Durable goods, July is here, are wholesale orders, or orders to manufacturers to make more stuff.
What matters in the durable goods report are shipments, which June was revised significantly up so and the above link has some intel on it's approximation and relationship to investment GDP component.
PCE, is what is actually bought, retail and is more correlated to retail sales, June here, which is anemic, at best.
I'm actually surprised that PCE was revised upward as much as it was here from the other reports....
That said, I don't have all of the pieces to go from monthly reports to BEA NIPA accounting methods. I get messed up on price deflators #1, import/export prices....but I think if I did have the ability to calculate exact GDP estimates from monitoring monthly reports...then large multinationals would be using me as a consultant (hey, maybe I need to write some code to do just that!), instead of a niche site writer.
So, wholesale new orders implies more manufacturing business activity and should in part translate to new sales down the road (but this is for everything, exports, inventories, restocking). Shipments means it's "out the door" and when going from wholesale to wholesale implies investment if that makes more sense.
Dunno about inventories vs. liquidity but inventories are at record highs. Business inventories for June is here, so it's the change of inventories and by how much. it's slope vs. quantities.
In Q4 2008/Q1 2009 inventories were slashed and burned next to nothing so the fact we have all of this inventory sitting around well, to me it's not that great, I'd like to see more of it sold.
That's where that sales to inventories ratio number comes in and why people look at that alot to see which way the wind is blowing (business cycles).
Although these days, that entire "business cycle" theory, I'm kind of like...hmmm....
those are the local dips in the long slide down the mountain here. ;)
All of these reports are domestic only, only the U.S. economy. That said, with crazy global supply chains and offshore outsourcing, importing of foreign workers on guest worker Visas, I don't believe they catch everything on this.
There is research into globalization and it's shadow component to GDP (wrongly attributed).
This is something I think gov. statistics agencies need much more data, more information to really ascertain how badly are these global supply chains, offshore outsourcing, MNCs hurting the U.S. by macro economics...
but at the moment, they deny it's even hurting labor, so, sigh.
Seems to me I need to create tables for percent point contribution, plus add a few more bridges from the equation to the description of what that component is. I think that will help, those lists are too long to be comprehensible unless you're a numbers person. The point of these is to translate BEA numbers into visuals and descriptive and implications but show the path to connect all of those dots.
I noticed beginning late last year that Bernanke was being the most truthful of all of the big guns in DC re how long it will take to return to full -- a minimum of five years. [Probably more like ten, based on how things are going now.] He said the things Obama and Congressional leaders should have been saying throughout 2010 and this year too and I will always be grateful to him for that. His brief statements about our unemployment emergency were unacknowledged and were not acted upon in any effective way, as we all know. But at least he did something besides hide!
That's what things have come to: being grateful to the 30 second truthtellers and crumb-throwers.
Based on what he said today, I'd say what we need is someone to get out in front of Bernanke and be a little bit more forthcoming -- in other words, to say what he'd like to but feel he cannot.
Is there someone able and willing to fill this role? I do not know. I just know that I wish to God there was such a person.
Do you realize how pathetic it is to hope not for real leadership and candor about where we stand, but for someone who will just toss us out a few more crumbs than the rest who give us nothing or mislead us.
I wonder how much longer we can keep America the same America we used to know and still love at this rate?
The article is outstanding for publication of analyses of econometric data -- very helpful and understandable explanatory notes.
Really excellent -- ALL useful and understandable.
Specific questions and comments --
What was the recent much-touted increase in durable goods orders? Just depleted inventories in need of restocking? It's weird to see steady increases in inventories (although down from peaking in 2010) with rate of change in final sales numbers bouncing around like a stumbling drunk. Are these graphs based on seasonal adjusted numbers?
I note pessimism in Asia (Eddie Tam in Hong Kong) as to USA Christmas orders.
Also, I think that I have been seeing some relation between inventories and liquidity problems lately, but I have no published sources for that.
Anyway, who cares about durable goods orders unless they are broken down into how much has been ordered out of China (always standing for more than just China) and how much within USA?
Mainly, what I wonder about is how is foreign investment handled relative to imports and exports? To what extent is "investment" a euphemism for the "selling of America"?
(I hope there is no such thing as "a stupid question"!)
