Economics Update

The big news, as it is on any day when the fed meets, is the decision, which was to cut the federal funds rate by 25 basis points. Of note that that they are no signaling no more cuts.

Of course, with the rate at 2%, it's not like they can really cut much further.

Then we got the GDP numbers for the first quarter of 2008. The number is that U.S.GDP increased at an 0.6% annual pace, though this will likely drop when a final reading is released.

I will provide more detail, but the spin that this is not a contraction is false" initial reading, will fall. Also, we've already had 0.6% so far this year, we will likely see 3-4% inflation even with the bogus government data, it would be closer to 10% with honest data, and 0.6%-3%=-2.4% that's a recession.

I, with the aid of the good doctor Roubini, will provide more detail in a later post.

Oil prices have dropped, which should come as no surprise. The spikes of the past few days were as the result of short term news, though the trend still seems to be up.

In real estate, we have
ortgage application volume falling 11.25% last week, and we have an analysis from Barclays Capital that upwards of half of Alt-A and subprime mortgages will be under water by year's end, and they are predicting a fair amount of "jingle mail" as a result.