The State of the Economy Thread - “Falling inflation, rising growth give U.S. the world’s best recovery”

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[88Comrade2000]

Donny’s precious stock market is going to tank today.

[China]

 

[abdcskins]

No more second stimulus package? Part of the reason stocks will tumble.

[PleaseBlitz]

Quote

The U.S. economy added just 661,000 jobs in September — the smallest monthly job gain since the recovery began in May, signaling the recovery could be cooling off.

 

In what will be the last monthly jobs report issued before the election on Nov. 3, the unemployment rate dropped to 7.9 percent, putting the rate closer to that of other recent recessions.

 

The modest gains in jobs were driven by hiring increases in leisure and hospitality, which added 318,000 jobs back in September, mostly at restaurants and bars. Retail added back another 142,000 jobs, driven in part by hiring at clothing stores.

 

Government employment fell by 231,000 driven by declines in local and state education, a decline economists have been warning about for months.

 

There are still 10.7 million less people with jobs than there were in February before the pandemic, but now more than half of the jobs lost in March and April are now recovered.

Airlines are starting layoffs soon too. 
 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/02/labor-market-gained-661000-september-economic-recovery-slowed/

[Corcaigh]

I see that a financial firm created a MAGA fund ...

 

“The innovative strategy behind the MAGA ETF that allows you to invest in companies that align with your Republican political beliefs. The MAGA Index is made up of 150 companies from the S&P 500 Index whose employees and political action committees (PACs) are highly supportive of Republican candidates.”

Here are the numbers on how the fund is performing against the obvious comparison, the S&P 500. Column 2 is the returns from the MAGA fund. Column 3 is the S&P 500 index.

 

The MAGA fund charges a fee of 0.72% which is about 10 times higher than a typical S&P Index fund. 

 

YTD Return	-7.19%	9.65%
1 Year Return	-0.12%	18.66%
3 Year Return	5.51%	44.46%

The MAGA Fund delivers about one tenth of the return for ten times the cost.

 

 

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by Corcaigh

[EmirOfShmo]

^^Perfect. Now I have a list of 150 companies who, if they are currently getting my money, won't be getting $0.01 from me in the future. Saves me a TON of research time.

[PleaseBlitz]

It's just 149 subsidiaries of My Pillow, plus the psychos that make Trumpy Bear.  

[dfitzo53]

Apparently its low performance is tied to a lack of tech stocks since those tend to be more progressive.

[Barry.Randolphe]

you guys laugh now, but just wait until fracking and all the coal related jobs start bringing in the big bucks!!

[China]

'I'm Still Unemployed': Millions In Dire Situation As Savings Start To Run Out

 

When the coronavirus pandemic hit this spring, government relief payments provided a life raft to millions of people who had been thrown out of work.

 

That life raft, however, is now losing air, threatening to leave the unemployed in a perilous situation just as Washington leaders struggle to clinch a new package of aid ahead of the November election.

 

New research from JPMorgan Chase Institute and the University of Chicago focused on 80,000 unemployed people shows savings built up when the government provided aid is now rapidly running out, leaving people like chemist Kate McAfee fretting about their futures.

 

"I'm still unemployed," said McAfee, who was laid off from her job outside Cleveland back in April. "I've now exhausted my 26 weeks of unemployment here in Ohio and have moved on to the additional 13 weeks of extended benefits from the federal government."

 

Millions of Americans are in a similar situation as the pandemic downturn drags on.

 

Researchers at JPMorgan Chase Institute, in collaboration with the University of Chicago, found many of the unemployed managed to sock away extra money between March and July while the government was spending freely to cushion the downturn. Median family savings roughly doubled during that period.

 

But the researchers found that the jobless started to drain their savings in August, burning through roughly two-thirds of the money they had squirreled away during the four previous months.

 

"The cushion has worn thin, and we haven't yet regained all the jobs that we lost," said Fiona Greig, director of consumer research for the JPMorgan Chase Institute. "This is a critical time for jobless workers."

