06/07/11 Laguna Beach, California – The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped another 61 points yesterday, giving the US stock market a jumpstart on a sixth consecutive losing week. Bad economic news is, apparently, bad news after all.
“US equities halted their longest streak of gains in a month,” Bloomberg News reported last Wednesday, “after companies added 38,000 workers to payrolls in May, according to figures from ADP Employer Services, less than one quarter of the median growth forecast by economists.”
Two days later, US equities continued halting their streak of gains, as the Labor Department’s monthly employment report also fell way short of expectations – about one quarter of the median forecast by economists.
The economy, in general seems to be running at quarter-speed.
Just in the last few days we learned:
- Factory orders slumped 1.2% in April, compared to a gain of 3.8% in March.
- Car sales tumbled 10% in May – the lowest level in seven months.
- The ISM’s manufacturing index dropped to 53.5 in May from 60.4 the prior month – the slowest pace since September 2009.
- The Consumer Confidence reading for May slipped to 60.8 from 66 in April – the lowest level of the year.
- The Median home price fell to a new low for this cycle – the lowest since 2003.
As anticipated by your skeptical editors here at The Daily Reckoning, Ben Bernanke’s quantitative easing has failed to stimulate enduring economic growth, but it has done a masterful job of simulating inflation and dollar weakness. We expect these trends to continue.
To be fair, the Fed Chairman did as much as he could, armed with only a printing press and a few moronic economic theories. He’s a modern-day Davey Crockett, trying to repel overwhelming hostile forces with the financial equivalent of a Bowie knife.
A printing press was never meant to nurture the economic growth of an entire nation. It is good for mass-producing Bibles, and putting monks out of the illuminated manuscript business. But a printing press is not so good for inspiring an entrepreneur to take a chance.
In fact, an active printing press undermines capitalistic enterprise because it creates the inflationary episodes that disrupt pricing throughout the supply chain, while also raising the cost of credit.
But Bernanke’s efforts have yielded some measurable results, even if they are the wrong results to be measuring. Government employment is soaring.
“The structure of the US economy was changed by the two bubbles and reflations over the past ten years, as private and public debt levels have ratcheted up,” observes Eric Janszen, of iTulip.com. “Consider the fact that total employment fell by 2.6 million jobs since the year 2000 while local, state, and federal employment grew by 1.8 million… In 2001, 14 million were employed in local government and 17 million in manufacturing. Ten years later, 15 million are employed in local government and 12 million in manufacturing.”
The growing legions of federal employees are doing their best to jumpstart the economy, as the nearby chart illustrates.
The number of limousines owned and operated by the federal government has doubled over the last three years. The booming federal limousine trade is good for the limo industry, which is also good for related industries like limo driver uniform vending, sun-roof installing and crystal whiskey decanter manufacturing.
Two hundred new limos in three years isn’t going to turn the economy around overnight, but at least it’s a start, right?
Eric Fry
for The Daily Reckoning
Eric Fry
Eric J. Fry, Agora Financial’s Editorial Director, has been a specialist in international equities for nearly two decades. He was a professional portfolio manager for more than 10 years, specializing in international investment strategies and short-selling. Following his successes in professional money management, Mr. Fry joined the Wall Street-based publishing operations of James Grant, editor of the prestigious Grant's Interest Rate Observer. Working alongside Grant, Mr. Fry produced Grant's International and Apogee Research — institutional research products dedicated to international investment opportunities and short selling.
Mr. Fry subsequently joined Agora Inc., as Editorial Director. In this role, Mr. Fry supervises the editorial and research processes of numerous investment letters and services. Mr. Fry also publishes investment insights and commentary under his own byline as Editor of The Daily Reckoning. Mr. Fry authored the first comprehensive guide to investing internationally with American Depository Receipts. His views and investment insights have appeared in numerous publications including Time, Barron's, Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, Business Week, USA Today, Los Angeles Times and Money.
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I love the way these people put “Inflation” into an article, and then complain about falling prices.
SW-
Been trolling long?
I re-read the article and found only one price they reported as falling. (Housing). Since this is the most significant chunk of most people’s savings that is not good news for homeowners.
In what part of the world do you reside? Which of the following is costing less: Electricity, health care, food, clothing, fuel, government, insurance, taxes, or entertainment?
If you have been paying attention here you have read the phrase, “Inflation in the things you need, deflation in the things you want.”
I apologize to everyone else for troll-feeding.
weak dollar analysis no matter how well conceived is a peripheral representation on its reality. Well done…again. I like this one Eric.