"More expansive monetary policies are unlikely to do much good on their own. When demand is slowing so dramatically and unemployment is already high, expanding the money supply is like pushing on a wet noodle." -- Robert Reich, quoted at MoneyNews.com's StreetTalk (25 August 2011)
"Translating Bernanke ... Obama and Congress get your ass in gear, quit your inane politics and enact a direct jobs program and deal effectively with the unemployment crisis now you sycophants! " -- Robert Oak (main article, above)
100% agreement with Robert Oak's translation of Bernanke's remarks! As for spin that some of the speech indicating that QE is still on the table -- of course, everything is always on the table! Even if Bernanke had said that QE was off the table, it would still be on the table. Nobody ever takes anything "off the table" -- for sure not without something in return. Moreover, it would have been beyond the authority of the Chair or even of the entire Board to take QE off the table, a repudiation of the law authorizing powers of the Fed. What would that have been? Something like the "contract with America" or the current administrations "Dream contract"? Really, the QE spin is just a little gesture toward a falling gold market.The news is "no QE" and not all that complicated.
There's really no puzzle in Bernanke's remarks. The speech is being billed as a Greenspan-like puzzlement because that's easy for corporate-media "news" editors to approve (since they remember the old Greenspan spin) and also because corporate media wants to forestall pressure on Congress by building up empty talk about the Fed.
Right now, a major goal of corporate media is to take the public eye off of Congress and the White House so that the three FTAs can be enacted along with the corresponding TAA (for which Republicans will at least claim to be successful in demanding some kind of ransom to be paid to the MNCs, as usual).
The Fed won't do anything more about what is threatening to become the Second Great Depression -- which, hopefully, will just be more of the Great Recession. Why? -- because the Fed can't do anything more than it has already done!
Yes, it would have been interesting if Bernanke had said to Congress, "You idiots! Just enact the jobs part (the TAA), skip the FTAs!"
But, let's be just slightly realistic. In the first place, the Fed is supposed to be nonpartisan, even nonpolitical! Bernanke would have been pilloried, demands made for his removal!
-- excerpted from Anonymous Drive-by's comment, "Flash mobs and GE"
I don't see any of it, not in the USA in 2011 and very unlikely in 2012.
I don't see urban mobs, unless they are at or leaving a sports event. Urban gangs, yes, but their horizon ends with their turf and their expectations for short-term profits. (Besides, they are thoroughly infiltrated by the police and, if they become at all politicized, by DHS.)
As for "flash mobs" -- yes, that's interesting as a sign of growing social instability, but flash mobs do not make an effectively coordinated attack on the corporate HQs of MNCs. Flash mobs in a context of social instability mean nothing, unless probably increased funding and enlarged power for governmental agencies of repression and increased tendency toward hoarding of guns, ammo and precious metals.
For flash mobs to be effective in a campaign of general resistance to corporatism, you first need a national identity including a kind of national economic class consciousness. You even need at least a fuzzy commonly shared agenda (or what was once known as a 'transitional plan'). And then you need a non-flash decentralized organizational element that can survive and even thrive after the predictably severe police repression that will inevitably ensue after any mass move against financial elites -- not to mention the predictably intensified "sting thing."
I don't see anything like or indicating France in 1788.
Argentina in 2001? There are signs of that! But Argentina was never a superpower! Great Britain in the 1930s would be more like it, "Rule Britannia" with a hollow ring to it, mocked by the Soviet Union, Germany and Japan.
And I sure don't see any signs of urban mobs purposefully targeting any corporate property, certainly not HQ buildings of MNCs, with or without "the right kind of organization."
In the USA over the past century or so, unorganized urban mobs have arisen out of police repression of organized peaceful protests.
Of course, over the last decade or so, we could say that "unorganized urban mobs" have been created by phenomena of homelessness. That also occurred in the 1930s, and in the early 1930s these "mobs" were organized to some extent by Wobblies. (How long has it been since a worker caused a walk-out at a work site by crying out "Wobble!" How long has it been since a worker cried out "Wobble!" anywhere in the USA?)
I'm not organizing anything except awareness of what's going on, especially regarding the upcoming votes in Congress on the three FTAs. Here, I am just trying to be objective and descriptive. This is EP.
_________
Going back to the 1920s, mass rallies of the KKK, fairly well organized and largely peaceful, were not uncommon in many large cities. Going back to the early 1930s, strikes repressed by "Pinkerton" attempts to break them up, became large enough to shut down entire cities. But none of these included attacks on corporate HQs, and all of these were organized as peaceful protests -- although sometimes in the early 1930s, physical conflicts regularly arose out of confrontations. But from those conflicts, when substantial damage followed, it was protestors who were damaged, not corporations. And the substantial damage to protestors (particularly, deaths of protestors) ignited, not attacks on corporate property, but large peaceful protests including large turn-outs at elections such as 1932. (The huge Democratic victory in 1932 was, in part, a reaction to the machine-gunning of a march by veterans protesting cuts in their pensions).
Although there were probably several anti-war protests back in the legendary 1960s involving peaceful protestors numbering a million or more, the most recent politically effective mass protests drawing about a million, here in the USA, were surely the Million Man March, led by Farakhan in 1995 and the somewhat-smaller Million Woman March in 1997.
