreck. I am talking about all the sub prime loans for refinances as well as purchases that were taken out 2 to 3 yrs ago and are now all coming due to reset. My guess is that 99% of all sub prime loans are all done on a 2 or 3 yr fixed interest only type program. People thought that it made no sense to take a 30 year fixed loan those homes when the short term rates were a lot lower, but they were all wrong.

The time bomb is about ready to go off. All of the subprime loans taken out 2 to 3 years ago have margins of at least 5% or higher and usually based on the London LIBOR program. Those loans are starting to reset now at fully indexed rates somewhere in the high 9% to 10% range. When those loans were initiated 2 to 3 years ago, they all had start rates of high 5% to low 6%. As of now, the LIBOR alone stands at 5.388 for the 6 month and 5.336 for the 1 year. Take those LIBOR indexes and add the margins to see what is going to happen.

Here is a case in point. One of my clients who took out an interest only subprime loan from another lender just received her reset notice. Her current margin is 5.25% and her index for the 6 month LIBOR index is 5.388%. This means her new interest rate will shoot up to 10.638%. Her note states that her first adjustment cannot go higher than 9.2%. So she will be at 9.2% for the next 6 months. With an initial loan balance at $251,000 at 6.2% interest only, she had a monthly payment of $1,296.83. In December her new payment will be $1,924.33 for the following 6 months before it adjusts again. This is a $627.50 jump in monthly payment. She simply can not afford this payment.

Given her low credit score near 550, she is fortunate to still have equity that will allow her to refinance at all. Even still it is a tough task because not only does she have a bad score, she also a late pay on her record. The best option any sub prime lender would give her was 8.5% but she can not even afford that. The only option left is a Neg Am Option Arm Pick a Pay Loan where her payment is based on an payment rate of 2% but with a fully indexed adjustable rate of 7.4%. She will go negative if she cannot make the interest only portion of this loan. She also needs cash, $75, 000.00 of cash. Mish, that is your typical home ATM machine at work.

These Option Arm, Neg Am Pick a Pay Loan programs were one of the things keeping the home building bubble and mortgage lending bubbles going for the last 3 years. Without these products, the market (at least in California) would have collapsed 3 years ago. Instead the bubble just got bigger and bigger and we will see even a greater collapse when it comes. Ninety percent of those who take an interest only loan can only afford the interest only part and not only that, there entire lifestyles are planned around that payment.

Lenders don't really want people to pay the principle off anyway unless there is a prepayment penalty on it. Prepayment penalties are another scam in and of themselves. You can bet the lenders have made a killing on these 6 month interest prepay penalties. Bear in mind that once someone is subprime the odds of that ever being corrected are slim. Refinancing on better terms is usually not an option. Average credit scores for this group on the whole have not improved much if indeed at all over the last few years. I would guess that 80 to 90% of sub prime borrowers stay sub prime borrowers. Those borrowers are in a hole so deep they will never cleanup their credit to get A-paper rates. To top it off, many of them end up paying multiple prepayment penalty each time they need more money. They simply can't wait for their prepay period to expire. Ultimately it is a death spiral to bankruptcy.

Ask any Realtor out there if they know or really care about the types of loans there clients are getting. They may say yes but my assumption is they just want to make the sale. Ask any mortgage loan officer if he or she cares about what loan program they put their client in. Many will say yes but the reality is that they just want to close the loan and get their commission. First greed took over. Now it is a matter of survival.

Here is another reason why these loans are pushed: Lenders pay a lot of rebate on the back end on these loans which fuels the greed even more. Mortgage professionals can make up to 3.5% back end points on these loans while their client's minimum payment stays the same. When you are talking about the high loan amounts in California, the money to be made by pushing someone into one of these programs is huge. So are the temptations. Some lenders went so far as to put on their rate sheets that the maximum a broker or mortgage loan officer can make is $50, 000.00 on a given loan.

Initially investors and flippers loved these loans because their payment was so low that by the time they could flip a home there out of pocket expenses were nothing. It all works well when the market is going up. When it stops or even falls, say good bye!

Everyone is in same box. Realtors need sales, homebuilders need sales, and mortgage brokers need sales. Unfortunately those needs too often come before their clients needs. In the end, the bankruptcies and foreclosures that result from this mess will just keep adding to inventory, ultimately forcing home prices lower. We are only in the first year of decline. From where I sit things will get a lot worse before they can get better.

Michael J. Dorff
Trans World Financial
Huntington Beach, Ca. 92646

Thanks Michael.
Monday evening Mike Morgan puts himself in the shoes of a home builder and sees a giant catch 22. Stay tuned.

