Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization increase slightly in February
Submitted by
CalculatedRisk on Mon, 03/15/2010 - 5:23am (137 comments)
Shopping at Amazon?
Wait! If you click on the Amazon banner link at the top of the page first, HCN will get a percentage of anything you purchase for 24 hours!
Open predictions
Our local book authors
User login
Who's online
There are currently 26 members and 151 guests online.
Currently online
Recent Recommendations
not me
well i guess i am.
first
Next
"Normal"?
snow will be blamed for all problems even if it's summer
Good morning, New Normal, how was your weekend?
DeeperDepression wrote:
And he's not even SecTreas any more.
I'm contributing. In the last couple of months, my heater broke, the electricity went out in the kitchen (needed to be rerouted), the garage door spring broke, the washer stopped spinning - and now my internet connection is running at about 300 baud (I've switched to my wireless for right now). The joys of owning an older home ... I wonder if the "accidental landlords" understand the maintenance issues!
best to all
off topic
but
Metro Atlanta foreclosures set new monthly record | The Biz Beat
This was the most interesting news report that included snow as a reason for both an increase and a decrease of the same thing. It was pretty funny to me.
"The U.S. may add as many as 300,000 jobs in March, the most in four years,** thanks to an improvement in the weather, government hiring of temporary workers for the census and a growing economy, said David Greenlaw, chief fixed-income economist at Morgan Stanley in New York. Payrolls dropped by 36,000 in February, according to the Labor Department, depressed in part by East Coast snowstorms **that closed many businesses. "
Real-Estate Recovery Signaled With Homebuilders as Fed Unwinds - Bloomberg.com
It's been well over a year since Young Tim was appointed SecTreas, and as of yet no folding money has his signature on it, this is unusual.
Fish some lucre out of your pocket an you'll more than likely see HP Loancraft's signature on it, as FRN's with his name on it came out soon after he was given the keys to digital Fort Knox...
Snow in the winter, who would have guessed it!
I'm making a prediction right now.....There WILL BE HOT temperateures this summer! You heard it here first.
JD, they are coming out with the new $100 soon - and that will have Tim's signature.
best wishes
OT - One less home on the market.
Read more: Cops: Partying teens cause $200K damage to tony home -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY
The idea that they are waiting for the new $100 to come out to put his signature on it doesn't explain why it's not on the dollar, $5, $10, $20, or $50.
It's not rocket science, you know.
CalculatedRisk wrote:
I am unfamiliar with that term.
jd maybe he just isnt signing anything, better not to have much in writing./snarkhehehe
A writing pathologist would have a field-day with Young Tim's scribblings...
File:Timothy Geithner signature.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Despair all ye that link here
Where Have We Been; Where Are We Going? - Clusterfuck Nation
AllGov - News - Collapse of Lehman Brothers: What Did Geithner Know and When Did He Know It?
Timmaybucks! This stuff just writes itself. Mornin' all.
First a note of thanks for the awesome China analyses in the overnight thread. A must read.
A point about our gross industrial capacity. It is likely that a lot of it is not there anymore. Both the absence of commercial lending and the ongoing CRE implosion are claiming entire companies with them. So, it is possible that actual utilization is higher than reported but that gross output will not return to pre-recession highs.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Wow, this snow season must be REALLY bad. I guess that's the whole reason housing started dropping in the first place.
Can't they come up with something else? At least try to Olympics for a change, or maybe American idol? Come on.
Experts Talk Consumer Sentiment, New Faces at the Fed - BusinessWeek
I can see how the industrial output of DC was curtailed thanks to the snow, they couldn't manufacture discord and dissent...
gabyjan wrote:
Experts Talk Consumer Sentiment, New Faces at the Fed - BusinessWeek
New faces, same rich old men behind the scenes... FAIL
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
Heaven help our industrial production if there is any more increase in political production.
JD, they are coming out with the new $100 soon - and that will have Tim's signature.
unfortunately the $100 will be worth 10 cents..but at least it will have his sig
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
However, it is a
, Timmay has bigger fish to fry-
Yellen Is Spellin' Future Inflation - Rasmussen Reports™
For all you inflationistas out there.....
It's a
certainly, but 150 years of precedence being broken means something, surely?
From a conservative source, but you may find some agreement with them:
Ethanol, the Fuel Only a Politician Could Love | RedState
Natural gas exceeds 24% of world total energy mix and going higher - GLG News
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
It's different this time
Better dead than Red!