It is worth noting that no such marches are in the works as of 2011, and if they are to occur in 2012, they will almost certainly be organized by the White House.
In the 21st Century, there were almost no anti-war protests until after 2003 -- despite condemnation of the unconstitutional authorization of the Iraq attack (2002) by the late great Senator Robert Byrd (West Virginia). Earlier there were almost no protests in December 2000 against the Supreme Court's usurpation (Bush v. Gore, December 2000) of the powers given to the State of Florida by the U.S. Constitution. There were peaceful and well-organized anti-war demonstrations -- including some "urban mob" after-effects -- from 2004 through 2007 or 2008. Although these met with substantial public approval and police repression was limited, the numbers never approached those reached in the 1960s. The public generally has been content to view protesting as a spectator sport, a TV sub-genre.
Urban mobs -- with the "right organization" managing to avoid penetration by DHS agents ("the sting thing") -- attacking corporate HQs in the USA? And that based on unity of the American working classes? That will be the day! May I live long enough to see it!
I love it when people have fun with Bernanke's speeches. This Canadian blog says Bernanke is S&P's new BFF.
I don't know about that but Bernanke is simply stating the obvious. That entire debt ceiling debacle was a complete embarrassment for the United States to the entire globe and showed the entire world what idiots we have as legislators.
No surprise when you have a mix of corporate puppets with some extreme cult mesmerizing the masses with pure economic fiction being elected into public office.
I like looking at percent point contribution spreads because it tells me exactly what changes in terms of overall GDP change, or growth, specific to GDP. Kind of a mini metric within a metric.
That said, it might be confusing to some. What is useful, understandable in this overview to people? What is not?
I might change the format on point percentage change to a table for easier reading, but what else do people want amplified and clarified from the nitty gritty BEA numbers tables?
Also, much of this report we actually gave some reasonable estimates on this revision. I still expect imports are low balled, but the revisions do match the various monthly economic reports and their revisions.
Remember, the advance GDP report has to estimate some values because the actual raw data hasn't come in or been aggregated yet.
It's the 3rd revision that really matters, which is another month away.
I'm surprised GE headquarters hasn't been burned to the ground yet. Local populations could make quick work of such places, with the right kind of organization. [note to FBI - we're onto the sting thing]
There is no place for the likes of GE in the 21st century.
It's France... 1788... but nobody understands yet, that Americans mean business with these crooks. Let's get started.
It is interesting to note how few entities control/influence the world's financial system. This study shows that it is 140 or so entities who control nearly 40 percent of all of monetary value of transnational corporations
"I am interested in tracing the direct line between wall street's support of Congress and the dysfunctional legislation, which has allowed this nonsense to continue unchecked. Does anyone know a good place which discusses this specific topic?" -- 'Hope and no Expectations'
BTW: It's been forever since VBS, but here's my belief about Jesus knocking down the desks of the money changers in the Temple during Passover:
I think that Jesus did not object to currency exchange as such, or even to profiteering excesses thereof or to "sycophants of the real economy" -- not that he was giving any such excesses his blessing. I think he was objecting to the presence of these operations in the Temple, especially at Passover. Probably there were others at that time who held a similar dim view of the practice, although they did not protest it, at least not as forthrightly as did Jesus.
'Expulsion of the Money Changers', painting by Giotto (14 Century)
Matthew 21:12 (KJV) "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves."
I always wondered what Jesus could have against doves, until a young animal-rights activist referred me to the New Living Translation (2007) --
Matthew 21:12 (NLT) "Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves."
According to John 2:12-16 (ESV) "“he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. But he said to those who sold doves, ‘Get these out of here! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’
This site is probably one of the most labor friendly economics sites out on the Internets that is not actually owned and run by the AFL-CIO, SEIU or corresponding unions. We talk about offshore outsourcing all of the time, trade, middle class you name it and we assuredly slammed Wisconsin, but all on our own.
So, you need to chill and take your rage out on Verizon and raise hell there about their offshore outsourcing/ H-1B, union busting agendas.
We are a news source and as such take it very seriously to be accurate on statistics data but there is nothing implied in this offhand comment in mentioning initial unemployment claims that is anti-labor here.
Wow!!! Your information on unemployment may be correct. I'm not sure, I don't follow those statistics. But I do know that you obviously know nothing about what our strike was about. So let me inform you, although you probably don't care. We went on strike because Verizon was not negotiating with us. At all!!! We said that when they decided to negotiate fairly with us we would go back to work. So our going back to work was in victory, goal accomplished.
So if you want to be good at what you are trying to do. Do not make blind statements, or regurgitate statements which were made blindly.
"What it is about truth here that's such an issue for so many?" -- Robert Oak
Campaigning for reelection in 1948, President Truman famously heard a shout-out from the crowd: "Give 'em hell, Harry!"