In the meantime I am doing one last plug for Kevin Kerr's Resource Trader Alert (RTA). Last week I posted a chart of Kevin Kerr's trades for 2006 and judging from the Email and blog postings there were many skeptics. For convenience I am repeating the chart of trades for 2006, followed by his track record for 2004 and 2005 that I did not post earlier.



Click on the chart for a better view.

In the above table there are 23 winners and 3 losers. One of the losses has a date of 2005 but it was an options spread and a portion of that spread was closed for a loss in 2006. Agora's legal department insisted the loss be included in trades for 2006.

Inquiring might be wondering about 2005 and 2004. RTA had 35 trades for 2005. The scorecard was 29 winners and 6 losers. For 2004 RTA had 10 trades, everyone was a winner.

2006 - 23 wins 3 losses
2005 - 29 wins 6 losses
2004 - 10 wins 0 losses

Note that RTA is strictly an option picking service as opposed to futures, so your full risk for each and every trade is known in advance.

Money Back Guarantee

Agora is currently offering a complete money back guarantee good for an entire year. Here is that guarantee:

As a special member and as part of this limited invitation, you'll have the right to cancel at any time during your membership. Yes, at any time. Even on the last day of your membership, for a refund of your full purchase price.

Disclosure

Many of you know that I have a relationship with Agora, so yes I stand to benefit if someone signs up. But if anyone is aware of a better track record on commodities than the one I posted above then please let me know.

Note to skeptics

I know that some of you are skeptics but the record is what it is. Some responses on my blog wondered about the meaning of "closed trade". Yes the record does include expired trades with options going to zero. That happened twice in 2005 but not at all in 2006 or 2004. Others wondered why that happened so infrequently and the answer is that Kevin likes to buy a lot of time so he only needs to be eventually correct as opposed to correct this month. His track record is such that he is usually eventually correct. Finally, remember there is a money back guarantee. You have the option of signing up and watching the trades without even taking them, just to monitor how things go for a while. At any point if you decide the service is not for you, you can close it out for 100% of your money back.

Past performance is of course no guarantee of future results, but for those interested in commodity trading with a limited predefined risk for each trade, with a right to a complete refund anytime for a full year, on a service with track record as good as Kerr's, please click here to signup now. Prices are set to rise Midnight November 27, 2006.

Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Canon SD600

A teeny tiny ultracompact from Canon, the SD600 has a lot to offer in spite of its small stature. While its 2.5 inch LCD screen may not be as big as its nearly-identical twin the SD630, he Canon SD600 isn't sweating the details. It's still got a hefty 6 megapixel sensor and high ISO capabilities. In an attractive two tone black and silver finish, the SD600 is dressed for success.
Specifications

* 6 megapixels
* 3x optical zoom / 4x digital zoom
* auto focus
* auto and manual exposure
* JPEG file format
* ISO 80-800 (High ISO auto)
* movie mode w/sound
* lithium ion battery
* 2.5 inch LCD
* SD card storage (16MB included)

Today's archidose #46

Spinningfields Development Manchester by fotofacade
The Leftbank residential building at Spinningfields development in Manchester by Aedas (now Davis Brody Bond - Aedas).

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

Open Market Operations, Interest Rates, and Gold

I have been reading many claims in many places lately that "The Fed is pumping M3". Others claim that Fed Open Market Operations (repos and coupon passes) are purposely being used by the Fed to fuel the stock market. Others still point to manipulation in gold. This post attempts to look at those claims.

Let's start with An Examination of Interest Rate Targeting, a 108 page PDF study of Open Market Operations in Australia by Liam J. O�Hara. The study was specific to Australia but it applies equally to the FOMC. Don't worry, I condensed the highlights down to a single page with my thoughts following.

The section below from "Study Highlights" thru "End Study Highlights" are excerpts from that PDF. I did not indent as I usually do because many of the snips below also contained indentations that I wanted to preserve without making things too hard to read.

Study Highlights

OMO is designed to fully accommodate the demand for system-wide liquidity in order to maintain stability in short-term interest rates [not] as a tool to manipulate the money supply.

Mosler (2002) again finds similar evidence:

The target [of OMOs] is an interest rate, so the New York Trading desk need only respond to changes in that interest rate. If the federal funds rate trades above its target, for example, it is a simple matter to make funds available at the appropriate interest rate for member banks to borrow on an as-needed basis. There is no functional value to knowing how much the banks need in advance. The Fed can always readily supply, and indeed must supply, any quantity of $US reserves the banks demand at the going rate, or the federal funds rate will not be on target. There is no inherent constraint on the quantity [of money] as the target is the interest rate and the quantity necessarily floats to meet bank demands, so the Fed has no need to �be prepared� for any quantity demanded.

