Economics Update

We are all, as Bender is wont to say, "totally boned", and you need to look no further than the fact that :NASCAR is experiencing cash flow problems because financially strapped sponsors are bailing.

About the only good news is that collapsing demand appears to be keeping inflation in check.

BTW, the crisis just hit Phil Gramm's bosses, as the Swiss government was just forced to bail out UBS.

Don't expect a turn around in the real estate martket, because mortgage rates just posted their largest increase since 1987.

This might explain why the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo housing market index has fallen to an all time low, 14, where a neutral reading is 50.

In the real world of manufacturing, industrial production and the Fed Bank of Philadelphia's general economic index both plummeted to levels not seen in over a decade.

With a very strong indicatrions of a recession, commodities, in particular oil ($69/84/bbl!!!) and gasoline, continued their falls.

What takes this from an economic down turn to an apocalypse are signs of the apocalypse, and one of the is when Americans consumers save, rather than spend their money.

If you want another sign of the apocalypse, how about banks cutting back on issuing credit cards, because they need to hold additional reserves against defaults.

When banks cut back on what is probably their most profitable business, you know something is up.

Jobless claims for the week aredown, but week to numbers are noisy, and the it's an artifact of the fact that we've had a hurricane free few days.

The dollar strengthened a little. I think that there are two competing pulls here: the concern that the US is no longer the financial colossus striding the world, and the habit of going into the dollar when times are uncertain.