 

Job growth has slowed in each of the last three months. And with layoffs continuing, almost 1.3 million people filed new claims for unemployment last week.

 

Jobless workers are spending less now than they were early in the summer. And their spending is likely to fall further as their newfound savings are exhausted.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[skinsmarydu]

Got a text from one of my favorite (Trumper) guests at work Friday at 1pm...there was one other table of 3 in the restaurant besides him, and the GM was the only waiter. So not only are people still ordering more takeout & delivery than dining in, he can't find anyone to hire to wait tables.    Dumbass.

[China]

Global Wealth Shrugs Off Pandemic To Hit $400 Trillion For First Time Ever

 

Since the start of the year, total household wealth has grown by $1 trillion, or 0.25%, to top $400 trillion for the first time, according to Credit Suisse’s CS +0.2% annual global wealth report.

 

Most of this increase has been due to the rapid rebound of stock markets from their March lows. This was driven by governments pumping billions into their economies to stave off collapse as the pandemic gathered pace.

 

On the face of it, the average global household’s wealth is little changed in 2020, despite the economic turmoil. But drilling deeper into the numbers reveals huge disparities, with the headline figures masking a vast gulf between the economic winners and losers this year.

 

Average household wealth rose by 0.25% between the start of the year and the end of June. However, average wealth per adult actually fell slightly, by 0.4% to $76,984 because the number of adults rose quicker during the six months. 

 

More than half of the shares owned by American investors are held by the richest 1%, according to research by Goldman Sachs GS +1.5% earlier this year.

 

Many of the world’s wealthiest individuals have been the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic. 

 

UBS’s annual global billionaires report earlier this month calculated that the wealth of the world’s billionaires surged by more than $2 trillion to an all-time high of $10.2 trillion between April and July.  

 

The fortunes of the super-rich grew by 27.5% between April and July, smashing the previous record of $8.9 trillion set at the end of 2017. The number of billionaires also increased from 2,158 in 2017 to 2,189. 

 

But the real pain has of course been felt by those at the bottom of the wealth pyramid. 

 

“The low-skilled, women, minorities, the young and small businesses have all suffered,” the report said.

 

Focusing on the U.S., African-Americans have suffered the double blow of higher mortality rates from Covid-19 and higher job losses in the aftermath. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show 2.6 times more coronavirus cases were recorded among African-Americans than Caucasians. This figure rose to 2.8 times higher among Hispanics and the indigenous population.

 

At the same time, 7.5% of white workers lost their jobs between February and June, compared to 11.5% of African-Americans and 12.3% of Hispanics. New jobless claims peaked at 40 million in May.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[TheGreatBuzz]

A Trump supporter I know boasted that black family’s net worth went up ~34% while he was president and linked the 3 articles below.  Can someone who understands economics better than me explain if this is true/false/manipulated and why it is good or not?  I’m assuming there is more to it since it is from a Trumper but the WSJ isn’t exactly Brietbart.

 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-wealth-gap-shrinks-11601420393

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/household-wealth-broadly-rose-in-years-leading-up-to-pandemic-fed-report-concludes-11601309146

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-higher-wages-of-growth-11600298577

[Larry]

Just heard an NPR report on the house market.  

 

Number of home sales in the "$1M  and up" category are now double what they were one year ago.  

 

Mortgage lenders are rolling in cash.  

 

Median home prices went up, and (going from memory) is $313K.  

 

Home prices went up faster than household income, which raises the possibility of more people not being ably to buy a home.  First time home buying is down.  

 

14 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

A Trump supporter I know boasted that black family’s net worth went up ~34% while he was president and linked the 3 articles below.  Can someone who understands economics better than me explain if this is true/false/manipulated and why it is good or not?  I’m assuming there is more to it since it is from a Trumper but the WSJ isn’t exactly Brietbart.