An historical examination of OMO over the past 10 years highlights the fact that the Reserve Bank has fully accommodated the demand for cash in order to maintain cash interest rates at their target levels, and the settlement system functional.

While central banks have explicitly expressed the view that they target short term interest rates, and the money supply is determined outside the system by the demand for credit, proponents of the old exogenous money approach still perpetuate false and misleading statements. Recently, Friedman (1994) stated:

It�s simple to state how the money supply is so centrally controlled. It�s hard to believe. I have observed that noneconomists find it almost impossible to believe that twelve people out of nineteen�sitting around a table in a magnificent Greek temple on Constitution Avenue in Washington have the awesome legal power to double or two halve the total quantity of money in the country. How they use that power depends on [a range] of complex pressures�But that does not alter the fact that they and they alone have the arbitrary power to determine the quantity of what economists call base or high-powered money�And the entire structure of liquid assets, including bank deposits, money-market funds, bonds, and so on, constitutes an inverted pyramid resting on the quantity of high-powered money at the apex and dependent on it.

The findings of this thesis have concluded an opposite view. In Australia, the Reserve Bank fully accommodates the demand for its own liabilities or order to target a cost of funds to the banking system and not a prescribed money base quantity.

End Study Highlights

Mish Comments

Not only does the article by O�Hara debunk myths about open market operations, it also perforce debunks myths about "The Fed pumping M3", a statement I have seen at least twice a week for months on end. The Fed is not really in control of credit at all, and that is an idea that too few seem willing to accept.

Readers may wish to read Possible targets of open market operations as well as Current goals and procedures of open market operations for confirmation of O�Hara's study.

The key point is that the Fed can only target one variable at a time. This Fed has chosen to target interest rates and thus money supply and the price of gold will do what they want to at that rate. If the Fed chose to target money supply instead, the market would then determine the interest rate. If the Fed chose to target the price of gold, the market would then set the other variables. Thus the Fed is not really "Pumping M3" it is merely supplying the demand for money at the artificial rate it is has targeted (with an emphasis on artificial). This indeed is part of the problem, but it is important to state the problem correctly.

Remember that the Fed can not force anyone to borrow who does not want to, nor can the Fed force banks to lend. Regardless of whether the Fed targets money supply or interest rates or the price of gold, the Fed is NOT in control of bankruptcies, foreclosures, job hiring, or the velocity of money. Those last two sentences are crucial to the deflationary argument. Bankruptcies and foreclosures are soaring, consumer spending is sinking, and jobs will follow housing with a lag.

Liquidity Traps & Helicopters

The current setup is essentially the liquidity trap that Japan fell into. Wikipedia has this (and much more) to say about Liquidity Traps.

Milton Friedman suggested that a monetary authority can escape a liquidity trap by bypassing financial intermediaries to give money directly to consumers or businesses. This is referred to as a money gift or as helicopter money (this latter phrase is meant to call forth the image of a central banker hovering in a helicopter, dropping suitcases full of money to individuals).
...........
It has been suggested that the Japanese economy in the 1990's suffered from a "liquidity trap" scenario. This diagnosis prompted increased government spending and large budget deficits as a remedy. The failure of these measures to help the economy recover, combined with an explosion in the Japanese public debt suggest that fiscal policy may not have been adequate either. (Much of the government spending followed a stop/go pattern and involved spending on unneeded infrastructure.) American economist Paul Krugman suggests that, what was needed was a central bank commitment to steady positive monetary growth, which would encourage inflationary expectations and lower expected real interest rates, which would stimulate spending.

Milton Friedman is wrong and Japan proved it. Japan's national debt went from nowhere to 150% of GDP and they are still battling the aftermath of deflation for 18 years or more. For those wanting to see negative rants on Paul Krugman, try a Google search for Krugman + Mises. My simple statement about Krugman is that he puts the cart before the horse when it comes to economic growth. Artificially stimulating the economy eventually causes all sorts of problems.

