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.

Quick Overview

• Crude oil prices jumped to over $70 a barrel for the first time in overnight trading in response to Hurricane Katrina, which blew through the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend and made landfall into Louisiana and Mississippi early Monday. However many of this morning's price moves did not survive the day.

• An important natural-gas pipeline hub in Louisiana reopened Monday after closing due to Hurricane Katrina. The Henry Hub was closed Sunday. Returning personnel found no significant damage, owner and operator Sabine Pipe Line LLC said on its site Monday.

• The Bush administration said it would consider loaning crude oil from the government's emergency stockpile, if requested by U.S. refiners facing delayed shipments due to the Hurricane.
  
  

• With the peak shipping season in full force, intermodal container traffic for the week ended Aug. 20 was the highest week ever on record, the Association of American Railroads said.
  
  

• The USDA's good to excellent crop rating for:
  Corn was 52%, up from 50% a week ago.
  Soybeans were 53%, up from 52% a week ago.
  Cotton was 65%, up from 63% a week ago.
  

• Lumber closed up its $10 daily limit to $280.20 with many expecting bigger lumber demand after Hurricane Katrina.
  

• GDP in the Philippines was up 1.4% in the second quarter and up 4.8% YoY.
  

On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Bot
CptPokr is a robot. Unlike the other icons at the table, there is no human placing his bets and playing his cards. He is controlled by WinHoldEm, the first commercially available autoplaying poker software. Seat him at the table and he will apply strategy gleaned from decades of research. While carbon-based players munch Ding Dongs, yawn, guzzle beer, reply to email, take phone calls, and chat on IM, CptPokr (a pseudonym) is running the numbers so it will know, statistically, when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

Where has all the money gone?
Paul Bremer, the American pro-consul in Baghdad until June last year, kept a slush fund of nearly $600 million cash for which there is no paperwork: $200 million of this was kept in a room in one of Saddam’s former palaces, and the US soldier in charge used to keep the key to the room in his backpack, which he left on his desk when he popped out for lunch.

Foreign markets leave U.S. in the dust
Zero in on a major city with a stock exchange: Paris. Tokyo. Toronto. Sydney.
Not to be overlooked: Czech Republic, Austria, Denmark, Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Russia, and Slovakia.

Quick Overview

• Greenspan on Friday cautioned Americans against thinking the value of their homes and other investments will only go higher, saying "history has not dealt kindly" with that kind of optimism.
  

• The University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment dropped from 92.8 to 89.1 in August – weaker
  

• Mexico's central bank pushed interest rates lower on Friday for the first time in over three years to give the soft economy a boost, now that inflation is under control. YoY
  

• Consumer prices in Canada were up 2.0% in July - less than expected.
  

• GDP in the U.K. increased 0.5% in the second quarter and 1.8% YoY.
  

• Japans consumer prices were down 0.1% in July and down 0.3% YoY.
  

• Hong Kong's GDP was up 3% in the second quarter and up 6.8% YoY..
  

Anti-Aging Hormone" Found in Mice; May Help Humans Researchers have dramatically increased the life spans of mice by up to 30 percent by genetically engineering them to overproduce a protein called klotho. The gene regulates production of klotho protein, which the study team says works like an anti-aging hormone. Kotho is involved in the suppression of insulin-signaling pathways -- a process...

U.S. Mint confiscates 10 rare gold coins
The U.S. Mint seized 10 Double Eagle gold coins from 1933..
The coins, which are so rare that their value is almost beyond calculation, are public property, he said.

Housing debate: Is boom still on or is it flattening?
On Tuesday, some analysts said the boom was definitively going south, based on a report from the National Association of Realtors that sales of existing homes slipped 2.6 percent from June to July.

Yesterday, however, the Commerce Department reported that new-home sales hit a record high last month, up 6.5 percent from June. That sent some pontificators the opposite way, saying the boom lives on.

What's going on? Is a housing "bubble" about to burst or not?

Rolling Blackouts Cut Power in California
Sweltering late-summer heat and the loss of key transmission lines Thursday forced power officials in Southern California to impose rolling blackouts, leaving as many as half a million people without power for an hour at a time, officials said.

Quick Overview

• The number of U.S. workers filing for initial unemployment benefits fell by 4,000 to 315,000 for the week ended Aug. 20, the Labor Department reported Thursday
  
  
  

• YoY Consumer prices in Germany were up 1.9% in August.
  

• Japan's exports were up 4.3% in July and imports were up 11.6%.
  

• The International Cocoa Organization upped the 2004-2005 world cocoa production shortfall from 44,000 tons to 106,000 tons. They expect 2004-2005 world net production to total 3.16 million tons and world grindings to total 3.27 million tons.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. Commerce Department said that new home sales were at an annual rate of 1.41 million units in July, up 6.5% from June's rate and stronger than anticipated. So far in 2005, new home sales are up 8% from a year ago.
  

• The New York Federal Reserve Bank said it has called a Sept. 15 meeting of top banks to discuss the risks of credit derivatives.
  

• China expects to push steadily forward with reforms of the Yuan to guarantee the country's economic and financial stability, a top government economist said on Wednesday.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
  Crude oil supplies were up 1.8 million barrels to 322.9 million barrels.
  Unleaded gasoline supplies were down 3.2 million barrels .
  Heating oil supplies were up 900,000 barrels.
  
  

• U.S. Durable goods orders were down 4.9% in July, the largest monthly drop in over a year. Exclusive of transport, orders fell 3.2% for the month.
  

• An index of U.K. factory orders fell from -20 to -29 in July, the lowest in almost two years.

• U.S. existing home sales were at an annual rate of 7.16 million units in July, down 2.6% for the month.
  

• Mexico's trade deficit narrowed to $619 million in July as high oil prices lifted export revenues.
  

• Canada's composite index of leading indicators rose 0.3% in July to 205.2.
  

• An index of services in Japan increased 1% in June.
  

• South African gold production in the second quarter of 2005 fell by 2.4 percent versus the first quarter and by a significant 18 percent on a year-on-year basis when compared to the second quarter of 2004, the Chamber of Mines said on Tuesday.
  

Boom and bust at sea
How long can the good times last for the shipping industry?

The Baltic Exchange's dry index—covering bulk-cargo rates on the world's 23 busiest sea routes—hit 6,200 in 2004, up from below 900 in 2001. Container shipping and other cargo rates also increased.

Quick Overview

• The USDA's good to excellent rating for:
  Corn was 50%, down from 51% last week.
  Soybeans were 52%, up from 51% last week.
  Cotton was 63%, down from 64% last week.
  

• YoY Industrial production in Argentina rose a weaker-than-expected 6.7 percent in July.
  

• The Chicago Board of Trade and the Singapore Exchange said on Monday the two markets are looking into opening a derivatives exchange in Singapore to trade Asian-based commodities.
  

• Canadian Retail sales were C$30.8 billion in June, up 1.1% on the month and up 6.8% YoY.
  

• The USDA said there were 50.2 million pounds of frozen bellies in storage, up 115% YoY. Frozen pork inventories totaled 446 million pounds, up 21% YoY.
  

• The USDA said there were 1.50 billion pounds of frozen orange juice in U.S. cold storage on July 31st, down 23% YoY.
  
  

Global: A Global Inventory Pop?
The data are fairly conclusive in suggesting that an inventory correction has just occurred in the three largest economies of the world -- the US, Japan, and Europe

Break on Foreign-Profit Tax Means Billions to U.S. Firms

Prompted by a one-time tax holiday on profits earned abroad, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. announced early this year that it would bring home $8 billion to boost research and development spending, capital investments and other job-creating ventures