Friday, December 05, 2014

Party Like It's 1999? Not

The number of people Unemployd and marginally employed, U-6.  Not percent but number:
We are a long way from 1999. 

Thursday, December 04, 2014

There is No Climate!

There now that the presumed denial is out of the way, a serious discussion.  

One of the things I never noticed before.  There are far fewer reporting sites contribution to the world temperature database.  For a long time I thought it unfortunate but necessary.  After all a properly sited station can only degrade until it is no longer considered reliable for the purposes of measuring climate temperatures.  Often these are places like airports where the stations continue to do important work like keeping airplanes from crashing but not for climate measurement.  So, this never raised my interest until...

Coincidence?  A massive "purge" of the reporting stations and a simultaneous spike in temperature?  

Okay, then how about the second graph?  One location reporting since 1659 and do you see where humans started driving climate?  





Employment Report 04 Dec '14


Today's DoL report (pdf) has an interesting year over year comparison:
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending November 15 was 2,249,458, an increase of 128,753 from the previous week. There were 4,112,807 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2013.

 Nearly 2 million people off the rolls.  Notice I didn't say they found employment. 

Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Rainfall Tracking Website

Seven day rainfall totals as of 3 Dec 14. 





Repeated for those interested,  Ventura Watershed District Precipitation Interactive

Give and Take Retail Sales

It will be a few days before we settle out on the figures for Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Wild Weekend, Cyber Monday, and now Giving Tuesday.  Early reports are for modest net gains year over year.  One strong component is new vehicle sales.  Good for the totals but likely to pull from other retail spending.  Cyber Monday sales preliminary +8% which is a big miss for analysts expecting +13% but not for people who weren't impressed by the stuff and prices.

What I expect is a strong falloff in general retail sales over the next several weeks.

Update 2: Black Friday Fatigue? Thanksgiving Weekend Sales Slide 11 Percent
Sales, both in stores and online, from Thanksgiving through the weekend were estimated to have dropped 11 percent, to $50.9 billion, from $57.4 billion last year, according to preliminary survey results released Sunday by the National Retail Federation. Sales fell despite many stores’ opening earlier than ever on Thanksgiving Day.
And though many retailers offered the same aggressive discounts online as they did in their stores, the web failed to attract more shoppers or spending over the four-day holiday weekend than it did last year, the group said. The average person who shopped over the weekend spent $159.55 at online retailers, down 10.2 percent from last year.


Update 1: CNBC talking heads in CYA mode.

Analysts casted doubt Monday about a widely watched shopping poll that indicated Black Friday weekend sales fell 11 percent from last year.
"I don't believe any way whatsoever sales were down 11 percent over the weekend," Gerald Storch, CEO of Storch Advisors, told CNBC. "That number is a bad outlier."
The projection came from a survey by Prosper Insights & Analytics for the National Retail Federation. The survey of shoppers reported that total spending in stores and online for the weekend through Sunday fell to $50.9 billion from $57.4 billion last year. It also indicated the average person spent $159.55 online, down 10 percent from last year.
 Gotta love it.  "Casted."

Zillow "Culture" Not a Role Model for Anything

A disturbing article on SFGate spotlighting Zillow's corporate environment. 

Excerpt:

Kremer, an Orange County resident who worked in sales at Zillow, claims her managers did nothing to stop the abuse. Her attorneys described a “culture of degrading women … pervasive throughout Zillow’s leadership.”

Text – and photo – messages filed along with the lawsuit appear to support Kremer’s claims of harassment. In them, male employees proposition Kremer, text her a sexually explicit photo and discuss misogynistic behavior by their coworkers.


Zillow on Tuesday acknowledged Kremer was mistreated while denying her claims that the sexual harassment is widespread at the company.


“When this allegation was first made, we immediately investigated these claims and as a result took quick action and terminated a sales employee in our Irvine (California) office,” Zillow spokeswoman Jill Simmons said by email. “The allegations in the complaint do not reflect Zillow’s culture or workplace and are completely inconsistent with our values.


“We don’t tolerate harassment of any kind.”
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 Hat Tip to an anonymous source for bringing this to my attention.  As Zillow is poised to vastly enlarge its presenc in the Real Estate arena this is one of many issues to watch carefully.  I am strong in standing against demonstrated cultures of abuse.  That said let' see how this plays.  Young brash companies make mistakes just like people.  There are growing pains.  Zillow needs to be proactive.  They are betting very large at disrupting the RE space and this is the kind of leverage the entrenched interests will exploit.  "Just another black hat" won't effect positive change. 

ADP Nov '14

Oh the contortions some go through to score a point.
The ADP report for November 2014 is out.  Let the spin begin. 


Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Steady as she goes in the job market. Monthly job gains remain consistently over 200,000. At this pace the unemployment rate will drop by half a percentage point per annum. The tightening in the job market will soon prompt acceleration in wage growth.” 

Of course that is what used to be called static analysis.  There are nearly 400,000 new worker age monthly entrants and nowhere near that number retiring.  But who am I to call out my betters?   ADP: Private Employment increased 208,000 in November
 And don't worry that concensus (misspelling on purpose) was was too high.  They are merely the best economists the field has to offer. Hat Tip to CincoX for pointing out the CR called this an "increase." 

Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Teardowns Bring Tears

An interesting story from Marketwatch:


This summer, my parents sold the 2,000-square-foot split-level they bought in a suburb of New York City in the early 1970s. The buyer, a Bronx-based developer of everything from office complexes to strip malls, plans to demolish the house to make way for something bigger and grander—a five-bedroom McMansion with stainless-steel appliances, custom millwork, surround sound, and a master suite with a marble bathroom and radiant heat.
  Probably the eventual fate of the Dawghause as we too are in an area ripe for true mansionization. 

The American Squeeze

WSJ Article lays bare any fantasy that the lower and middle classes are even holding ground.

Excerpt:

The American middle class has absorbed a steep increase in the cost of health care and other necessities as incomes have stagnated over the past half decade, a squeeze that has forced families to cut back spending on everything from clothing to restaurants.
Health-care spending by middle-income Americans rose 24% between 2007 and 2013, driven by an even larger rise in the cost of buying health insurance...
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Sure, we all know this from personal experience.  Do you know who doesn't "know" this?  The psychopaths who calculate disposable income.  That's right.  Personal Disposable Income is calculated before subtracting out insurance.