Please note that the idea of a "liquidity trap" essentially flows from a Keynesian approach to economic/monetary policy in the belief that there is not enough money in the system and things would somehow be better if more money could be forced into the system. Unfortunately, the Fed simply does not know the correct amount of money or the correct interest rate on it either any more than it knows how to set the correct price of orange juice or TVs. We do not let the Fed set the price of TVs, so why should the Fed set the price of credit? The liquidity trap develops because there eventually comes a point where the central bank simply can not force additional credit down the throats of prospective borrowers. Practice has shown that although central banks will attempt to fight the resultant deflationary tide they won't resort to helicopter drop methods. In this regard, the Fed has far less power than anyone realizes in spite of possessing vast power in theory.

In the ideal Austrian approach, a self-regulating free market economy would continually set interest rates and money supply at the correct levels. Any belief that there was not enough money floating around would be construed as pure nonsense. No function money can fulfill would be disturbed by the stable money supply inherent in a free market. The more goods and quality improvements the economy would produce, the higher the money's purchasing power would become over time. This is of course the exact opposite of what happens in a debt based fiat system. In the final analysis, the important thing is not how much money there is, but what that money can buy.

Who is to blame?

It should be clear from the above that the Fed must take a big share of the blame for the mess we are in. The Fed has no real idea where interest rates should be and thus has no business setting them. This has even been admitted by the Fed itself as I pointed out in Confessions by the Fed.

If credit exploded out of control to the upside then it is simply because the Fed kept interest rates too low too long. The problem is what to do about it. Bernanke is absolutely scared to death of a credit contraction here (and he should be). But the Fed also has to be spooked by the leveraged buyouts, merge mania, stock buybacks, and derivative madness fueling the stock market. Consumer credit and housing will dictate what happens next.

Snake Eyes

The dice have been cast and the latest result was snake eyes.
First we saw Consumer Credit Plunge, with the other die showing a massive decline in housing permits and starts (see October Housing Starts, Permits, Foreclosures).

The box the Fed is in is of its own making, and that box keeps getting smaller and smaller. Eventually overall credit will start contracting regardless of what the Fed says or does, and the wizards behind the curtain will be exposed for the frauds that they are. This means that the Fed is going to be as out of control of the upcoming credit contraction as they were of the preceding credit expansion. It is the end of the line for the Fed and contrary to popular belief, open market operations are not going to hold things together.

RTA track record for 2006:

Mish Note:
What follows is a promotion for Resource Trader Alert (a commodity options trading service by Kevin Kerr at Agora Financial). Several people have sent me private emails complaining about the hype in Agora's ads (and I agree - in public - that some are way over-hyped) so I asked Agora for a simple spreadsheet of all of Kevin Kerr's trades for 2006.

The record speaks for itself.



Click on the chart for a better view.

In the above table there are 23 winners and 3 losers. One of the losses has a date of 2005 but it was an options spread and a portion of that spread was closed for a loss in 2006. Agora's legal department insisted the loss be included in trades for 2006.

Note that RTA is strictly an option picking service as opposed to futures, so your full risk for each and every trade is known in advance. All but 4 of the closed trades above had a maximum amount of $900 at risk.

Money Back Guarantee

Agora is currently offering a complete money back guarantee good for an entire year. Here is that guarantee:

As a special member and as part of this limited invitation, you'll have the right to cancel at any time during your membership. Yes, at any time. Even on the last day of your membership, for a refund of your full purchase price.

Disclosure:
Many of you know that I have a relationship with Agora, so yes I stand to benefit if someone signs up. But if anyone is aware of a better track record on commodities than the one I posted above then please let me know.

Past performance is of course no guarantee of future results, but for those interested in commodity trading with a limited predefined risk for each trade, with a right to a complete refund anytime for a full year, on a service with track record as good as Kerr's, please click here to signup now. (Scroll to the bottom to ignore the hype on the signup page).

Prices are set to rise Midnight November 27, 2006.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Canon PowerShot A430

Canon's A430 aims for the novice crowd with a simple point-and-shoot philosophy. The A430 is a 4 megapixel camera for entry-level users and aside from the ease of use, there's not a lot to go crazy over. The sensor is pretty small for today's standards, and the body, while sleek, isn't as flashy as Canon's exciting SD line. Even for novice or casual users, the A430 is a camera you'll probably outgrow fairly quickly, and soon enough you'll be itching to take those training wheels off and graduate to a better model. Skip the middleman and choose a camera you can grow with.

Specifications

* 4 megapixels
* 4 optical zoom / 3.6x optical zoom
* auto focus
* auto and manual exposure
* ISO 64-400
* JPEG file format
* movie mode w/sound
* 2 AA batteries
* 1.8 inch LCD
* SD/MMC card storage (16MB included)

Leading Economic Noise

The Conference Board released the Leading Economic Indicators for October 2006 on November 20th.