 

Can't read your articles.  

 

Yes, I do understand that black workers saw gains under Trump.  As did wages for the lower income workers.  

 

I've also read (here), that those gains are due to Big Blue States/Cities raising their minimum wages, over Republican objections.  

[China]

Renters thought a CDC order protected them from eviction. Then landlords found loopholes.

 

Emily Brockman was in her apartment complex’s rental office, boxed in again by the bleak details of her situation.

 

She’d left her full-time work at a catering company at the start of the year. A side job as a house cleaner was supposed to cover her bills until her son Nova was born in April. But then March came, along with the virus. No one wanted a stranger cleaning up. She didn’t want to clean up for strangers. She applied for unemployment in April. Five months later, the money still hadn’t come.

 

She owed $1,550 in back rent on her two-bedroom apartment in a modest section of southeastern Lexington, Ky. If she were evicted, Brockman had no family or friends to stay with. She feared that if she landed in a homeless shelter, child welfare might come for Nova.

 

But that Tuesday morning, Sept. 15, Brockman listened as the property manager at her building began talking about a new order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, something that could keep her in her apartment for a few more months. Sign the two-page declaration and bring it to her court date later that week, she was told. Here was a tiny thread of hope in what had been six months of emotional ups and downs.

 

Brockman, 38, left the office, carefully scanning the 522 words of legalese as she walked through a courtyard where she had seen sheriff’s deputies stack the belongings of evicted neighbors.

 

All the criteria appeared to fit: “I am unable to pay my full rent or make a full housing payment due to substantial loss of household income.”

 

“I have used best efforts to obtain all available government assistance for rent.”

 

“If evicted I would likely become homeless.”

 

“I’m like, ‘Check, check, check,’” Brockman said recently. She felt relief mixed with excitement. “The CDC guidelines seemed designed exactly for someone like me."

 

Millions of Americans, knocked financially sideways by the coronavirus pandemic, were thinking the same. Anchored in public health concerns that the economic stress of the pandemic will force millions of renters from the safety of their homes and into the crosshairs of a fast-spreading virus, the CDC order aims to keep the estimated 40 million renters facing eviction this year in place through Jan. 1. “I want to make it unmistakably clear that I’m protecting people from evictions,” President Trump said in a statement when the CDC order was announced.

 

But as Brockman and tens of thousands of others soon realized, rather than offer a bubble of stability in the midst of the pandemic, the federal response has injected confusion into housing courts. Because of the order’s wording, which gives local judges room for interpretation, and pushback from landlords, evictions have continued. According to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, from Sept. 4, the date the CDC order took effect, through Oct. 17, 20,523 evictions were filed in the 22 cities monitored by the project’s researchers.

 

Within weeks of filling out her CDC declaration, Brockman was sitting in her apartment, cradling Nova and waiting for the sheriff’s deputies to knock on her door.

 

The CDC did not respond to requests for comment. Michael Bars, a White House spokesman, said in a statement: “President Trump has made providing assistance to Americans facing financial hardship due to the coronavirus a top priority, including action to provide extensive relief to help keep Americans in their homes through a temporary halt on evictions. Importantly, the eviction moratorium was specifically crafted to target renters at risk of becoming homeless as a means to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. It is critical that Americans have a place to effectively quarantine, isolate, and observe social distancing to protect their health and safety and those in the surrounding community.”

A flawed order

 

The CDC’s September order landed after a tense waiting game over how the Trump administration would tackle a housing crisis triggered by the coronavirus outbreak but rooted in decades of economic inequality.

 

The jobs and wages swept aside by the ensuing recession have pushed an estimated 8 million Americans into poverty since May. Experts say even with the patchwork of state and local eviction moratoriums launched since the start of the pandemic, as many as 40 million tenants could be evicted by the end of the year.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

U.S. GDP booms at 33.1% rate in Q3, better than expected

 

Coming off the worst quarter in history, the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace ever in the third quarter as a nation battered by an unprecedented pandemic started to put itself back together, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

 

Third-quarter gross domestic product, a measure of the total goods and services produced in the July-to-September period, expanded at a 33.1% annualized pace, according to the department’s initial estimate for the period.

