Economic Data Shows Recovery More Than Elusive

This morning we had several key pieces of economic data in weekly jobless claims and in the ever-important reading of wholesale inflation measured via the producer price index.  Interestingly enough, the NY Fed manufacturing data showed an improvement.  Or at least it was less-bad.

PPI  was -1.9% for December on the headline, and the corereading on an ex-food and ex-energy basis showed a reading of +0.2%.Both were in-line with expectations.  PPI was expected at -2.0% on theheadline and -0.1% on the core reading.

The weekly jobless claims showed 524,000 people filed forbenefits, up 54,000 from last week.   Economists were looking forroughly 500,000 after two straight reports of under 500K.What is interesting is that the continuing jobless claims actuallyfell by 115,000 to 4.497 million.

The Empire Manufacturing index for January was -22.81, which isbetter than the -27.88 seen in December.  New orders continued nearrecord lows and shipments and employment continued to weaken.Manufacturers in the NY Fed district also predicted that they would seea workforce decline of 2.4% on average in the upcoming year.

What is becoming evident is that regardless of the economic data, thehopes of a V-Recovery in the economy are seemingly like they are dropping each day or each week.  The recession is real,even by the government’s own admission, and some are calling forthings to get far worse than 95% of our population has ever seen in ourlifetimes here in the U.S.

Jon C. Ogg
January 15, 2009