From Calculated Risk: One more stunning graph from the employment report… From the BLS report: In February, the number of persons who worked part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose by 787,000, reaching 8.6 million. The number of such workers rose by 3.7 million over the past 12 months. […]
From Calculated Risk: And from CNN: Unemployment hits 25-year high Jobless rate hits 8.1% in February as a record-high 12.5 million people are unemployed. By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The U.S. economy continued to hemorrhage jobs in February, bringing total job losses over the last six months to more than […]
I love the smooth nonlinearity of the curves since 2006. From Calculated Risk: The DOL reports on weekly unemployment insurance claims: In the week ending Feb. 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 639,000, a decrease of 31,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 670,000. The 4-week moving average was 641,750, […]
If Saudi Arabia’s oil production has peaked, then global production has peaked. From The Oil Drum: Saudi Arabia’s historical crude oil production indicates a peak of 9.6 million barrels/day in 2005. In 2008, crude production was 9.3 mbd. In 2009 it is forecast to be 8.1 mbd followed by an increase in 2010 to 8.5 […]
From Calculated Risk: New home sales in January 2009 (309 thousand SAAR) were 10.2% lower than last month, and were 48% lower than January 2008 (597 million SAAR). See link for graphs of sales and inventory. There was some discussion that the seasonal adjustment might be distorting the sales number. The following graph of the […]
From Calculated Risk: The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in January were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309 thousand. This is the lowest sales rate the Census Bureau has ever recorded (starting in 1963). The graph shows New Home Sales vs. recessions for the last 45 years. New Home sales have fallen […]
From Calculated Risk: Both the monthly indices (20 cities and 2 composites) and the quarterly national index were released this morning. I’ll have more on the national index shortly. The Composite 10 is off 19.2% over the last year. The Composite 20 is off 18.5% over the last year. These are the worst year-over-year price […]
From Calculated Risk: This graph shows the overall consumer confidence index from the Conference Board (graph from Northern Trust). The Present Situation Index (not shown) is low, but not as low as in some earlier recessions (the Present Situation Index is at 21.2, it fell to 16.2 in 1982). What pulled down the overall index […]
by Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com Nearly one quarter of Papua New Guinea’s rainforests were damaged or destroyed between 1972 and 2002, report researchers writing in the journal Biotopica. The results, which were published in a report last June, show that Papua New Guinea is losing forests at a much faster rate than previously believed. Over […]
From Calculated Risk: The American Institute of Architects reports: Another Historic Low for Architecture Billings Index Note that historically there is an “approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending”. The ABI fell off a cliff in early 2008 and we are just starting to see that decline show up […]
