Durable Goods, Beige Book

He’s “apoplectic”??? I do not think it means what you think it means…

~~~

BR: So excited, he was about to burst a vessel or have a seizure!

Let’s all calm down here. Don’t forget about June’s Industrial Production report. Remember we had a big 0.5% gain? But that was a bizarre number for one reason. The entire gain was from truck production up 9% for the month.

You think truck sales went up 9%? I got a bridge to sell ya.

The automakers used up all their material making the 9% gain in trucks and the 3% gain in autos, and in the same month they ordered 5% more metal. I don’t know why GM & Ford are inventory happy, but it isn’t something to get excited about.

“apoplectic” – to “stroke out” like kudlow loves to do…..very good use of the wprd BR.

Halfdan,

Kudlow wouldn’t have to be in a rage to validate Barry’s usage of the word. He would just have to be so excited that he might be inviting a seizure. Red in the face, whether from anger or exuberance, would suffice.

dgov

I haven’t looked up apoplectic yet, but if it means “liar”, then I am in total agreement. I know BR is sweet on Larry Kudlow because Kudlow is nice to him in private, but that man’s on-air misinformation needs to be stopped. He is worse than Bill O’Reilly and at least O’Reilly has entertainment value. I don’t know how CNBC gets away with its daily stock pimping without the SEC and / or FCC providing some sort of oversight. It is one thing for experts on two sides of an economic argument to debate, but when the anchorpeople, moderators, and reporters are even more enthusiastic than their guests at promoting a bullish picture of the economy, the stock market, and specific investments, then that is unhealthy or even dangerous to the American public, especially for those less informed than people who participate on this blog. In my mind, CNBC has become worse than Fox News. Depending on your political viewpoint, you can enjoy or hate Fox News, but you won’t lose your life savings based on anything you watch on it.

“WASHINGTON (AP) — While the increase was much stronger than had been expected, much of the strength was related to heavy defense spending.”

Surely this must be some kind of contrary indicator – AP reporting the facts behind the headline number.

it’s been over 1 1/2 hours and they still haven’t put the actual pdf/xls file for Durable Goods up on the census.gov website. Is this a blatant manipulation?

Isn’t it true that CNBC’s viewership/ratings basically tank in a bear market? Didn’t the channel fall off a cliff in after the dot.com bust? Well, there’s your reason for the cheerleading.

It’s also a fact that that Americans generally won’t tune in if the tone is too downbeat – – we’re a country of little children who can’t stand bad news – hence 8 years of the moron also known as GWB and the continual denial about the economy, markets, and overall state of the nation now. We would rather stay mired in the “sunny optimism of Reagan” than face reality until the ship is basically at the bottom of the ocean.

CNBC sucks, well stated. They need their asses sued off by being a willing participant in corralling the public into the bank’s pump and dump schemes. Periodically they have someone who is counter to their spin, purely obligatory to provide proof of attempted objectivity, yet, it is clear they are a media shill for those firms who do not have the public’s best interest at heart.

I had told a friend back at the top of the tech bubble that the indicator of a true bottom was going to be CNBC going off the air, but I guess that’s too much to hope for. Those who support the establishment are protected.

Someone had an interesting post somewhere about one of the big effects of Cox’s witch hunt was sources of negative blog info drying up because those sources were generally short and were afraid of the SEC, even if they were giving truthful info; it just wasn’t worth the hassle.

Where are the orders coming from? That is the question. Posted by: CharmCity

Can you sell your own stock to yourself? And for how long?

Primary metals…prices for primary metals increased in June from May, so the extra $1 billion was simply price increases, not necessarily an increase in orders.

“With orders excluding defense falling at a 4 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, it is pretty clear manufacturing is hardly thriving,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.

Hmmm! We tend to forget we’re involved in 2 wars. Tsk tsk tsk!

“Surely this must be some kind of contrary indicator – AP reporting the facts behind the headline number.”

ROFLMAO!!

Short sellers ought to be thankful for all the cheerleading that goes on with CNBC. The journalists convince gullible investors to bid up prices so that the shorts can establish positions at higher levels.

Keep up the good work, CNBC.

“AP: Defense spending helps lift durable goods orders”

As the Church Lady used to say, “Well, isn’t that conveeeeenient !“.
.

I would like to see a chart of everyone who visits this site that voted for Bush. Most financial people I know seem to think that tax cuts are good for them no matter what and consider themselves Republicans.

Maybe on next years 1040, the IRS could put a line item that says “I voted for George Bush, please take out $____ of my refund to help repair the damage.”

Marc

Durable goods orders are tracked in part because they once reflected the vigor of the US economy – it is a stand-in for capital spending, a leading indicator of future expansion. As such it is a metric for our old economy. In addition to the oft-mentioned factors of military orders and inflation as reasons the number does not reflect ecomonic vibrancy is the fact that a rising portion of these orders are exports. Exports are good for our remaining domestic manufacturing sector, but they sure do not indicate reverberating strength throughout an expanding economy that is ordering capital goods.

It would do everything but find economically recoverable oil.