Here are the highlights:

• The U.S. leading index increased 0.2 percent
• The coincident index increased 0.1 percent
• The lagging index increased 0.2 percent

Here is a breakdown of weightings that make up the composite score:



Click on chart for a better view.

The two single biggest predictors of a recession are an inverted yield curve and declining housing permits but the table above shows that those two combined account for a mere 12.85% of the composite score while Money Supply (M2) single handedly accounts for a whopping 35.35% of the composite index.

Inquiring minds might be asking what effect M2 had on the composite index increasing by .2%.
But why stop there?
Following is the complete breakdown:



Click on chart for a much better view.

Consumer Expectations

Let's start off by dismissing complete silliness.
Consumer expectations are given more weight than housing permits.

Does anyone think consumers do what they say? I have been watching consumer sentiment for 5 years now and all I see is random noise. The most recent noise had consumer sentiment rising with the fall in gasoline prices. Consumer expectations added .30 to the index last month and .19 to the index this month. Everyone expected consumer sales to dramatically increase with the rise in consumer sentiment and the drop in gasoline prices.

What actually happened was that consumer credit plunged and consumer spending was anemic. Yet for some reason consumer expectations have a weighting of 2.91% vs. a weighting of 2.66% for housing permits and 1.86% for manufacturer's new orders. Does this make sense to anyone?

M2 as a Leading Indicator

I am most intrigued by the weighting of 35.35% given to M2. M2 added .43% to the composite total of .2%. Following is a chart of M2 Money Stock (left axis) and M2 Annualized Period Gains (right axis) since 1959, with recession periods in pink.



Click on chart for a much better view.

I am trying to figure out what if anything the above chart is saying.
The chart shows M2 spikes coming out of recessions three times, spikes in recessions twice, and nothing extraordinary once. We can also see the 1994 "soft landing" spike low.

The chart also shows enormous whipsaws in both directions outside the normal ranges in 2000, 2001, and 2003 (and also 1966-1967, 1986-1987, 2005-2006). In other years the overall series seems to jerk around with relatively high volatility between a smaller band of +2.5% to +10.0% and a larger band of +0.0% to +15.0%. with spikes on each side but way higher on the upside than the downside. On the left axis one can take a look an pretty much see that M2 goes up every year unabated.

For some reason the M2 series is given the highest weighting in leading indicators.

Housing Starts

Compare the above chart with the following chart of housing starts (once again with recessions in pink).



Yes I realize permits are the leading indicator and I used housing starts, but I used the charting service I had that could easily show recession periods. Anyway, which chart looks like it deserves more weighting? Notice that we are not even in recession yet, so who knows how low starts will go.

Yield Curve



Although the U.S. is not in recession (officially anyway) the massively inverted yield curve and housing starts are most assuredly predicting it.

Crisis of Excess Liquidity

The third biggest positive contributor to the index of leading indicators is the stock market. But I look at mergers, leveraged buyouts, volatility, and debt offerings at amazingly low spreads vs. treasuries (just to buy back stock) not as a leading indicator but rather as proof that we are in a "Crisis of Excess Liquidity". Does anyone seriously think recent stock market action is in any way shape or form, normal?

Merger Mania

Fil Zucchi on Minyanville offered these comments on the recent feeding frenzy in an article titled "If You Want It This Bad You Can Have It".

And so the frenzy continues. Freeport McMoran (FCX) swallows Phelps Dodge (PD) for a cool $27 billion. This makes FCX a copper company rather than a gold company with copper interests. The potential buy-out of PD had been kicked around for a number of months and even the premium is in the speculated range. Time will tell if this one works out, suffice to say this is a large bet that copper has not yet seen peak prices, or else FCX will find itself in a world of pain.

Let�s move on to Blackstone for Equity Office Property (EOP) (assuming that the WSJ speculation is correct) because when thrown in with CB Richard Ellis (CBG) buying Trammell Crow (TCC), and the Reckson Assoc. (RA) / SL Green Realty (SLG) merger, it is bringing the action in commercial real estate to a fever pitch.

What cannot be embellished is the fact that one of the shrewdest commercial players ever, EOP�s founder Sam Zell is bailing out; and perhaps the quintessential blue blood, old fashioned real estate outfit - Trammell - has unloaded itself to the CBG�s "cowboys." If this is not the second coming of Julian Robertson folding Tiger Management right at the 2000 market peak, then this time it must be different.

