Current account gap shrinks

The current account, the broadest measure of U.S. trade with the rest of the world as it includes investment flows, ran at 6.3 percent of gross domestic product in the second quarter compared with 6.5 percent in the previous three months, a Commerce Department official said.

Quick Overview

• Crude oil prices fell for the fifth day in six on signs that higher prices are slowing global demand. OPEC may decide to increase oil production by another 500,000 barrels a day when they meet in Vienna on Monday
  
  

• The University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index for September fell to 76.9 from 89.1 in August, the biggest one-month drop since 1980.
  
  
• Argentina's central bank may increase gold reserves as a hedge against inflation and protection against a financial crisis, Juan Ignacio Basco, bank head of market operations, said yesterday in London

• U.S. Benchmark gold futures closed at a 17-year high on Friday because of a robust demand for bullion. "Fiat currencies at 17-year low."

Quick Overview

• The global financial system has strengthened over the past year, giving it a substantial cushion against potential financial shocks, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.
  
  

• OPEC, whose members pump more than a third of the world's oil, lowered its forecast for growth in world oil demand for a fifth consecutive month, citing lower predicted demand in the United States and China, Bloomberg reported.
  
  

• Prices paid by consumers rose 0.5% in August, while the so-called "core" consumer price index, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1%, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
  
  

• Manufacturing growth in New York state declined this month as costs rose, according to a monthly survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released Thursday.
  
  

• The number of U.S. workers filing initial unemployment benefits jumped by 71,000 last week in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the biggest jump in more than nine years.
  
  

• Business inventories fell 0.5% in July, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
  
  

• The Canadian Press said today the agricultural losses from Hurricane Katrina total $3 billion with the largest part coming from the timber industry. $2 billion losses are in Mississippi and $1 billion are in Louisiana. Damage also occurred to cotton fields, pecan trees, poultry, cattle, and dairy operations.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that underground supplies of natural gas were up 89 billion cubic feet last week to 2.758 trillion cubic feet. YoY supplies are now down 4%. The U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) said that 34% of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico is still closed.
  

• Chinese fixed-asset investment in August grew a stronger-than-expected 28.5 percent from a year earlier, as heavy spending on energy and transportation offset a cooling property sector.
  

• Retail sales in the U.K. were flat in August, weaker than expected.
  

• The Green Coffee Association said that U.S. coffee stocks totaled 4.33 million bags at the end of August, down 121,189 bags for the month.

Home Prices Jump 17% in Southland

The median home price in the six-county region rose 17% to $476,000 last month compared with the year-earlier period, after year-over-year increases of 16.7% in July and 15% in June, according to DataQuick Information

Quick Overview

• Retail sales fell 2.1% in August from the previous month, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday--the biggest drop in four years.
  

• Production at U.S. factories, mines and utilities rose a less-than-expected 0.1% in August, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.
  

• The Mortgage Bankers Association said its index of total mortgage applications for home purchase and refinancing loans fell 1.4 percent to 760.6 in the week ended September 9. The index rose 6.8 percent in the previous week
  
  

• The U.S. DoE said that:
  Crude Oil supplies were down 6.6 million barrels last week to 308.4 million barrels.
  Unleaded gasoline supplies were up 1.9 million barrels
  Heating oil supplies were up 400,000 barrels.
  The DOE also said that the nation's refineries were operating at 87.3% of capacity, up from 86.8% the week before.
  
  

• Repairing roads and bridges damaged by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast states could cost as much as $5 billion, Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said Tuesday after touring the region, Bloomberg reported.
  

• Reuters news reported that the Port of New Orleans is gradually returning to business after being closed for two weeks. They said that two of the port's 27 terminals were in service and operations are expected to slowly resume.
  

• Argentine stocks closed at a record high on Wednesday, led by a rise in banking shares on speculation of a possible share buyback for BBVA Banco Frances by its Spanish parent, traders said
  

• The Bank of Japan is "very close" to ending its ultra-loose monetary policy, its deputy governor said yesterday, although he stressed that current policy would be maintained until deflationary expectations were eradicated.
  