To which, Truman replied, "I don't give them hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's hell."
_______
But the situation today is that corporatists of all stripes are proof against experiencing hell by way of truth, because they are certain that there is no such thing as truth other than (1) what is represented in the mass media, or, (2) what anyone wants the truth to be in pursuit of their own 'class' or 'power-relations' interests.
Do not take my meaning for 'class' here as Marxian -- it's just that there's no better way to explain postmodernist deconstructivism than as an aspect of cultural determinism that has arisen from the ashes of Marxian economic determinism. 'Class' these days refers to Identity Politics, although Identity Politics inevitably leads to economics, if only by way of jobs. Paradoxically, economic determinism tends to rise from the ashes of cultural determinism.
Rather than get into social analysis that I know from experience will be misunderstood here at EP, let me explain all this by referring to the life and work of Pat Buchanan, a media-master of applied postmodernist deconstructivism and cultural determinism. Simply put, Buchanan understands political behavior as determined by cultural identity.
I would never accuse Buchanan of being a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer, but Mein Kampf is an outstanding product of the same understanding of political behavior as Buchanan's. It's evident that Obama's 'multi-culturalism' is functionally a kind of Identity Politics also based on cultural determinism.
The wrinkle in all of this concerns corporate media --"political arrangements are determined by the mass media images that people see, and ... these, by displacing other forms of culture, determine ... economic and political arrangements."
This is the best I can do to answer Robert Oak's question -- "What it is about truth here that's such an issue for so many?"
It's like this:
Truth is passé. Anyway, "everybody knows."
How do we distinguish truth from propaganda? And, beyond that, why should we distinguish truth from propaganda? That involves a lot of work, and what's in it for me? Besides, even if I figure something out, nobody else is going to listen to me unless we happen to already agree. So what's the point?
What is the point of statistics when there is no common ground of experiential reality other than what "everybody knows" anyway?
Well, one thing is certain, your opinion is just that. The end of the strike without a new contract or negotiated terms is perceived as failure by many in labor and in the press. When the strike ending, the defeat was headline news, as keyword defeat. Writing a minor comment is not inaccurate reporting and more to the point, this post is about initial unemployment claims and it's implications for the current and September unemployment rate.
Not only is the data accurate, if one notes the point of mentioning Verizon is to determine what initial claims would be w/o the striking workers claims.
This article is not on collective bargaining, unions, negotiations and debate on what defines defeat.
The article is on initial unemployment claims, data and correlation to overall unemployment and economic malaise on a macro level. It also is about Wall street traders reacting to this weekly report as being quite invalid as a major macro economic indicator or even an employment indicator. There is way too much noise in this data metric for that. EOM.
Obviously comments do not have to be accurate and objective by the fact yours was allowed.
As someone who worked for Verizon and lived through 4 strikes let me just say that "where workers went back in defeat" is an inaccurate statement. They went back while negotiations continue. They can always come back out again if negotiations fail. This is not the first time that this has happened. The fact that they went back at all only means that both sides were feeling the negative effects.
You really need to be more precise in your reporting.
I stopped reading after that statement since it so very obvious that whoever wrote this has no insight into Verizon and the labor practices there. I don't think I'll be inclined to lend any credence to your publication going forward.
I think you mean loopholes and legislation written by and for corporate lobbyists that is passed into law. Almost everything that is passed into law these days seems to be written by corporate lobbyists. I wonder if Congressional legislative staffers have much to do it's so bad.
We have covered many a corrupt bill as it's happening on this site. To the left are a host of writers who do cover corrupt bills and scams through bought and paid for government officials.
As I read yet another article explaining the insanity of the Wall Street fleecing of America, I am realizing that the worst part is that Americans have become so complacent and accommodating to their corporate masters that they are not even batting an eye. I think Jesus had it right when he threw the money changers out of the temple as they are sycophants of the real economy and use underhanded tactics and deceit to earn money beyond their worth.
I am interested in tracing the direct line between wall street's support of Congress and the dysfunctional legislation, which has allowed this nonsense to continue unchecked. Does anyone know a good place which discusses this specific topic?
Hate to tell you this, while corporate lobbyist white papers spin statistics, without raw statistics and data your average joe cannot find out what the truth is.
Average Joes in the U.S., while clearly the majority of Americans cannot even understand ratios, fractions...
There are a whole lot, probably over a million, average Joes who not only understand ratios and fractions, but understand complex concepts like correlation and standard deviation!
Take away raw statistics we're in much worse trouble.
What it is about truth here that's such an issue for so many?
Durable goods, July is here, are wholesale orders, or orders to manufacturers to make more stuff.
What matters in the durable goods report are shipments, which June was revised significantly up so and the above link has some intel on it's approximation and relationship to investment GDP component.
