The Producer Price Index, or wholesale inflation, increased 0.4% in February 2012 for finished goods. Energy alone increased 1.3% with gas jumping 4.3%. Core PPI, which is finished goods minus food and energy, increased 0.2% and is the 3rd month in a row for an increase. Food alone declined -0.1%. While this is wholesale, retail shoppers beware, price increases are usually passed onto consumers.
Initial weekly unemployment claims for the week ending on March 10th, 2012 were 351,000. The DOL reports this as a decrease of 14,000 from last week. The previous week was revised, from 362,000 to 365,000, an increase of 3,000. This is the lowest number of people filing for unemployment reported in four years, March 2008.
The U.S. will file a complaint at the World Trade Organization today over Chinese limits on exports of rare earths used in high-tech products, deepening a trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.
President Barack Obama will personally announce the action to join Japan and the European Union in requesting consultations with China at the Geneva-based trade arbiter over rare-earths shipments.
This quote describes the new corporate culture exposed by ex-Goldman Sachs employee Greg Smith. In a scathing commentary, Smith says Goldman Sachs preys off of their clients and the company is all about making money...for Goldman Sachs and themselves, that is. Internally they call clients Muppets, institutions and people to milk money from.
It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.
The January 2012 U.S. trade deficit increased $2.14 billion to $52.57 billion in a month. This is a 4.25% increase from last month in the trade deficit and the highest since October 2008. December's trade deficit was significantly revised up by $1.62 billion.
Moody's Investors Service says that it considers Greece (C/no outlook) to have defaulted per Moody's default definitions further to the conclusion of an exchange of EUR177 billion of Greece's debt that is governed by Greek law for bonds issued by the Greek government, GDP-linked securities, European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) notes. Foreign-law bonds are eligible for the same offer, and Moody's expects a similar debt exchange to proceed with these bondholders, as well as the holders of state-owned enterprise debt that has been guaranteed by the state, in the coming weeks. The respective securities will enter our default statistics at the tender expiration date, which is was Thursday 8 March for the Greek law bonds and is currently expected to be 23 March for foreign law bonds. Greece's government bond rating remains unchanged at C, the lowest rating on Moody's rating scale.
Moody's understands that 85.8% of debtholders holding Greek-law bonds issued by the sovereign have agreed to the exchange, with the vast majority of remaining bondholders likely to be drawn in following the exercise of Collective Action Clauses that will be inserted pursuant to a recent Act by the Greek parliament. The terms of the exchange entail a discount -- a loss to creditors -- of at least 70% on the net present value of existing debt.
The Q4 2011 Federal Reserve's flow of funds report is more bad news for Americans, plus holds some obscene statistics from corporate America. Household wealth increased $1.191 trillion to $58.455 trillion in Q4 2011, but is down by $369 billion, from Q4, 2010, or -0.63%. In comparison to the end of 2007, household wealth is still down -$6.743 trillion, or -10.34%. Below is a graph of annual household net worth.
Pundits and press love to gush over the employment report the minute they see proof of life Yet, things are still not rosy. The new official unemployed tally is 12,806,000. The average length of unemployment is still very high, 40.0 weeks, even while dropping a 10th of a percentage point from last month.
It must be an election year. The Obama administration has 
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Moody's has proclaimed
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