{pardon me, I just time-warped back to 1958}
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: The $2 Trillion Public Pension Hole and What You Can Do About It
I believe this is the real reason for the government assistance to the financial institutions. If the pension funds go up in smoke, there will be
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
The idea that they are waiting for the new $100 to come out to put his signature on it doesn't explain why it's not on the dollar, $5, $10, $20, or $50.
This comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zimbabwe_$100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg
Notice how it has Zimbabwe reserve bank governor Dr. G. Gono's signature clearly visible...
if your mommie is a commie then you gotta turn her in
Ben prints, and Tim signs. Suddenly all problems disappear.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
You were warned about the source, but IIRC, there's a general consensus here that ethanol subsidies are bad policy. Perhaps this is a place to find some common ground, assuming anyone is still interested in that....
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
Sure, it means he doesn't care about his name on money that isn't worth much anyway.
I was under the impression that Benjamins was the waste gunner on the Huey....
Cinco-X wrote:
ethanol from food is a bad policy. Alge, switch grass would be a much better choice for ethanol.
february snow hit a triple.
march rain staring at 3-0 pitch
april early Easter (ht RD) - flexing his muscles - standing in the on deck circle
The Grand Chinese Fraud - The Market Ticker
Wish I'd been here for the overnight thread. It's been a sore point for me for quite awhile now....
josap wrote:
ethanol from food is a bad policy.
Why merely eat your seed corn when you can burn it for FUELZ?
Well at least the trend is positive, lets hope it keeps up that way
josap wrote:
Neither is viable without government subsidies at this point.
black dog wrote:
[thanks for the HT]
may collapsing energy prices (which will be spun as a good thing)
Well at least the trend is positive,
This deep into the recession that little tick up could easily be explained away by capacity going offline.
josap wrote:
Corn and soy ethanol are absurd products. Burning 20% of our food to produce 2% of our fuel is a bad bargain, especially for a fuel that's energy-return negative, every drop of which must be hauled by tanker truck. You're better off burning the natural gas that's used to grow it.
An uncultivated product makes sense - hemp and sugar cane might wind up energy-return positive. One of the simplest things we could possibly do would be to remove the tariff on Brazilian sugar cane ethanol.
But this is a country run by lobbyists, so corn and soy are the only ethanol choices we're going to get.
I'm a maized at the stupidity of turning corn into oil and sugar, but not surprised.
Cinco-X wrote:
I was glad to have stopped in for that thread. I checked in a couple of times during the day, but I couldn't resist commenting on the US-Sino dynamic.
I wish I knew how it was going to end; there are so many different choices.
Dent corn is not really the same as the corn you consume. It is more for animal feed and processed products. Ethanol is about harvesting government money more than any thing else.
black dog wrote:
Mine output is definitely up, but this may be related to demand from a commodities bubble....
noob goldberg wrote:
Any good ones?
Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:
+1. It started benignly enough, with trying to find alternative markets for the glut of corn on the market. The fact that ethanol production received the support it did reflects the power of the agriculture lobby in Washington.
Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:
A little early for the QOTD, isn't it?
If the pension funds go up in smoke
Virginia just passed its budget for the next 2 years. Bad, but not as bad as it could have been - they 'diverted' $620 million from the $48 billion state/local government pension fund rather than further cuts/raising taxes.
Cinco-X wrote:
It's also the reason the schlock market will be supported by whatever means necessary. What part of "national security" don't you understand?
Mike in Long Island wrote:
I'll let you know if I find one.
Make it Tso, number one.
noob goldberg wrote:
The fact that ethanol production received the support it did reflects the power of the agriculture lobby in Washington.
And the stupidity of subsidizing crops, products and industries that couldn't even compete in a free and honest market, much less a rigged, manipulated, political one. Of course, who do you think owns or finances those crops, products and industries?
so if natural gas as a business is growing and is the hot new energy trend (as per tg's link above), why is the price so low? Why aren't people speculating in NG?
UNG was at $60 two years ago and is now at $8. Is this a generational buy?
black dog wrote:
"I'll take 'Unfunded Liabilities' for $1 billion, Alex."
noob goldberg wrote:
Coming from a Family Law background, let me just state that there is never a pretty end to a dysfunctional relationship, especially one built on debt and consumption.
noob goldberg wrote:
There's a glimmer of hope for enforceable intellectual property rights coming out of all this in the end. Too late? Maybe but there's still hope.
black dog wrote:
Just like the Fed gov does with SS funds.
Cinco-X wrote:
What are they going to do, riot and strike? Go right ahead. Let's see how that works out in a world of labor arbitrage.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Please explain. I have little knowledge of the IP situation.
