Posted on 03/26/2013 8:33:37 AM PDT by whitedog57
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, sales of new single-family houses in February 2013 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 411,000. This is 4.6 percent below the revised January rate of 431,000, but is 12.3 percent above the February 2012 estimate of 366,000.
Hmm. Not what some were hoping. But Lorraine Wollert at Bloomberg has a nice, positive take on the news:
March 26 (Bloomberg) — Sales of new U.S. houses in February capped the best back-to-back months in more than four years, spurred by near record-low borrowing costs and improving job prospects.
Yes, housing affordability (relatively speaking) are near record highs.
And employment prospects are slowly improving.
On the other hand, consumers remain grumpy. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence index fell more than expected to 59.7. It still remains far below the long-run average (pink line).
Don’t forget that wages and salaries as a percentage of GDP keeps falling.
And real household income is also falling.
As the fears about the Affordable Health Care Act (aka, Obamacare) and its rising insurance premiums coupled with the Democrats “Government Gone Wild!” budget (at least they voted on one for the first time in 4 years), no wonder consumers are grumpy.
Why didn’t the failed Romney campaign air the last two charts in a TV ad? Even low-information voters could have seen the collapse of the Middle Class during Obama’s rule depicted there.
Instead, the geniuses in charge were chasing Orca, the mythical turn-out-the-vote whale that brought forth nothing but defeat.
Very interesting! Thinking through this; so, wages falling as percentage of GDP; new home sales down; family income, WAY down and the Fed is printing money like water.
To my mind that signals a losing fight against....Deflation!
Post them here. I'm not clicking your blog.
One of two ways for a currency to become irrelevant - deflation and inflation. I am still of the opinion that we are in a bimodal economy.
Necessities for living are in marked inflation as you can see in everyday items: higher gas & energy, smaller food packages + higher prices, fewer grocery deals, etc.
Everything else fighting over what is left of a smaller pie (smaller pie due to decreased employment and income) is seeing deflationary pressure due to lack of demand.
If incentives don’t change the businesses in the latter group will just give up, take what they can or mothball it in storage, and add more fuel to the fire.
It would seem that the only thing left will be the inflationary side.
But the vast majority of funds printed the banks have no incentive to lend. They can earn a spread just in dividends by investing in the market. Once more bizs start to shutter the market will peak. Then it’s katie bar the door. The only thing that will be left is the debt.
I just came in hopes of seeing Tard.
...and there he is. Thank you, LOL!
Hey, I’m surely with you on this; cogitating on it gives me an absolute headache.
And macro-economics has been a “hobby” of mine for 30 years; love it, but this mess makes damn near no sense whatsoever. I like your “bimodal” economy, although.........I sure don’t quite understand it.
I’ve sort of entertained the idea that we’ve somehow got 2 economies running side by side; maybe that’s always been the case (?). But now, it seems, they’re divorced?
So, maybe its the case the “currency” is somehow divorced from the “ground” economy; the currency has been inflated, but the debt is making the dollar on the ground more valuable but imports and anything related to energy is becoming pricier. Energy related items aren’t tied anymore to “demand”; or maybe its better to say Energy and Energy related items, (including food cause there’s a huge energy component in that) are tied to Global demand, not US local demand.
What makes me bat crap crazy however is the people like Lindsey Williams that go on about how the Debt Bomb will lead to hyper inflation. Ya can’t have both; when a Debt Bomb explodes, it wipes out debt; it wipes out the “credits” as it were and the value of the Currency goes UP because............there isn’t any! That’s what’s happening in Cyprus; a Cyprus Buck is scarce as hens teeth; they’ll sell you 100 apples for one Cyprus Buck today, just to buy half a litre of gasoline.
This is one really strange new economic world!
LOL! I love it!
Tardar Sauce is a girl. :)
It is rather funny, eh? LOL!
I've never seen a cat with feline dwarfism before.
Is that what’s causing the frown?
That and an underbite. If you Google her you’ll see a pic of her entire body. She’s smaller than your usual 1-yr-old cat. Plus there’s something going on with her back leg.
Tardar Sauce/Grumpy Cat has a HUGE following on facebook. There’s going to be a 2014 calendar coming out soon.
She’s quite friendly even though she doesn’t look it!
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