PCE, is what is actually bought, retail and is more correlated to retail sales, June here, which is anemic, at best.
I'm actually surprised that PCE was revised upward as much as it was here from the other reports....
That said, I don't have all of the pieces to go from monthly reports to BEA NIPA accounting methods. I get messed up on price deflators #1, import/export prices....but I think if I did have the ability to calculate exact GDP estimates from monitoring monthly reports...then large multinationals would be using me as a consultant (hey, maybe I need to write some code to do just that!), instead of a niche site writer.
So, wholesale new orders implies more manufacturing business activity and should in part translate to new sales down the road (but this is for everything, exports, inventories, restocking). Shipments means it's "out the door" and when going from wholesale to wholesale implies investment if that makes more sense.
Dunno about inventories vs. liquidity but inventories are at record highs. Business inventories for June is here, so it's the change of inventories and by how much. it's slope vs. quantities.
In Q4 2008/Q1 2009 inventories were slashed and burned next to nothing so the fact we have all of this inventory sitting around well, to me it's not that great, I'd like to see more of it sold.
That's where that sales to inventories ratio number comes in and why people look at that alot to see which way the wind is blowing (business cycles).
Although these days, that entire "business cycle" theory, I'm kind of like...hmmm....
those are the local dips in the long slide down the mountain here. ;)
All of these reports are domestic only, only the U.S. economy. That said, with crazy global supply chains and offshore outsourcing, importing of foreign workers on guest worker Visas, I don't believe they catch everything on this.
There is research into globalization and it's shadow component to GDP (wrongly attributed).
This is something I think gov. statistics agencies need much more data, more information to really ascertain how badly are these global supply chains, offshore outsourcing, MNCs hurting the U.S. by macro economics...
but at the moment, they deny it's even hurting labor, so, sigh.
Seems to me I need to create tables for percent point contribution, plus add a few more bridges from the equation to the description of what that component is. I think that will help, those lists are too long to be comprehensible unless you're a numbers person. The point of these is to translate BEA numbers into visuals and descriptive and implications but show the path to connect all of those dots.
I noticed beginning late last year that Bernanke was being the most truthful of all of the big guns in DC re how long it will take to return to full -- a minimum of five years. [Probably more like ten, based on how things are going now.] He said the things Obama and Congressional leaders should have been saying throughout 2010 and this year too and I will always be grateful to him for that. His brief statements about our unemployment emergency were unacknowledged and were not acted upon in any effective way, as we all know. But at least he did something besides hide!
That's what things have come to: being grateful to the 30 second truthtellers and crumb-throwers.
Based on what he said today, I'd say what we need is someone to get out in front of Bernanke and be a little bit more forthcoming -- in other words, to say what he'd like to but feel he cannot.
Is there someone able and willing to fill this role? I do not know. I just know that I wish to God there was such a person.
Do you realize how pathetic it is to hope not for real leadership and candor about where we stand, but for someone who will just toss us out a few more crumbs than the rest who give us nothing or mislead us.
I wonder how much longer we can keep America the same America we used to know and still love at this rate?
The article is outstanding for publication of analyses of econometric data -- very helpful and understandable explanatory notes.
Really excellent -- ALL useful and understandable.
Specific questions and comments --
What was the recent much-touted increase in durable goods orders? Just depleted inventories in need of restocking? It's weird to see steady increases in inventories (although down from peaking in 2010) with rate of change in final sales numbers bouncing around like a stumbling drunk. Are these graphs based on seasonal adjusted numbers?
I note pessimism in Asia (Eddie Tam in Hong Kong) as to USA Christmas orders.
Also, I think that I have been seeing some relation between inventories and liquidity problems lately, but I have no published sources for that.
Anyway, who cares about durable goods orders unless they are broken down into how much has been ordered out of China (always standing for more than just China) and how much within USA?
Mainly, what I wonder about is how is foreign investment handled relative to imports and exports? To what extent is "investment" a euphemism for the "selling of America"?
(I hope there is no such thing as "a stupid question"!)
100% agreement with Robert Oak's translation of Bernanke's remarks! As for spin that some of the speech indicating that QE is still on the table -- of course, everything is always on the table! Even if Bernanke had said that QE was off the table, it would still be on the table. Nobody ever takes anything "off the table" -- for sure not without something in return. Moreover, it would have been beyond the authority of the Chair or even of the entire Board to take QE off the table, a repudiation of the law authorizing powers of the Fed. What would that have been? Something like the "contract with America" or the current administrations "Dream contract"? Really, the QE spin is just a little gesture toward a falling gold market. The news is "no QE" and not all that complicated.