• Unemployment in the U.K remained at 4.7%.
  

• Canada's manufacturing shipments were down 1.4% in July to C$50.1 billion.
  

• YoY China's industrial production was up 16%.
  

Economic lunacy

According to a couple of poorly trained economists, there's a bright side to Hurricane Katrina's destruction...

There Are No Commies in China
Fred just finished the last bag-drag back from China...

Quick Overview

• U.S. consumer confidence in the economy fell to its lowest level since June 2004, driven down by the concerns over high gasoline prices and Hurricane Katrina's destruction along the Gulf Coast, ABC News and the Washington Post said on Tuesday.
  
  

• U.S. producer prices were up 0.6% in August and up 5.1% YoY. Excluding food and energy costs, prices were unchanged for the month.
  

• U.S. exports increased somewhat in July to $106.2 billion while imports fell a little to $164.2 billion.
  
  

• Hurricane Katrina's aftermath will have an isolated effect on the hiring prospects of U.S. employers, with nearly a third expecting to add to their payrolls in the fourth quarter, according to a survey by Manpower Inc., the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
  
  

• The federal government is beginning what some planners are calling one of the biggest bursts of federal housing development in U.S. history, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
  

• The U.S. government is considering temporarily reducing the tariff on Canadian lumber to make more building supplies available after Hurricane Katrina.
  
  
  

• The USDA's good to excellent crop rating for:
  Corn was 51%, unchanged from a week ago.
  Soybeans were 54%, unchanged from a week ago.
  Cotton was 65%, up from 64% a week ago.
  

• YoY Consumer prices in the U.K. were up 2.4% in August -- the most in eight years.
  

• Canadian exports totaled C$38.0 billion in July, up 2.1% on the month. Imports totaled C$32.2 billion, down 0.5% in July.
  

• YoY Retail sales in China were up 12.5% in August.

• The cost of shipping commodities such as iron ore, coal and crude oil is poised to rise through the rest of this year as Chinese steel mills and refineries increase imports, according to shipbroker Lorentzen & Stemoco said, Bloomberg reports .
  

A Monopoly on Life
Gandhi: “The individual has a soul, but the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from the violence to which it owes its very existence.”

China tops world with 80% foreign trade dependence:
China's foreign trade dependence has reached 80 percent, which is considerably higher than that of other developed and developing countries. China has become the country with the highest foreign trade dependence in the world.

Container throughput at Shanghai Port sets new high
The container throughput of the Shanghai Port increased by 27 percent year-on-year

Inflation fears send gold price to record levels

Recent figures have also revealed gold demand rose 14 per cent worldwide in the second quarter..

Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan
The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Cover-up: toxic waters 'will make New Orleans unsafe for a decade'

The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analysed. "Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.

Quick Overview

• Manufacturers are gearing up to supply everything from construction materials to home appliances in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday
  
  

• Hurricane Katrina will not do lasting harm to U.S. growth and the impact on monetary policy is unclear, a top Fed policymaker said on Monday, in remarks that reinforce expectations for a rate hike next week.
  

• The U.S. Minerals Management Services update showed that 57% of oil production and 38% of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico remain closed.
  
  
  

• The USDA's 2005-2006 U.S. crop estimate for:
  Corn was increased from 10.350 to 10.639 billion bushels.
  Soybeans were increased from 2.791 to 2.856 billion bushels.
  Wheat remained at 2.167 billion bushels.
  Sugar was lowered from 7.991 to 7.964 million tons.
  Cotton was increased from 21.29 to 22.28 million bales.
  
  

• The USDA's 2005-2006 U.S. ending stocks estimate for:
  Corn was increased from 1.900 to 2.079 billion bushels.
  Soybeans were increased from 180 to 205 million bushels.
  Wheat was lowered from 634 to 624 million bushels.
  Sugar was increased from .785 to 1.014 million tons.
  Cotton remained at 7.0 million bales.
  