CalculatedRisk wrote:
Our new intentional landlord (a Realtor) admitted recently that due to maintenance problems "would probably not make any money off this property this year"
Also has one other rental property.
Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:
70 yr olds with walkers and canes, marching in the street. It will make for interesting news coverage.
noob goldberg wrote:
China has been stealing our IP for years. From bootlegging copies of popular American software to stealing/showing American movies/TV shows without compensation or recourse for their producers. I'm mixed on the issue because I think we give our producers too much protection in the Western world.
from: China Reduces Treasury Holdings For Third Straight Month - Political Punch
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
I suspect that No0B knows someone who lobbies for them
Mish is a fool.
Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:
It's difficult to outsource unionized government workers to India....
black dog: Virginia ... 'diverted' $620 million from the $48 billion state/local government pension fund...
This seems like it should not be possible, i.e., should be illegal.
In my Dream Country of the Future it is illegal. There, there,
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
It's complicated being a farmer in America these days, and that complication has nothing to do with weather or markets.
http://www.usda.gov/oce/forum/2010_Speeches/Presentations/SmithV.pdf
Our home is about 35 years old, and it keeps asking for a loan from us to fix things...
I'm cool with everything except our pool, which is a hole in the ground with water in it that you throw money at~
noob goldberg wrote:
It's simple; the Chinese are thieves when it comes to IP....
yagij wrote:
I had known about their propensity to acquire IP from less than reputable sources. I'm curious how there's a glimmer of hope that this will change?
josap wrote:
Government workers retire at 55y/o...
it isn't just the chinese stealing the IP.
US companies can go to China and sell products that they can't in the US due to patents. Apparently, there is nothing stopping them from showing up in china and selling versions of their competition's patented products from back home in the US.
Cinco-X wrote:
Only one or two in the USA.
I was in Bangkok in the early 80's and bought current music cassettes for 50 cents, imtellectual property rights might work in our country, but not in Asia.
Cinco-X wrote:
There are hundreds of people ready to take those jobs behind every one of them.
Any battles that will be waged will have to be done completely behind the curtain. Striking would set off an enormous backlash. It's hard for me to imagine a more reviled class in a few years.
NervousRex wrote:
It's SOP for the SS trust fund....
....They call it borrowing or investing
yagij wrote:
Excellent answer. Thanks. If Microsoft, Hollywood and Pharma were compensated at overseas rates for what is stolen there would be no trade deficit. I too wish we could unwind the last 30 years of copyright extentions and it is becoming clear that the patent system no longer works as intended.
Cinco-X wrote:
Lots of 55 yr old retirees, ones that can't find jobs. Hoping to hang on with 401k funds till SS kicks in.
Rob Dawg wrote:
I appreciate that, Dawg and yagij. I'm just curious what positive resolution either of you foresee in the situation.
noob goldberg wrote:
I'm curious how there's a glimmer of hope that this will change?
Maybe they'll find religion, and collectively decide that austerity is a small price to pay for having a culture that values honesty and integrity and shows respect for creative work to its author.
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
The coffee burns inside my nose.
I missed this last night.
Wall Street: Inside the Collapse - 60 Minutes - CBS News
One of my biggest concerns during the Section 8 Years was King George II's cozy relationship with Israel leading us into further quagmires in the middle-east, but the situation has obviously changed dramatically...
Would we condemn or conspire with Israel, if they were to unleash a first-strike nuke?
12th Percentile wrote:
Of course, those products are also made in China, probably by a contract manufacturer. If the product passes through American soil or anywhere else there is patent coverage, they are required to pay royalties...
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
hahahaha... dang
On next generation ethanol (cellulosic) - it is a technology problem still. Algae is not an ethanol conversion process, it is more in the biodiesel realm but again it is technology. Nothing of industrial scale to do much with in the way of subsidies.
Both?
Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:
Sure, every lawyer wants a government job. The pay is so much better.
And we want 56-year-old firemen coming to save us.
And it's the union pensions that bankrupted the US, not the trillions in bank bailouts.
Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:
We'll see; the current administration has committed to strengthening union rights, so that sort of reaction probably won't happen before 2012. After that, who knows. We'll need to see the outcome of the 2010 and 2012 elections.
Dawg,have you seen the change in CLTA and ALTA policy coverages? oopsie.
noob goldberg wrote:
The coffee burns inside my nose.
It's a good burning though, no?
noob goldberg wrote:
You must be doing it wrong-
From what i've read lately, it's commonplace for lawyers nowadays to try and get government jobs, and I doubt it's for the pay. Unemployment has a way of making you do things you'd never have contemplated heretofore...
Sure, but China is a pretty big market on its own.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
If the Hsu fits wear it.
Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:
Try working for an oil company after the dollar goes south hard...
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
Lack of favorable decisions from SCOTUS has made things hard on lawyers. They need decisions like those on sexual harassment and such to provide more "growth" for the legal profession. That, or we start using them as lab rats....
Mike in Long Island wrote:
Wen is this going to ever be resolved?
Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:
FWIW, I revile them already.....just sayin'
As long as there was deep pockets to pay for outrageous lawsuits, all was hunky dory in lawyerland, but a lack of lucre leaves much to be desired.
Tom Stone wrote:
Wow, those are huge. I'm going to have to expend serious brain cells and put up a post today.
noob goldberg wrote:
I bet Adobe has suffered the most, as Microsoft is a legal firm that markets software on the side, and I grew up in Hollywood, and the very conservative and narrow bean counter mentality.
Big pharma? They have saved my life several times, but suck at the tit of public sponsored science.
Worry not, We have a moo goo gai plan.
Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest | Threat Level | Wired.com
Shows what I know; I thought he was going to be the second term of Jimmy Carter, and turns out he's the third term of GWB.....
Hoocoodanode!?
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
all was hunky dory in lawyerland, but a lack of lucre leaves much to be desired.
Oh no, the problem is not lack of desire, we are prosperous in manufacturing desire... the new problem is lack of means and a diminishing pool of ways...
Cinco-X wrote:
Shows what I know; I thought he was going to be the second term of Jimmy Carter, and turns out he's the third term of GWB.....
Hoocoodanode!?
A little of this:
Gattaca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and a little of this:
Minority Report (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
... and we have quite a future to look forward to!
Cinco-X wrote:
So much for due process and innocent until proven guilty.
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
1.2 million lawyers. Yeast behaves the same way under the same conditions.
Mike in Long Island wrote:
That has not been the case for most of my life time. Presuption of guilt is the norm.
Oh, off topic. Before she goes off air. Check out Erin's "Heidi" outfit this morning on the financial entertainment channel. Poofy shirt FTW!
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
hat tip to nova - on his blog someone suggested a series called "The Day The Dollar Died" Good reading - though the format is difficult - older posts are at the bottom so you need to scroll down to start and then scroll back up to find the next story in the series.
Along the lines of OT, teh GOOG is getting some beat down for having the temerity to exit the China market...
12th Percentile wrote:
Define "market". Something like 98% of all Microsoft software being run on computers in the PRC is pirated - tough to argue that much of a "market" exists when that's your competition.
Hell, Google gives its product away to end users, and look at all the good that's done them in China.
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
I'm beginning to question the existence of any plan at all.
EDIT: "The Day The Dollar Died" is a great series, required reading for any serious doomer.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
The unions are good crab battle targets, but they are still part of the problem.
or no 
?)
.
Also the Federal government paid trillions to bailout the banks. The Illinois/NYS/California pension problems are of their own making. Too much offered; too little saved/unfunded. Give 'em a haircut and point 'em at the bankers and we'd all be on the same page...
.
(
noob goldberg wrote:
I don't see a plan. I see reaction, posturing, throw it against the wall and pray.
You can lederhosen her, but you can't make her think.
No shit,Dawg.There will be some serious consequences,and the phrase "due diligence" will once again be heard in the land.
josap wrote:
There's a reason Timmay doesn't want his signature on the currency.
yagij wrote:
I'm certainly not saying they 'broke the US', but there will be zero popular support for socializing their pensions.
If I were in a relatively frugal, overfunded state, say, Montana, it's not possible to sell a bailout of Illinois or New Jersey.
Rob Dawg wrote:
There's a reason Timmay doesn't want his signature on the currency.
Immortalized like Dr. Gonzo... err... Gono...
There is no doubt that unemployment busts unions and the inflation trick busts promised pensions.
But in every bust cycle some institutional knowledge is gained. It's not so easy to rewrite the State Constitution. There are consequences. It really isn't that easy to grab some unemployed scab off the street and tell her. "arrest those strikers, guard them in jail, and those drug dealers too..."
Hemp produces the most ethanol with least amount of water....damn weed grows everywhere....
we could something like human Roundup to harvest it ....low impact, no chemical hippies....
Rob Dawg wrote:
bwahahahaha...dang...again
creditcriminalslovetarp wrote:
Can you source that cclt? That would be cellulosic for ethanol - perhaps you are thinking about the seeds being pressed for a biodiesel ala WWII?
there are still many products that have nothing to do with computers and software and you have to actually manufacture a physical product that people use in industry. And the chinese need these just like everyone else.