A bell seldom rings at the top or the bottom but that bell is ringing loud and clear now. Commercial real estate has peaked (give or take a few months). To be fair, I have been bearish on commercial real estate for a long time. But I have never once shorted that sector. Instead I have simply stood back in awe watching commercial REITs rise and rise and rise.

This latest feeding frenzy smacks of the same mania that had AOL taking under Time Warner (yes taking under is the correct word) and JDS merging with Uniphase in 1999 forming JDSU.

JDS Uniphase stock was a high-flyer tech stock investor favorite. Its stock price doubled three times and three stock splits of 2:1 occurred roughly every 90 days during the last half of 1999 through early 2000, making millionaires of many employees who were stock option holders, and further enabling JDS Uniphase to go on an acquisition and merger binge. After the telecom downturn, JDS Uniphase announced in late July 2001 the largest (up to then) write-down of goodwill and business losses in business history: $45 billion. Employment soon dropped as part of the Global Realignment Program from nearly 29,000 to approximately 5,300, many of its factories and facilities were closed around the world, and the stock price dropped from $153 per share to less than $2 per share.

No, I do not expect any declines that dramatic this go around, but the warning signs are flashing red for sure. On a fundamental basis it makes sense for commercial real estate to peak six months to a year after residential real estate peaks and Zell has to know it. New housing subdivisions go up creating urban sprawl and all sorts of strip malls and commercial real estate follow with a lag. With consumers throwing in the towel and a recession predicted by the two best indicators around, Zell is smelling a top or close to it.

One thing these mergers, leveraged buyouts, and stock buybacks financed by debt do is pump up broad money supply. One can either believe that activity or one can believe housing permits and the inverted yield curve. Bear in mind we saw the same type of merger mania action in 2000 right before the Nazcrash. Is history about to repeat?

Note: Leading Economic Noise will be one of the subjects of my next podcast on HoweStreet. If you have not yet seen the HoweStreet video interview with Marc Faber on November 14th you might want to check that out too.

Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Is California Going Bankrupt?

History is about to repeat in California as the State's cash flood may be receding.

It's familiar: A handful of Californians make a killing on investments, and their tax payments send state revenues soaring. Lawmakers go on a spending spree, without a plan for paying the bills when fortunes turn.

That was the late 1990s, when the dot-com boom made the state flush but the gains proved fleeting, and California came perilously close to running out of cash.

Now, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger prepares a landmark program to expand healthcare coverage to millions of uninsured residents, economists say the state may not have the funds to pay for it. Although tax receipts rose this year, they say, California is once again on budget quicksand.

"I'm at a loss to see how they are going to balance this budget," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.

"The state got bailed out last time around by a surprise revenue surge. That is unlikely to happen again."

The expanded programs in Schwarzenegger's election-year budget were funded largely by Silicon Valley millionaires � capital gains taxes on people who cashed in Google stock, for example, accounted for nearly $500 million in revenue, several experts said � and by the bubble in the housing market that began to deflate after tax receipts that fueled this year's spending were tallied.

"These surges don't last forever," said Ted Gibson, a former state economist. "At some point � that revenue stream will either diminish or completely dry up."

The governor Tuesday brushed aside warnings that state coffers could soon start to shrink. Referring to the $37-billion public-works borrowing package voters approved last week, Schwarzenegger said: "There will be so much construction activities going on that where the private sector will fall off, the public sector will pick up."

"With our infrastructure bonds, we will again stimulate the economy," he said.

"We're going to have a big revenue problem," said Christopher Thornberg, a partner at Beacon Economics in Los Angeles. "It is going to be a mess and Schwarzenegger in a year is going to wonder why he wanted to be reelected�. Sacramento is not going to have the cash to pay for things it wants."

In 1965, personal income taxes � one of the most volatile sources of cash for the state � accounted for less than a fifth of the state's revenues. Now they make up nearly half.

After voters rejected his "Live Within Our Means Act" in last year's special election, the governor changed course, supporting big spending increases for government programs. Democrats, too, dropped their call for changes in the tax code as state coffers swelled and more money was on the table � at least temporarily � to fund their policy priorities.

Now, analysts say, the inaction may come back to haunt the state. The influx of cash "we've seen in the last couple of years could go in the other direction," said Brad Williams, an economist in Hill's office. "It is just a question of when."

I am stunned. I should not be but I am. How can anyone possibly think .... "With our infrastructure bonds, we will again stimulate the economy"? The Arnold sounds like he is bragging that California's infrastructure is in bad shape. "There will be so much construction activities going on that where the private sector will fall off, the public sector will pick up."