• The USDA's good to excellent crop rating for:
  Corn was 51%, unchanged from a week ago.
  Soybeans were 54%, unchanged from a week ago.
  Cotton was 65%, up from 64% a week ago.
  
  

• The International Monetary Fund urged Beijing to introduce more flexibility for its yuan currency to help protect the Chinese economy and help correct global trade imbalances.
  

• Japan's GDP was up 0.8% in the second quarter, stronger than expected. For the first half of 2005, the GDP was up an annual rate of 4.6%.
  

Oil prices eating away at high-flying Chinese economy

Deutsche Bank said China is about five times as energy-intensive as the U.S. which means its takes five times as much energy to produce a dollar of GDP.

Chart of the day

Long term T-Bond Rate minus Discount Rate

Katrina's Costs Could Approach That of War
..costs are certain to climb to $200 billion in the coming weeks. The final accounting could approach the more than $300 billion spent in four years to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor

Like mother, like son.
Even when a hurricane hits, the apple does not fall far from the tree.

God Outdoes Terrorists Yet Again
As always, painfully funny truth from The Onion.

Indians just can't stop buying gold
The stats are mind-boggling. Compared to the first six months of ’04, India’s gold purchases are up by more than half, says leading independent precious metals consultancy, GFMS. Jewellery purchases in tonnage was up by more than 40%.

Quick Overview

• Petroleum costs pushed the cost of goods imported into the United States up by 1.3% in August, the Labor Department reported Friday. But other import prices remained subdued.
  
  

• Canada's unemployment rate in August was unchanged at 6.8%.
  

• France's industrial production was down 0.9% in July.
  

• The U.S. Minerals Management Service announced that 60% of oil production and 38% of natural gas production in the gulf remains closed.
  

• YoY South Africa's gold mining production was down 12% in July.

The Bush administration can indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen it determines to be an enemy combatant in the war on terrorism, a federal appeals court ruled.

When government fails

Most of the New Orleanians seeking public shelter are poor and black. Barbara Bush, the president’s mother, earned no thanks from him for her remark that because many survivors “were underprivileged anyway”, their Astrodome quarters are “working very well for them”.

Warnings were loud and clear - but still city drowned
With hindsight, it is clear that the seeds of what one Republican senator called yesterday the “woeful” government response were sown with shoddy planning..
..Despite calls since the September 11 attacks for a comprehensive new evacuation plan for New Orleans, the one in place last week had last been updated in 2000,..

In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. Dr. Samuel Johnson

FEMA Wants No Photos of Dead

U.N. Report Cites U.S. and Japan as the 'Least Generous Donors'
While crediting the United States with being the world's largest donor, the report points out that among the world's richest countries, America is second to last in aid as a portion of its national income, with Italy bringing up the rear. Japan was third from the bottom. Aid per capita from donors ranges from more than $200 in Sweden to $51 in the United States and $37 in Italy.

Seeking Oil in Troubled Waters
Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick has warned that Beijing's ties with 'troublesome' states such as Burma and Zimbabwe, were ''going to have repercussions elsewhere'' and the Chinese would have to decide if they wanted to pay the price.

Is FEMA Ready For Bay Area Earthquake?
We've never been able to get that message through to the Department of Homeland Security. The funding has systematically gone into terrorism and away from natural disasters," she said.

In fact, she says in the West Coast region -- covering the Bay Area -- the number of federal specialists dealing with earthquakes is a simple number: just one.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
  Supplies of crude oil were down 6.4 million barrels to 315.0 million barrels.
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline were down 4.3 million barrels
  Heating oil supplies were up 500,000 barrels.
  Refineries were running at 86.8% of capacity last week.
  Crude oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve remained unchanged at 700.5 million barrels.
  Underground supplies of natural gas were up 36 billion cubic feet last week to 2.669 trillion cubic feet. Supplies are now down 3% from a year ago.

• U.S. jobless claims were down 1,000 last week to 319,000. Job losses due to Hurricane Katrina were estimated at 10,000.
  

• U.S. wholesale sales were up 0.5% in July while inventories were down 0.1%.
  

