Economics Update

Weekly unemployment filings are up 16K from last week, which is not good, but better than forecast, though, as I've said before, the weekly data is noisy and not very useful.

On the other hand, the Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook Survey is definitely downbeat, though not as grim as I would have anticipated.

China has problems. While its growth rate slowed to only 10.1% annually(!), inflation remained well above 7%.

Honestly, I think that the fix here is simple, let the Yuan rise some, which would decrease the relative cost of imported energy, and slow exports to cool down the economy, but I do not expect the Chinese central bank to do this.

Housing starts jumped 9.1%, only because of change in NY City building codes, allowing for more multi-residential building. Otherwise it would have been -4%, and construction of single-family homes dropped by 5.3%, hitting a 17 year low.

Seeing as how the Europeans have inflation concerns too, and are talking about ratcheting up rates, it;s not surprising that the dollar fell today.

Oil continues its slide, dropping below $130/bbl for the first time in over a month, though retail gasoline holds at yesterday's record.