Perhaps other states should wreck their roads and demolish their hospitals just so they too can be lucky enough to get voters to pass bond issues to stimulate the economy. Dear Arnold write this down on the blackboard are read it until you understand it: Unfunded public sector spending is exactly why this country is in the mess it is in. We have wasted well over half a trillion dollars in Iraq and exactly what did that stimulus buy us?

If floating bonds will stimulate the economy enough to pay for themselves why not float a trillion dollars worth of them? If printing presses were the key to prosperity, Zimbabwe could easily be the richest nation in the world.

NCPA

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is writing about CALIFORNIA'S MEGA-BONDS.

Tired of exasperating traffic jams, aging schools and inadequate affordable housing, Californians have launched a new era of public works construction. California voters agreed Tuesday to finance the program by issuing $37.3 billion in bonds -- an amount greater than the annual spending of any other state.

As a growing federal budget deficit has eroded financial aid for highways and other projects, debates have simmered in recent years in state capitals about how to pay for them.

Critics say California voters made a mistake:

• The borrowing will top $73 billion once the bonds are paid off with interest in 30 years, thrusting the state deeper into debt just as it is rebounding from the dot-com bust.
• That could lead to cuts in funding for social services and other programs, they warn.
  

Supporters -- most prominently Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- argue:

• The benefits of highway and public transit improvements, better-equipped schools and reduced threats of flooding will be worth the cost.
• That is especially true, they say, in a state predicted to swell by the population of Ohio over the next 10 years.
  

The four propositions will spend $19.9 billion on roads and public transit, $10.4 billion on school construction, $4.1 billion on levees and other flood-control projects and $2.9 billion on affordable housing.

The California Model

The Boston Herald dove off the deep end by proposing California�s $37.3 billion public works rebuilding program could be model for other states.

California voters agreed Tuesday to finance the program by issuing $37.3 billion in bonds - an amount greater than the annual spending of any other state.

�Voters said they are willing to bear the costs and are unwilling to wait for the feds to get their act together,� said Everett Ehrlich of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. �That California would see it in its best interest to go it alone and make such a sizable new investment in its future is in many ways new and different.�

Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, said passage of the mega bonds will become a catalyst for discussions nationwide about funding infrastructure. �This is a real victory for people who have the economy in mind,� Zaremberg said. �Gridlock costs money. It�s really important to maintain our infrastructure.�

For starters voters most assuredly are NOT willing to bear the costs. Did California vote to live within their means? No, California rejected Proposition 76: The California Live Within Our Means Act. Did California vote for any tax hikes? Once again the answer is no. So where is the money going to come from? Future generations? Spending that pays for itself? A hope and a wing and a prayer? As for this being a "real victory for people" I would say that Zaremberg's ideas are downright dangerous.

California may have a model alright but that model is the road to ruin and bankruptcy.

Housing

The Desert Sun is writing Housing market drag on state until 2008.

The downturn in the housing industry will continue to depress the state's economy for most of next year before stabilizing in 2008, the Legislature's top budget analyst predicted Wednesday. Legislative Budget Analyst Elizabeth Hill forecast that residential construction will fall by 4.4 percent in 2006 and by an additional 13 percent in 2007. Then the analyst said it should stabilize with about 175,000 permits issued annually through 2012.

''I think the real story in terms of California's economy as well as the nation is what is happening in the real estate industry,'' Hill said. She noted that the real estate industry, which includes developers, contractors, real estate brokers, title companies and financial institutions, make up 15 percent to 20 percent of the state's private sector economy.

The slowdown in this industry was the largest single factor in a sharp decline in personal income growth, resulting in a drop in withholding tax payments from over ten percent in the first half of 2006 to less than five percent in the third quarter, Hill reported.

''California has been hard hit by what has happened in the overall real estate sector,'' she said. ''That is the main reason we see the softness in California's economy through 2007 and the rebound in 2008.''

Overall, Hill projected the state budget would end with a $3 billion reserve, but then run short by about $5 billion in each of the following two years and by $1.2 billion annually through 2012 without cuts, tax or fee increases or borrowing.

The current real estate slowdown also could affect state and local governments through what Hill called a ''more subdued'' growth in property tax revenues. The recent real estate boom led to a 35 percent increase in property tax revenue between and after adjusting for inflation.

Hill is forecasting that the annual growth in property taxes will drop from 12 percent in to below 6 percent in, and then rebound modestly.

The Landing

Once again we have a prediction that seems to amount to a soft landing. The landing will be anything but soft. In fact once the downdraft in California gets going people may be wondering if there will be a landing at all.