• Today's USDA Drought Monitor shows extreme drought conditions hanging on in northern Illinois and southwest Arkansas.
  

• Japans index of coincident economic indicators was at 22.2% in July, an sign of contraction. Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui said on Thursday the BOJ would need to make sure deflation was well and truly beaten before scrapping its ultra-easy monetary policy, and he appeared to leave the door open to leaving rates at zero even once the policy was abandoned.
  

• The unemployment rate in Australia remained at 5.0% in August, the lowest in 29 years.
  

We are away - updates resume Friday, September 09, 2005

Experts: Too many people in nature's way
The expanding U.S. population "has migrated to hazard-prone areas — to Florida, the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, particularly barrier islands, to California :(

They cite examples of poorer nations that in ways do a better job than the rich:
No one was reported killed when Ivan struck Cuba in 2004, its worst hurricane in 50 years and a storm that, after weakening, killed 25 people in the United States

Oil
U.S. Refineries are struggling back. On Monday crude oil flows improved enough to allow 10 refineries in the Gulf Coast and Midwest to climb back up to full capacity. However four Gulf Coast refineries look to remain shut affecting some 5% of U.S. capacity.

Flood horrors the US can't hide

Perhaps now, following the disaster on the Gulf coast, the people of the US will wake up to the fact the current administration is not and never has been primarily concerned with the welfare of its citizens ..

..I'm sorry Bush had to cut his vacation short. But at least he got past war protester mom Cindy Sheehan without getting noticed. I'm really angry.

While Bush fiddles, New Orleans dies

With the water coming from the sky and the bottom of the sea, driving with such ferocity that a major American city, New Orleans, followed its face into the water, George W. Bush was at North Island in Coronado, Calif., speaking to a blindingly white audience of 9,000 sailors in uniform..

..Friday, showing up on the fifth day of a national tragedy, Bush made a little humorous aside about the times he was in New Orleans celebrating too much. Beautiful! If he tried to walk fifty yards he could have tripped over somebody's dead black grandmother under a blanket


"We need food and water and they sent us men with guns" : Katrina survivor

United States of Shame It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode


"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government": Thomas Jefferson:

Superdome Evacuations Temporarily Halted

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.

"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.

Chart of the day


The personal saving rate is now a negative 0.6%

Harder they fall: Sydney's biggest housing slump
With home prices in the city still about seven times the average annual wage - well above historic ratios of five times typical pay - economists are predicting more falls over the next five years.

Quick Overview

• Employers added 169,000 workers to payrolls in August and the unemployment rate fell to 4.9% from 5% in July, the Labor Department said Friday.

Disaster scenario for refining
a sizable proportion of gulf production has been shut down, including 95 per cent of oil and 88 per cent of natural gas, or 1.43 million barrels a day of oil and 8.8 billion cubic feet a day of gas. That represents about 20 per cent of the United States' oil production and a quarter of natural gas output.

No one can say they didn't see it coming
In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. ..

Quick Overview

• Wholesale gasoline prices continued to rise because Hurricane Katrina, and retail outlets in many states already were feeling a supply pinch and raising prices well above $3 a gallon, news services reported Thursday.
  

• The Department of Energy said that underground natural gas supplies were up 58 billion cubic feet last week to 2.633 trillion cubic feet. YoY supplies are down 2% . This before Katrina.
  

• The U.S. Minerals Management Service said today that 90% of oil production and 79% of natural gas production is still down in the Gulf of Mexico.
  

• Bloomberg.com is reporting that eight refineries are closed due to Hurricane Katrina and that it will may be a month or more before they are running again. Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy said that some refineries may not work again for several months.
  

• U.S. Jobless claims were up 3,000 to 320,000 last week.
  

• Personal spending jumped 1% in July as consumers continued to take advantage of automakers’ discounts, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
  

• YoY average U.S. home prices climbed 13.43 percent to June.
  

• The Institute for Supply Management said Thursday that its manufacturing index slowed in August to 53.6 from 56.6 in July.
  