There's really no puzzle in Bernanke's remarks. The speech is being billed as a Greenspan-like puzzlement because that's easy for corporate-media "news" editors to approve (since they remember the old Greenspan spin) and also because corporate media wants to forestall pressure on Congress by building up empty talk about the Fed.
Right now, a major goal of corporate media is to take the public eye off of Congress and the White House so that the three FTAs can be enacted along with the corresponding TAA (for which Republicans will at least claim to be successful in demanding some kind of ransom to be paid to the MNCs, as usual).
The Fed won't do anything more about what is threatening to become the Second Great Depression -- which, hopefully, will just be more of the Great Recession. Why? -- because the Fed can't do anything more than it has already done!
Yes, it would have been interesting if Bernanke had said to Congress, "You idiots! Just enact the jobs part (the TAA), skip the FTAs!"
But, let's be just slightly realistic. In the first place, the Fed is supposed to be nonpartisan, even nonpolitical! Bernanke would have been pilloried, demands made for his removal!
Freedom -- use it or lose it!
"It's France ... 1788 ..."
"with the right kind of organization ... "
-- excerpted from Anonymous Drive-by's comment, "Flash mobs and GE"
I don't see any of it, not in the USA in 2011 and very unlikely in 2012.
I don't see urban mobs, unless they are at or leaving a sports event. Urban gangs, yes, but their horizon ends with their turf and their expectations for short-term profits. (Besides, they are thoroughly infiltrated by the police and, if they become at all politicized, by DHS.)
As for "flash mobs" -- yes, that's interesting as a sign of growing social instability, but flash mobs do not make an effectively coordinated attack on the corporate HQs of MNCs. Flash mobs in a context of social instability mean nothing, unless probably increased funding and enlarged power for governmental agencies of repression and increased tendency toward hoarding of guns, ammo and precious metals.
For flash mobs to be effective in a campaign of general resistance to corporatism, you first need a national identity including a kind of national economic class consciousness. You even need at least a fuzzy commonly shared agenda (or what was once known as a 'transitional plan'). And then you need a non-flash decentralized organizational element that can survive and even thrive after the predictably severe police repression that will inevitably ensue after any mass move against financial elites -- not to mention the predictably intensified "sting thing."
I don't see anything like or indicating France in 1788.
Argentina in 2001? There are signs of that! But Argentina was never a superpower! Great Britain in the 1930s would be more like it, "Rule Britannia" with a hollow ring to it, mocked by the Soviet Union, Germany and Japan.
And I sure don't see any signs of urban mobs purposefully targeting any corporate property, certainly not HQ buildings of MNCs, with or without "the right kind of organization."
In the USA over the past century or so, unorganized urban mobs have arisen out of police repression of organized peaceful protests.
Of course, over the last decade or so, we could say that "unorganized urban mobs" have been created by phenomena of homelessness. That also occurred in the 1930s, and in the early 1930s these "mobs" were organized to some extent by Wobblies. (How long has it been since a worker caused a walk-out at a work site by crying out "Wobble!" How long has it been since a worker cried out "Wobble!" anywhere in the USA?)
I'm not organizing anything except awareness of what's going on, especially regarding the upcoming votes in Congress on the three FTAs. Here, I am just trying to be objective and descriptive. This is EP.
_________
Going back to the 1920s, mass rallies of the KKK, fairly well organized and largely peaceful, were not uncommon in many large cities. Going back to the early 1930s, strikes repressed by "Pinkerton" attempts to break them up, became large enough to shut down entire cities. But none of these included attacks on corporate HQs, and all of these were organized as peaceful protests -- although sometimes in the early 1930s, physical conflicts regularly arose out of confrontations. But from those conflicts, when substantial damage followed, it was protestors who were damaged, not corporations. And the substantial damage to protestors (particularly, deaths of protestors) ignited, not attacks on corporate property, but large peaceful protests including large turn-outs at elections such as 1932. (The huge Democratic victory in 1932 was, in part, a reaction to the machine-gunning of a march by veterans protesting cuts in their pensions).
Although there were probably several anti-war protests back in the legendary 1960s involving peaceful protestors numbering a million or more, the most recent politically effective mass protests drawing about a million, here in the USA, were surely the Million Man March, led by Farakhan in 1995 and the somewhat-smaller Million Woman March in 1997.
It is worth noting that no such marches are in the works as of 2011, and if they are to occur in 2012, they will almost certainly be organized by the White House.
In the 21st Century, there were almost no anti-war protests until after 2003 -- despite condemnation of the unconstitutional authorization of the Iraq attack (2002) by the late great Senator Robert Byrd (West Virginia). Earlier there were almost no protests in December 2000 against the Supreme Court's usurpation (Bush v. Gore, December 2000) of the powers given to the State of Florida by the U.S. Constitution. There were peaceful and well-organized anti-war demonstrations -- including some "urban mob" after-effects -- from 2004 through 2007 or 2008. Although these met with substantial public approval and police repression was limited, the numbers never approached those reached in the 1960s. The public generally has been content to view protesting as a spectator sport, a TV sub-genre.
