Economics Update

I think that the lede for today is the fact that two of the most prominent indicators of consumer distress, consumer credit card delinquency and consumer bankruptcy filings are up 11% and 37% year over year respectively.

These "green shoots" are all about the bankers, not about the real economy, or real people.

What's more, indicators of the economy that are independent of investment banking, things like, the American Trucking Association Tonnage Index and the AAR's reports on rail volume (same link), continue their downward trend.

The so-called "green shoots" are things like the Conference Board's Employment Trends Index, which improved for the first time in 16 months:

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ saw a small uptick in May. The index now stands at 89.9, increasing 0.2 percent from the revised April figure of 89.7, and down 20 percent from a year ago.

So, a 1 months uptick of less than 0.3% is a promising sign (100=1996), even though it's still down 29% year over year, and 1996 was a great year only by the standards of the Bush economy.

Meanwhile, in international finance, downgraded the Celtic Kitten, Ireland from AA+ to AA, because Ireland, the Baltics, and much of the rest of the new EU members have experienced growth driven more by speculative flows rather than real economic development.

In energy, retail gasoline was up again this week, that's about 27% in the past month and a half, to $2.613/gal, though oil was down slightly, largely on a stronger dollar.