  

• U.S. Construction spending held steady at a $1.099 trillion annual rate in July, stemming four straight monthly declines, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Lumber was up it's $10 limit.
  

• Brazil's economy grew at 3.9 percent from a year earlier more than expected.
  

• The European Central Bank kept it’s key interest rate unchanged at 2.0% and lessened its growth estimates for the Euro zone from 1.4% to 1.3% in 2005 and from 2.0% to 1.8% in 2006.
  

Fed's Santomero: Economy will survive Katrina
Santomero said that he still thinks the U.S. economy will grow at a 3.5% to 4% rate this year. He said the economy faces challenges from housing, high oil prices and the effects of the hurricane.

Ozone Layer Has Stopped Shrinking, U.S. Study Finds
An analysis of satellite records and surface monitoring instruments shows the ozone layer has grown a bit thicker in some parts of the world..

Bush: U.S. Must Protect Iraq From Terror
President Bush on Tuesday answered growing anti-war protests with a fresh reason for American troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields that he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.

Quick Overview

• Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Wednesday the Bush administration has decided to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help refiners meet any shortfalls because of Hurricane Katrina, news services reported.
  
  

• The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.3% in the second quarter, down from 3.8% in the first quarter, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.
  
  

• Manufacturing growth in the Chicago unexpectedly contracted from 63.5 to 49.2 in August, its first contraction in more than two years, the National Association of Purchasing Management-Chicago said in its monthly report issued Wednesday.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
• Crude oil supplies were down 1.5 million barrels last week to 321.4 million barrels.
• Supplies of unleaded gasoline were down 500,000 barrels
• Heating oil supplies were up 1.7 million barrels.
  

• Japans Industrial production was down 1.1%.
  

• Canada's GDP was up 0.2% in June and up 2.7% from a year ago.
  

• Germany's unemployment rate improved in August from 11.5% to 11.4% -- 4.728 million people are out of work.
  

• The increase in second quarter GDP in the Euro zone was revised down from 1.2% to 1.1% from a year ago.
  

When the levee breaks
It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.

Nagin: Entire City Will Soon Be Underwater
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is "very upset" that an attempt to fix the breach in the levee at the 17th Street canal has failed, and he said the challenges that the city is facing have "escalated to another level."...Nagin said the sandbagging was scheduled for midday, but the Blackhawk helicopters needed to help did not show up. He said the sandbags were ready and all the helicopter had to do was "show up."

Quick Overview

• The after-effects of Hurricane Katrina sent crude oil prices to a new record near $71 a barrel Tuesday as fuel traders braced for damage assessments of the storm on oil and gas rigs and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Gulf Coast, news services reported.
  
  

• Estimates of Hurricane Katrina’s economic damage were still coming in Tuesday, and ranged from $9 billion to as high as $26 billion, news services reported.
  
  
  

• Surging crude oil prices led to record demand for ethanol (Sugar, Corn, etc. ?) in June, according to data released by the U.S. Energy Information administration. The U.S. production of ethanol reached a record 343 million gallons, or 249,000 barrels per day in June, higher than the previous record of 245,000 set in February of this year.
  
  
  
  
• The number of orders placed with U.S. factories fell 1.9% in July to $387.8 billion, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday..
  

• The Conference Board said that its consumer confidence index increased from 103.6 to 105.6 in August, stronger than expected.
  

• Retail sales in Australia were down 1.0% in July.
  

• Retail sales in the U.K. showed another decline for the sixth consecutive month.
  

• Household spending in Japan was down 3.5% in July. Retail sales in July were down 2.2% and the unemployment rate rose from 4.2% to 4.4%.
  

• The U.S. poverty rate rose in 2004 for the fourth year in a row, driven by an increase in poor whites, the government said today.
  

• Surface trade among the U.S., Canada and Mexico rose 7.2% in June to $59.4 billion from a year earlier, the Department of Transportation reported.

• Dow Jones Newswires said that the coffee warehouses in New Orleans are under two feet of water, however it’s not clear how much actual damage there is.