During the boom times no one pays down debt or saves for the future. That is because booms by nature are artificial. We had a boom based on easy money and shrinking credit standards. There is no way to pay down debt because the boom itself was based on an expansion of debt not genuine growth and savings. What extra tax revenue that did come in was wasted. Now here we are less than one year from the biggest housing boom in history and California somehow needed to float another $43 billion in bonds.

We produced an enormous housing bubble of unprecedented magnitude. What do we have to show for it? A GDP of 1.6% and sinking fast is what we have to show for it. It is taking more and more and more credit just to stand still.

Rest assured California is going to need even more bonds in the years to come (if they expect to keep spending money they do not have). The housing bubble has now popped but the consequences have only begun. The bottom is going to fall out of income and property tax collection. Unemployment is going to soar along with bankruptcies. In a state where one out of 50 working age adults is a real estate agent there is bound to be severe problems in a property bust.

Back in December of 2005 Tom McClintock writing for ChronWatch wrote about Arnold and the California Bond Bombshell.

Bonds are seductive. They promise immediate gratification but they conceal a heavy price. They are certainly the most expensive way to finance projects, costing two dollars to retire every dollar of debt. Moreover, the state�s borrowing capacity is finite, requiring careful attention to priorities, since debt once issued cannot be rescinded � only repaid. And every dollar borrowed by this generation reduces the ability of the next generation to meet its own needs.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is now dealing with the result. He must restore the public works built by a generation of giants while discharging a mountain of pointless debt racked up by a generation of spendthrifts. Only by rigorously applying these principles can he hope to do so.

Arnold has made a stand. He and the voters of California have agreed to float $43 billion in bonds on top of $30 billion or so in existing bonds. In effect the voters of California seem to think they got something for nothing. But life doesn't work that way. Given there is no realistic way to pay this debt back, California is headed for bankruptcy. No, don't expect an announcement tomorrow, or even next year, but the die has been cast.

Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Housing Industry Employment

I came across an interesting graph of Housing Industry Employment in a Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) PDF entitled Is the Housing Bubble Collapsing? 10 Economic Indicators to Watch.

The article was written in June of 2006 so most of the data it was watching (home sales, home prices, etc) is now far out of date. Last on the list of indicators to watch was employment. There it seem the party has just begun.

Industry Employment

Data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics



The jump in employment in the housing-related series over the last 13 years is a good measure of the impact of the housing bubble. While overall employment increased by less than 22 percent from the 1993 to 2006, employment in the construction of residential buildings increased by almost 70 percent. Employment in real estate agencies increased by almost 30 percent over this period. Employment in residential specialty trade contractors increased by almost 28 percent in just the years from 2001 to 2006.

When the bubble deflates, employment levels in these sectors will fall back in line with their historic patterns, as construction and sales levels move to more normal levels.

If employment in housing-related sectors were to fall back to levels consistent with their share of their labor force in the mid-1990s, it would lead a loss of close to 1 million jobs. If the construction sector temporarily falls below its normal level of activity as inventories of unsold homes adjust to normal levels, the job loss would be even greater.

In October Housing Starts, Permits, Foreclosures there was a discussion on housing employment, repeated below for convenience.

Housing Starts vs. Employment

The following chart is courtesy of CalculatedRisk.
It shows residential construction employment vs. housing starts offset by six months.



Click on the chart for an easier to read view.

The chart above shows that although starts have plunged, completions remain high. This has ominous implications for construction jobs looking ahead. Given that employment will follow housing starts with a lag as existing construction completes, it appears that a minimum of 600,000 construction jobs will be lost over the next six months or so.

The ripple effect of the loss of those jobs, especially on consumer spending will be very noticeable. If anything, this may be a best case scenario on the unlikely assumption that starts and permits do not decline further. Note too that with the expected decline in consumer spending as a result of housing sector weakness, layoffs will likely cascade to a wide variety of other jobs especially restaurants and retail sales jobs.

Perhaps the above 600,000 jobs loss estimate was a bit on the optimistic side. Then again, perhaps those losses will take a lot longer to play out than the six month period as stated above. The bad news, however, is that the CEPR estimate of a potential 1,000,000 job loss assumes there will be no overshoot to the downside.

The CEPR estimate also does not address the ripple effect. On the way up, expansion in housing supported all sorts of retail activity like restaurants, nail salons, WalMarts, and Home Depots being built everywhere. The ripple effect ensures that job losses in those sectors will be magnified on the downside as well.

Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/