Daily Archives: November 7, 2010 @ 1:17 pm (Sunday)

Consumer Borrowing Posts Rare Gain in September

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This is how it all starts.
The $10.1 billion gain in non revolving is the key.
That, along with housing, is the borrowing to spend the drives consumer credit expansions.
And the ongoing federal deficit spending continues to add to savings via less credit card debt that’s generally used for current consumption.

It’s only one month, and the series has volatility, but it does fit with the financial burdens ratios.

Without the external risks, the Obama boom that began in Jan 09 (before he added a bit with his fiscal package) looks intact and ready to accelerate.

Unfortunately there are risks.

Taxes are scheduled to go up at year end if gridlock isn’t broken. And even if they do extend the current tax structure, it’s not a tax cut, just not an increase.
Congress is bent on ‘paying for’ everything and proactively reducing the federal deficit, one way or another, including paying for not letting taxes rise should that happen.
The sustainability report is due Dec 1 which could further scare everyone into more proactive deficit reduction.

This kind of stuff. There are probably enough votes for the balanced budget constitutional amendment to pass Congress:

Sen.-elect Paul: GOP must consider military cuts

November 7 (AP) — Republican Sen.-elect Rand Paul says GOP lawmakers must be open to cutting military spending as Congress tries to reduce government spending.

The tea party favorite from Kentucky says compromise with Democrats over where to cut spending must include the military as well as social programs. Paul says all government spending must be “on the table.”

Paul tells ABC’s “This Week” that he supports a constitutional amendment calling for a balanced budget.

The rising crude oil price is like a tax hike for us.

The $US could head north in a ‘hey, QE doesn’t in fact weaken the dollar and we’re all caught short with no newly printed money to take us out of our trade’ rally, further fueled by the automatic fiscal tightening that comes with the modest GDP growth reducing spending via transfer payments and increasing tax revenues, making dollars ‘harder to get.’

Also an even modestly growing US economy does attract foreign direct investment as well as equity investors in a big way.
And, real US labor costs are low enough for us to be exporting cars- who would have thought we would have sunk this low!
On the other hand, higher crude prices does make $US ‘easier to get’ overseas and tend to weaken it fundamentally.
The falling dollar was supporting a good part of the latest equity rally- better foreign earnings translations, more exports, etc.- so a dollar reversal could create a set back for the same reasons.

China is looking at maybe 10% inflation, and their currency fix seems to be closer to ‘neutral’ as their fx holdings seem to have stabilized.

It’s possible their currency adjustment has come via internal inflation, and now the question could be whether and how they ‘fight’ their inflation. In the past inflation has been a regime changer, so political pressures are probably intense.

Euro zone austerity is resulting in ‘political imbalances’ as Germany sort of booms and the periphery suffers.
It’s all muddling through with high and rising over all unemployment, modest growth, and the ECB dictating terms and conditions for its support.

Conclusion- clear sailing, Obama boom intact, unless the ‘external’ risks kick in. The most immediate risk is a dollar rally, closely followed by fiscal tightening

Consumer Borrowing Posts Rare Gain in September

November 5 (AP) — Consumer borrowing increased in September for the first time since January even though the category that includes credit cards dropped for a record 25th straight month.

The Federal Reserve said Friday that consumer credit increased at an annual rate of $2.1 billion in September after having fallen at a rate of $4.9 billion in August. It was only the second increase in the past 20 months.
Americans have been reducing their borrowing for nearly two years as they try to repair their balance sheets in the wake of a steep recession and high unemployment.

For September, revolving credit, the category that includes credit cards, fell for a record 25th consecutive month, dropping by an annual rate of $8.3 billion, or 12.1 percent.

The category that includes student loans and auto loans, rose by $10.4 billion, or an annual rate of 7.9 percent.

The $2.1 billion rise in overall borrowing pushed consumer debt to a seasonally adjusted $2.4 trillion in September, down 2.9 percent from where consumer credit stood a year ago.

Analysts said that consumer credit is continuing to be constrained by all the problems facing households, including high unemployment and tighter lending standards on the part of banks struggling with high loan losses.

Households are borrowing less and saving more and that has acted as a drag on the overall economy by lowering consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity.

The economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at a lackluster annual rate of 2 percent in the July-September quarter, up only slightly from 1.7 percent GDP growth in the April-June period.

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Higher oil prices

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The last I saw domestic gasoline consumption has been looking modestly higher, even as prices are up.
Here’s how I see how that works out:

Assumptions:

1. The US bill for imported crude goes up and consumption doesn’t fall.

2. US consumers have less to spend on other things.

two possibilities:

A) Iran and Saudia Arabia use their incremental winnings to buy US jets and nuclear reactors from US companies.
a) US jobs and paychecks in jets and nukes business increase by the same amount as the oil price hike, so
b) US domestic consumption remains constant.

Summary of results:

More US people working more hours and consuming the same in total.
As a whole that’s a negative outcome.

More exports for the same amount of imports.
Also a negative- declining real terms of trade.

It’s a case of ‘looks good’ (a few more jobs, exports up)
but feels bad (working harder for the same consumption).

Other possibility:

B) Iran and Saudi Arabia don’t spend the dollars
a) Domestic (non oil) consumption falls, so
b) Output and employment falls

This is a case of looks bad and feels even worse.

What actually happens seems to be somewhere in between?
Crude prices up, exports up, and jobs flat.

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from John Mauldin

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>   
>   (email exchange)
>   
>   On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 7:10 AM, wrote:
>   
>   The yield spreads on Irish and Spanish bonds are blowing out even as we speak, as
>   well as those on the rest of the periphery. While all eyes are on the Fed, the real action
>   may be in Europe.
>   

Agreed! The question remains, is the ECB still there to backstop short term funding. So far seems yes.
It’s entirely a political decision. Think of the euro zone as an under water city, with the ECB controlling the air supply.

Also, I like the next chart. A 9% federal budget deficit is so far been enough to muddle through with very modest GDP growth and stabilize employment, albeit at very low levels. With a proactive fiscal adjustment, it doesn’t get much better until consumer credit expansion kicks in, which could be quite a while.

It also looks to me like a dollar rally that will revive deflation fears might still be in the cards, as it’s been sold mainly based on a misunderstanding of QE.

A Few Thoughts on the Employment Numbers

By Dr. Lacy Hunt, Hoisington Investment Mgt. Co.

The October employment situation was dramatically weaker than the headline 159k increase in the payroll employment measure. The broader household employment fell 330k. The only reason that the unemployment rate held steady is that 254k dropped out of the labor force. The civilian labor force participation rate fell to a new low of 64.5%, indicating that people do not believe that jobs are available, but this serves to hold the unemployment rate down. In addition, the employment-to-population ratio fell to 58.3%, the lowest level in nearly 30 years.

While not actually knowing what happened to the net job change in the non-surveyed small business sector, the Labor Department assumed that 61k jobs were created in that sector. This assumption is not supported by such important private surveys as those from the National Federation of Independent Business or by ADP. Just a month ago the Labor Department had to revise downward the job totals due to a serious overcount of their statistical artifact known as the Birth/Death Model.


The most distressing aspect of this report is that the US economy lost another 124K full-time jobs, thus bringing the five-month loss to 1.1 million in this most critical of all employment categories. In an even more significant sign, the level of full-time employment in October was at the same level that was reached originally in December 1999, almost 11 years ago (see attached chart). An economy cannot generate income growth by continuing to substitute part-time work for full-time employment. This loss of full-time jobs goes a long way to explain why real personal income less transfer payments has been unchanged since May.

The weakness in real income is probably lost in an environment in which the Fed is touting the gain in stock prices and consumer wealth resulting from the latest quantitative easing (QE), but QE has unintended negative consequences for real household income. Due to higher prices of energy and food commodities, QE may result in less funds for discretionary spending for consumers whose incomes are stagnant. Also, with five-year yields falling below 1%, rates on CDs and other types of short-term bank deposits will decline, also cutting into household income. At the end of the day these effects will be more powerful than any stock-price boost in consumer spending, which, as always, will be very small and slow to materialize.

To have a broad-based recovery, the manufacturing sector must participate. Contrary to the ISM survey, manufacturing jobs fell 7k, the third consecutive drop, resulting in a net loss over the past three months of 35k.

In summary, the latest economic developments indicate a slight worsening of underlying fundamental conditions.

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