Urban mobs -- with the "right organization" managing to avoid penetration by DHS agents ("the sting thing") -- attacking corporate HQs in the USA? And that based on unity of the American working classes? That will be the day! May I live long enough to see it!
I love it when people have fun with Bernanke's speeches. This Canadian blog says Bernanke is S&P's new BFF.
I don't know about that but Bernanke is simply stating the obvious. That entire debt ceiling debacle was a complete embarrassment for the United States to the entire globe and showed the entire world what idiots we have as legislators.
No surprise when you have a mix of corporate puppets with some extreme cult mesmerizing the masses with pure economic fiction being elected into public office.
I like looking at percent point contribution spreads because it tells me exactly what changes in terms of overall GDP change, or growth, specific to GDP. Kind of a mini metric within a metric.
That said, it might be confusing to some. What is useful, understandable in this overview to people? What is not?
I might change the format on point percentage change to a table for easier reading, but what else do people want amplified and clarified from the nitty gritty BEA numbers tables?
Also, much of this report we actually gave some reasonable estimates on this revision. I still expect imports are low balled, but the revisions do match the various monthly economic reports and their revisions.
Remember, the advance GDP report has to estimate some values because the actual raw data hasn't come in or been aggregated yet.
It's the 3rd revision that really matters, which is another month away.
Urban mobs need to redirect all that anger.
I'm surprised GE headquarters hasn't been burned to the ground yet. Local populations could make quick work of such places, with the right kind of organization. [note to FBI - we're onto the sting thing]
There is no place for the likes of GE in the 21st century.
It's France... 1788... but nobody understands yet, that Americans mean business with these crooks. Let's get started.
It is interesting to note how few entities control/influence the world's financial system. This study shows that it is 140 or so entities who control nearly 40 percent of all of monetary value of transnational corporations
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2iJE...
"I am interested in tracing the direct line between wall street's support of Congress and the dysfunctional legislation, which has allowed this nonsense to continue unchecked. Does anyone know a good place which discusses this specific topic?" -- 'Hope and no Expectations'
Hope,
Try this --
themoneyparty.org
I think you will not be disappointed.
__________
BTW: It's been forever since VBS, but here's my belief about Jesus knocking down the desks of the money changers in the Temple during Passover:
I think that Jesus did not object to currency exchange as such, or even to profiteering excesses thereof or to "sycophants of the real economy" -- not that he was giving any such excesses his blessing. I think he was objecting to the presence of these operations in the Temple, especially at Passover. Probably there were others at that time who held a similar dim view of the practice, although they did not protest it, at least not as forthrightly as did Jesus.
'Expulsion of the Money Changers', painting by Giotto (14 Century)
Note animals exit lower left!
Image (public domain) from Wikimedia Commons
Matthew 21:12 (KJV) "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves."
I always wondered what Jesus could have against doves, until a young animal-rights activist referred me to the New Living Translation (2007) --
Matthew 21:12 (NLT) "Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves."
According to John 2:12-16 (ESV) "“he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. But he said to those who sold doves, ‘Get these out of here! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’
This site is probably one of the most labor friendly economics sites out on the Internets that is not actually owned and run by the AFL-CIO, SEIU or corresponding unions. We talk about offshore outsourcing all of the time, trade, middle class you name it and we assuredly slammed Wisconsin, but all on our own.
So, you need to chill and take your rage out on Verizon and raise hell there about their offshore outsourcing/ H-1B, union busting agendas.
We are a news source and as such take it very seriously to be accurate on statistics data but there is nothing implied in this offhand comment in mentioning initial unemployment claims that is anti-labor here.
Wow!!! Your information on unemployment may be correct. I'm not sure, I don't follow those statistics. But I do know that you obviously know nothing about what our strike was about. So let me inform you, although you probably don't care. We went on strike because Verizon was not negotiating with us. At all!!! We said that when they decided to negotiate fairly with us we would go back to work. So our going back to work was in victory, goal accomplished.
So if you want to be good at what you are trying to do. Do not make blind statements, or regurgitate statements which were made blindly.
Good day Mr. Uninformed
D.Dubbs
"What it is about truth here that's such an issue for so many?" -- Robert Oak
Campaigning for reelection in 1948, President Truman famously heard a shout-out from the crowd: "Give 'em hell, Harry!"
To which, Truman replied, "I don't give them hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's hell."
_______
But the situation today is that corporatists of all stripes are proof against experiencing hell by way of truth, because they are certain that there is no such thing as truth other than (1) what is represented in the mass media, or, (2) what anyone wants the truth to be in pursuit of their own 'class' or 'power-relations' interests.
