By Business Insider on July 18th 2010
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace. So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and “free trade” that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn’t tell us that the “global economy” would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.
83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people
61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007
66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans
36 percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings
A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement
24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year
Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008
Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975
For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together
In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one
By Zero Hedge on July 30th 2010
Expectations at 62.3 vs consensus of 61.3 (previous 60.6), and Conditions at 76.5 vs 76 (previous 75.5). And with this latest self fulfilling prophecy report out of the propaganda bureau, expect stocks to promptly go green as the ugly GDP number is all but forgotten. This report brings today’s official economic release docket to a close. . . . → Read More: UMich Consumer Confidence Comes Better Than Expected, At 67.8 On Consensus Of 67
By Zero Hedge on July 30th 2010
It appears the earlier market rumor about a Chicago PMI of 53.6 that sent the SPOOs another leg lower were incorrect. Now if only the administration can please reconcile the drop in the economy with the PMI surge all will be forgiven. In the meantime stocks keep trading from headline to headline. Categories posting improvement include . . . → Read More: Chicago PMI At 62.3 Versus Expectations Of 56 Print
By Zero Hedge on July 30th 2010
Markets in a Flash
·
Asian equity markets closed
down across the board last night. The Nikkei was down -1.64%, while the Shanghai index was down
-0.4%.
·
European equity markets are
falling this morning ahead of the US GDP figures. The FTSE 100 is down -0.57% at
lunchtime London
time.
·
Commodities are mixed in today
trading session. Oil is falling back in correlation with equities while . . . → Read More: Pivotfarm Daily News Harvest 30th July 2010
By Market Ticker on July 30th 2010
“Here it comes”……
LiesMan on CNBS is spooging himself with “wow”s.
Well, the futures disagree. And so do I.
Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter of 2010, (that is, from the . . . → Read More: GDP Report: Liar Liar Pants On Fire
By Zero Hedge on July 30th 2010
Asian stocks lower on Friday ahead of fresh growth numbers from the US.
Japan’s industrial prodn unexpectedly fell 1.5% in June on expectations of lower exports.
US close to Japan-style deflation, Bullard, a voting member of the Fed Reserve says.
Alcatel-Lucent swings to Q2 loss of €184M on a 2.4% decline in revs to €3.8B.
American Apparel shares fall as . . . → Read More: Daily Highlights: 7.30.10
By Zero Hedge on July 30th 2010
As I have warned ad nauseum, the problems in Europe are being signicantly underestimated. From CNBC: Spain Jobless Rate up to 20.09 Percent
Spain’s unemployment rate rose
to a 13-year high of 20.09 percent in the second quarter, the government
said Friday, as the job market lagged behind an economy that has barely
managed to break out of . . . → Read More: Spain Reports 20%+ Unemployment, a Structural Problem That May Persist For Some Time
By Zero Hedge on July 30th 2010
With everyone focusing on today’s GDP, it is easy to ignore the other relevant economic data to be released in the one and a half hour block before 10am. In order of appearance, they are: Q2 GDP,the employment cost index, the Chicago PMI, and the final UMichigan consumer sentiment. Below is a summary from a rather . . . → Read More: Here Is What To Watch Out For Today In Addition To GDP (Consensus At 2.6%, Range 1.0%-4.0%)
By Zero Hedge on July 30th 2010
As expected, the tight correlation between European interbank funding rates and the EURUSD FX rate continues: today, we have seen the first inflection point in both 3M Euribor and 3M EUR Libor, as both have dropped marginally lower, the first from 0.899 to 0.896, the second from 0.83344% to 0.8325%: this is the first decline since . . . → Read More: Drop In Euribor And EUR Libor Causes Sharp Drop In Euro As Funding-FX Correlation Persists
By Zero Hedge on July 30th 2010
Goldman Sachs issued a new corporate policy banning the use
of all swear words and even the use of bleeped swear words such as f***k and s**t
from corporate emails and texts sent on corporate issued cell phones. The new
policy comes on the heels of recent embarrassing leaks of profanity-laced
emails that were made public in Congressional testimony including . . . → Read More: This Week in Financial Sarcasm: Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab, Formula Capital & the SEC
By Mish on July 30th 2010
Every time there is a little blip by China in its purchasing or holding of US treasuries, hyperinflationists come out of the woodwork ranting about the “Nuclear Option” of China dumping treasuries en masse.
Such fears are extremely overblown for several reasons.
1. China’s purchasing of US assets is primarily a balance of trade issue. If the US . . . → Read More: Should China Dump Dollars for Commodities? What about the "Nuclear Option" of Dumping Treasuries? Can Global Trade Collapse?
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