Bloomberg: U.S. Economy Contracts 6.3%March 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy shrank in the fourth quarter more than previously estimated, leading to the biggest plunge in corporate earnings in a half century and underscoring why companies are slashing payrolls this year.
Gross domestic product contracted at a 6.3 percent annual rate from October to December, the weakest since 1982, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Profits dropped 16.5 percent from the prior quarter, the most since 1953.
Amazing. Yet another "revision" to the downside. When we start seeing upward revisions it might be time to start looking for a bottom.
20 comments:
Dawg,
The first sign will be when Casey finally sells all of his shares in everything.
NR
PS This indicator has worked perfectly so far.
Do forced liquidations or confiscations count?
Someone needs to introduce Casey to shorting. He'll short everything and we'll have the biggest (upward) day Wall St. has ever seen.
Casey shorting? No, I won't go there.
I just saw the DecaBox on CNBC and they were all smiling. Not just sad, but sick.
Advance hint:
Watch the energy inventories.
is that real or nominal? does it really matter at this point?
Hi NR!
Why aren't Canadians doing more about the insane seal pup slaughter?
Even Putin finds it degenerate.
I'd sure like to nuke this POS.
Canada sure is awesome.
More fun in Canada!
Putin prefers explosives with little bomblettes that the seal pups mistake for little toy anchovies and they get their flippers blown off. Because a maimed pup will slow down the whole seal family trying to care for it.
I never understood what the big deal about slaughtering baby fur seals is. The population seems stable. The hunt is monitored by press and protestors. Sure killing cute animals is mean, but we process millions of cows, pigs and chickens through meat plants, and I love meat. What is the moral difference between killing a baby fur seal and a deer?
JVJ, previous thread: "Can some of the enlightened minds here explain to me some of the comments I've been reading about a 'race to the bottom'?"
The devaluation of the currency is intended to have two effects. First is to make the goods we produce cost less at the international level, so that we can sell more of them. But the second, and the real reason for the quiet devaluation, is that debt is easier to repay (as the currency it is denominated in has lost value.)
But as Rob pointed out, if everybody does it at the same time, it loses its effect. In the meanwhile, the prices of hard "stuff", like oil, gold, wheat, etc.; go up. And a loss in the value of the currency has a nasty habit of getting out of control . . .
Rob, previous thread: One other factor in the decline of sporting goods is that outdoors-y stuff has lost some of its cachet. The outdoors lifestyle acquired a fashionable aura in the late 90's, due both to in increase in high activity sports, an increased interest in the environment, and the trend toward big "off-road" vehicles. Some of that was genuine, but not all of it; it's not a coincidence that so many "SUVs" were more for looks than for going offroad. But the wheel has turned, and the new urban lifestyle is the trend of the moment. The outdoor lifestyle is still around; it hasn't gone back to being the 60's throwback cliche, not yet, but the market for it has shrunk.
And yes, ironic that interest in the environment has been responsible for both the outdoors lifestyle and the new urban lifestyle. Of the two, the second is probably the more consistent; at the height of the outdoors lifestyle craze, the wilderness areas were taking a beating from the SUVs, bikers, hikers, boaters, and campers; and worst of all from the cabins and mini-ranch-ettes that were turning previously pristine areas into dreadful subdivisions. With people moving back closer to city centers, the wilderness might get a breather.
Re: Seals, and then I'll shut up. I think the outrage over it is not entirely unjustified; at the root of the problem is that seal fur (and make no mistake, this is primarily about fur) just isn't a necessary good. Meat isn't strictly necessary, but it is generally a necessary item, so there is a justification for killing animals for meat; but unless you're caribou herders of the far north, there just isn't the same justification for killing seals.
Now, there is admittedly the problem of seal overpopulation. Thankfully, Mother Nature in her wisdom has provided for an answer to that problem.
And so I say: don't kill the baby seals! They're too cute to kill. And besides which, killing cute baby seals is what we have polar bears for.
@PV: Thanks!
PV,
As a former Boy Scout, real camping, real hiking, real mountain climber I agree. Remember the "Tennis Craze?" And the "Bike Craze?" This was more of the same. In the Bershires we used to shake our heads at the "New Yorkers on package trips."
In a quarter century of visiting Yosemite I've seen the horror if recreational development. We certainly came close to loving our open spaces to death.
As a former Boy Scout, real mountain climber...
Weighing in at a slim, trim 850 pounds, you're more of a *mountain* than a mountain climber. ;-)
Rob, I'm a former Boy Scout and backpacker myself. I definitely feel that people should have access to wilderness areas; but there is such a thing as too much, and too many of the outdoors arrivistes didn't know the meaning of "leave nothing but memories".
Overall, it's been high-profile wilderness areas that have suffered the most: Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, etc. Out of the way, lesser-known areas have not seen as much traffic (in fact, some of the trails I hiked as a youngster have all but grown over since.)
One of the small mercies of this economic downturn is that some of the most egregious wilderness developments have been halted or mothballed. Some of the damage has already been done--but then, ghost towns have always had a certain charm to them.
One of my great regrets was stopping at Life and not earning Eagle. Growing up in Western Mass I was lucky. My grandmother was Horace Moses Executive Secretary at Strahmore Paper.
We could with very little effort find a compromise but the big urban planner types don't understand that a compost toilet and few hundred sq ft of leach are enough. No they want paved sewered and storm drained big enough to carry fire trucks roads. That means it only makes sense to build 3500 behemoths en masse. Sad.
@Mr. Outspoken,
There is a huge moral difference between eating animals born and breed for the sake of food and wild animals.
Also, unlike the indigenous people who make full use of the seals they kill, they waste everything but the fur. Even in your local pig slaughterhouse they save the ears, for example, for dog treats and such.
When something is just a "natural resource" that didn't involve human investment nobody gives a rat's ass about waste. I've found that tendency to be a source of many problems we find ourselves in these days.
In addition, the demand for fur is so low these days that they're barely making enough to pay for a beer for each seal pup they club .
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