Dave,

“Wouldn’t it be great if Congress opened up more federal lands and waters to oil & gas drilling?”

Big Oil already has leases on 68 million acres of federal land, 41 million of it off-shore, where 79% of the country’s crude oil reserves are located. They are only drilling on about 10 million acres.

Who’s stopping them ?
.

mac,

“Well, we could start with Bill perjuring himself to a Federal grand jury.”

Never happened.

You are obviously unaware that during the bogus impeachment, President Clinton’s attorneys requested, first from the House and then from the Senate, the EXACT WORDS they claimed were perjurious.

They provided no specifics.

“You know, the perjury he later admitted to committing in his book.”

Quote and page number ?

“We could continue on with his felonious pardons, the one for Marc Rich being the most egregiously offensive but there were others almost as bad.”

There were NUMEROUS congressional investigations.

NADA.

As to Marc Rich, the Justice Department turned what was normally a civil prosecution into a criminal prosecution, even though two eminent independent tax law professors (Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown and Bernard Wolfman of Harvard) concluded, contrary to the Justice Department’s contention, that Rich’s companies actually owed no taxes.

Therefore, President Clinton’s pardon only covered any criminal prosecution, but left Rich wide open for any routine civil prosecution. To this day, the Justice Department has not pursued the matter, further evidence that there were other motives involved and President Clinton made the correct call.

“We could go on and talk about the Riadys, and the Chinese military”

Yes, but it isn’t quite the same since you quite obviously have your tin foil hat constructed with the shiny side facing in.

“If you really don’t think that the Clintons were the most venal and corrupt lot ever to inhabit the WH, you don’t know much about Presidential history.”

Unfortunately, your polemic screed indicates you are mired down in a bog of RightWing propaganda and have no comprehension of either history or reality.

A) There wasn’t a single member of the Clinton administration ever even indicted in their official capacity, which is a STARK contrast to both the two previous Republican administrations and the current Republican administration’s litany of criminalities.

B) The American people disagree with you. President Clinton left office with the highest approval rating of any President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Of course, the American RightWing hated him as well.

“As for Clinton getting anything done that the Republicans didn’t agree to, the answer is that he didn’t.”

The 1993 budget and tax legislation passed the Congress with EVERY SINGLE Republican in both houses voting against, it:

* Raised taxes on the top 1.2% of income earners and raised the Corporate Tax rate. The increased revenue was utilized to pay down $550 billion of the Reagan/Bush federal debt, which even Greenspan testified to a Congressional committee had “a dramatic effect on improving the economy”. This led to transforming the previous 12 years of year after year record federal budget deficits to a net federal budget surplus by the Summer of 1994, and eventually to federal budget surpluses in ’98, ’99, and 2000. (Of course, the federal budget deficits once again increased to record highs after 2000)

* Expanded the ‘Earned Income Tax Credit’, which provided tax relief to 15 million hard-pressed working families and lifted 4.1 million people out of poverty.

* Enacted a $500 per-child tax credit for 27 million families with 45 million children. The largest tax cut for typical American families in decades.

* Provided more than $77 billion in loans to small businesses, more than than the SBA provided in the previous 25 years combined. Provided $17.5 billion in loans to 77,000 minority-owned businesses and $11.7 billion in loans to 79,000 women, more than the SBA provided in total during its entire previous 40 years.

* Enacted the largest investment in education in 30 years with the largest investment in higher education since the G.I. Bill by doubling student aid to nearly $60 billion.

* Established the new ‘Direct Student Loan’ program which bypassed federally guaranteed lenders to deliver loans directly to students which was both quicker and cheaper. Students and taxpayers saved $15 billion. The student loan default rate declined from 22.4% in 1990, to 6.9%, the lowest rate ever. (This policy was reversed by the current administration, and given back to the banks for more profit, thereby raising the cost to both students and taxpayers)

* Enacted the ‘Family and Medical Leave Act’ which allows workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for seriously ill family members, new born or adoptive children, or their own serious health problems without fear of losing their jobs. Nearly 91 million workers (71% of the labor force) are covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act and millions of workers have benefited from FMLA since its enactment, which increased worker productivity.

That’s the very short list. The results ?:

* There were 22.2 million net new jobs created, the most jobs ever created under a single administration, and more jobs than Reagan/PoppyBush/Chimpy Bush created during their five terms COMBINED, with the majority created during the Clinton administration paying higher than the average wage in the national economy.

* The Unemployment Rate fell for eight years in a row, as the National Labor Participation Rate increased (what a concept !). African-American unemployment was cut in half to its lowest level ever recorded, and Hispanic unemployment fell to the lowest level ever recorded.

* The longest consecutive yearly increase of real wage growth since the 1960s. (Of course, real wages declined every year after 2000).

* The overall poverty rate continuously declined every single year, falling from 15.1% in 1993 to 11.3% in 2000, including the largest six-year drop in poverty in nearly three decades. The child poverty rate declined from 22.7% to 18.9%, the largest drop in three decades. (Of course, the overall poverty rate subsequently reversed and rose every single year after 2000).
.