Do not take my meaning for 'class' here as Marxian -- it's just that there's no better way to explain postmodernist deconstructivism than as an aspect of cultural determinism that has arisen from the ashes of Marxian economic determinism. 'Class' these days refers to Identity Politics, although Identity Politics inevitably leads to economics, if only by way of jobs. Paradoxically, economic determinism tends to rise from the ashes of cultural determinism.
Rather than get into social analysis that I know from experience will be misunderstood here at EP, let me explain all this by referring to the life and work of Pat Buchanan, a media-master of applied postmodernist deconstructivism and cultural determinism. Simply put, Buchanan understands political behavior as determined by cultural identity.
I would never accuse Buchanan of being a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer, but Mein Kampf is an outstanding product of the same understanding of political behavior as Buchanan's. It's evident that Obama's 'multi-culturalism' is functionally a kind of Identity Politics also based on cultural determinism.
The wrinkle in all of this concerns corporate media --"political arrangements are determined by the mass media images that people see, and ... these, by displacing other forms of culture, determine ... economic and political arrangements."
See, brief Wikipedia article, Cultural_determinism.
This is the best I can do to answer Robert Oak's question -- "What it is about truth here that's such an issue for so many?"
It's like this:
Truth is passé. Anyway, "everybody knows."
How do we distinguish truth from propaganda? And, beyond that, why should we distinguish truth from propaganda? That involves a lot of work, and what's in it for me? Besides, even if I figure something out, nobody else is going to listen to me unless we happen to already agree. So what's the point?
What is the point of statistics when there is no common ground of experiential reality other than what "everybody knows" anyway?
Okay, "negotiations continue" ... then maybe register and post more accurately about those negotiations.
EP followers like myself, we actually like information. Robert Oak can't get enough of it.
So, if you want more precise reporting on Verizon vs. union, post away! People will actually read your comments carefully.
Well, one thing is certain, your opinion is just that. The end of the strike without a new contract or negotiated terms is perceived as failure by many in labor and in the press. When the strike ending, the defeat was headline news, as keyword defeat. Writing a minor comment is not inaccurate reporting and more to the point, this post is about initial unemployment claims and it's implications for the current and September unemployment rate.
Not only is the data accurate, if one notes the point of mentioning Verizon is to determine what initial claims would be w/o the striking workers claims.
This article is not on collective bargaining, unions, negotiations and debate on what defines defeat.
The article is on initial unemployment claims, data and correlation to overall unemployment and economic malaise on a macro level. It also is about Wall street traders reacting to this weekly report as being quite invalid as a major macro economic indicator or even an employment indicator. There is way too much noise in this data metric for that. EOM.
Obviously comments do not have to be accurate and objective by the fact yours was allowed.
As someone who worked for Verizon and lived through 4 strikes let me just say that "where workers went back in defeat" is an inaccurate statement. They went back while negotiations continue. They can always come back out again if negotiations fail. This is not the first time that this has happened. The fact that they went back at all only means that both sides were feeling the negative effects.
You really need to be more precise in your reporting.
I stopped reading after that statement since it so very obvious that whoever wrote this has no insight into Verizon and the labor practices there. I don't think I'll be inclined to lend any credence to your publication going forward.
I think you mean loopholes and legislation written by and for corporate lobbyists that is passed into law. Almost everything that is passed into law these days seems to be written by corporate lobbyists. I wonder if Congressional legislative staffers have much to do it's so bad.
We have covered many a corrupt bill as it's happening on this site. To the left are a host of writers who do cover corrupt bills and scams through bought and paid for government officials.
As I read yet another article explaining the insanity of the Wall Street fleecing of America, I am realizing that the worst part is that Americans have become so complacent and accommodating to their corporate masters that they are not even batting an eye. I think Jesus had it right when he threw the money changers out of the temple as they are sycophants of the real economy and use underhanded tactics and deceit to earn money beyond their worth.
I am interested in tracing the direct line between wall street's support of Congress and the dysfunctional legislation, which has allowed this nonsense to continue unchecked. Does anyone know a good place which discusses this specific topic?
Hate to tell you this, while corporate lobbyist white papers spin statistics, without raw statistics and data your average joe cannot find out what the truth is.
Average Joes in the U.S., while clearly the majority of Americans cannot even understand ratios, fractions...
There are a whole lot, probably over a million, average Joes who not only understand ratios and fractions, but understand complex concepts like correlation and standard deviation!
Take away raw statistics we're in much worse trouble.
What it is about truth here that's such an issue for so many?
The average joe blow wouldn't know what to do with that stats. Its up to the agenda driven who use it to con the poor average public.
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