Free Republic

Loss of Jobs in America Paul Craig Roberts Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2003 Are we being spun on jobs by the White House and the rah-rah Bush media like we are being spun on Iraq? Make up your own mind after considering the following. Only a few of the 116,000 private sector jobs created in October provide good incomes: 6,000 new positions in legal services and accounting – activities that reflect corporations gearing up to protect their top executives from Sarbanes-Oxley. The remainder of the 116,000 new jobs consist of temps, retail trade, telephone marketing, and fund raising, administrative and waste...

My apologies, again, for an unedited Bulletin. For the week, the Dow was slightly positive and the S&P500 slightly negative. Economically sensitive issues outperformed, with the Transports and Morgan Stanley Cyclical indices adding 1%. The Utilities and Morgan Stanley Consumer indices were unchanged. The broader market was its usual volatile self, but ended the week about flat. The small cap Russell 2000’s slight advanced increased its year-to-date gain to 36%. The S&P400 Mid-cap index was unchanged. The highflying technology sector gave up a little air. For the week, the NASDAQ100 declined 1% and the Morgan Stanley High Tech index...

A funny thing happened last week. Mortgage rates remained basically unchanged, inching up just 2 basis points to 5.81% from 5.79% a week earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America. But demand for refinance loans and purchase loans dropped. Like a rock. This was not your garden-variety drop. It was a huge plunge: Applications for refi loans sank more than 22%. Applications for purchase loans crashed 19%. Refinance applications are now down MORE THAN 75% from their late-May peak while purchase applications are at their lowest level since April. What's going on? It's pretty obvious ... * The...