 

The gain came after a 31.4% plunge in the second quarter and was better than the 32% estimate from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The previous post-World War II record was the 16.7% burst in the first quarter of 1950.

 

Markets reacted positively to the news, with Wall Street erasing a loss at the open and turning mostly positive.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[PleaseBlitz]

Dow is still down 1500 points this week. 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

1 hour ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Dow is still down 1500 points this week. 

Been near record highs and Biden is gonna win. Not really a suprise.

Also, no need to cry @clietas. You can still make money when the stock market is down... I took a a short position in SQ just as it was comming down from its record high 😎 

 

 

unfortunately I also bought intel right before they announced they were a year behind AMD.... (yikes)

Edited October 29, 2020 by CousinsCowgirl84

[China]

Washington sees nearly 72% spike in new unemployment claims

 

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Washington saw an increase in new unemployment claims but a decrease in continued unemployment claims filed from the previous week, according to the Employment Security Department.

 

From November 1 through 7, the ESD received 25,201 initial regular unemployment claims — a whopping 71.7% spike from the prior week. The ESD also saw 429,063 total claims for all unemployment benefit categories, which is down 2.1% from the previous week.

 

According to the ESD, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims decreased while Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) claims increased over the week.

 

Overall, initial claims are 223% above those seen this time last year.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

I totally understood that.  Really.  

[CousinsCowgirl84]

15 minutes ago, Larry said:

I totally understood that.  Really.  

initial unemployment is people who just got fired. Continuing unemployment claims are people who have gotten fired before last week and can’t find a new job.

so the report says, basically, more people got fired this week than last week, but also more people were able to find a replacement job.

with covid exploding again, a possible explanation for continuing claims going down is people have decided it’s too risky to work.

 

 

Edited November 13, 2020 by CousinsCowgirl84

[88Comrade2000]

Iconic Tower Records Returns As Website Selling Vinyl, Cassettes, CDs

[China]

Thousands of cars form lines to collect food in Texas

 

Thousands of people lined up for groceries at a food bank distribution event in Dallas, Texas, this weekend, with organizers saying the Covid-19 pandemic has increased need in the city.

 

North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) distributed more than 600,000 pounds of food for about 25,000 people on Saturday, according to spokeswoman Anna Kurian. There were 7,280 turkeys distributed to families, Kurian told CNN.

Photos provided by NTFB show thousands of cars lined up for NTFB's Drive-Thru Mobile Pantry at Fair Park. Kurian said the need for food "has certainly increased" with the pandemic, with Texas last week becoming the first US state to report 1 million cases of coronavirus.

"Forty percent of the folks coming through our partners doors are doing so for the first time," she said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Jobless claims filings pick up amid continued struggles for labor market

 

The pace of workers filing for unemployment claims picked up last week and was a bit higher than Wall Street had been expecting.

 

Jobless claims totaled 742,000 for the week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, ahead of the 710,000 estimate from economists surveyed by Dow Jones.

 

 

That total also represented an acceleration from the previous week’s 709,000 and a continuation of the job market struggles since the coronavirus pandemic hit in early March.

 

The week-over-week increase was the first after four straight weeks of decline. Even with the increase for the most recent period, the four-week moving average, which smooths volatility in the numbers, decreased 13,750 to 742,00.

 

As has been the pattern in recent months, there was some good news within the elevated level of filings.

 

Continuing claims, which trail by a week, took another substantial drop, falling 429,000 to 6.37 million, a fresh pandemic-era low. The insured unemployment rate, which is a simple calculation of those getting benefits against the total labor force, also continued to decline, falling to 4.3%.

 

Click on the link for the full article