Friday PM Biz-Econ Wrap
Besides Dow 12000 for a second straight day (the Dow was only down 9, while the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ both went up), there are other things to be cheery about:
- New unemployment claims, reported yesterday, dropped to 299K instead of increasing to 312 K as “expected. “Like the housing starts number, something “expected” to get worse got better. Of course, Matt at WoMD “blames Bush.”
- Speaking of Matt, 10 days ago on Wide Awakes Radio we talked about oil prices a bit. I said that OPEC would have a hard time enforcing across-the-board production cutbacks among all of its member nations. Basic economics teaches that production quota-based cartels often don’t work because the incentive to cheat (and make more money) is so powerful. Lo and behold, oil dropped below $57 a barrel today because of the skepticism that OPEC will in reality be able to cut production (i.e., prevent cheating) as much as it hopes to.
- Thursday, leading indicators, which have been flat to slightly negative most of the year, went up slightly, earning this howler from USA Today:
A modest increase in consumer expectations helped boost a closely watched gauge of future economic activity in September, but not enough to lift the economy out of the doldrums, an industry-backed research group said Thursday.
Out of the doldrums? Man, the 527 Media never stops, unless their bosses tell them they have to. There’s a price to pay for non-stop bias, and it appears the traditional media businesses don’t mind paying it.
