Update: -3.8%…Market Mover Tomorrow:4Q GDP…8:30am EST…
UPDATE: Number came in better than expected, the economy shrank 3.8% in Q4, traders are taking it with a Morton’s shaker of salt since this is the preliminary advance number and subject to revision….but no g’news is good g’news as Gary Gnu knows….
….The Commerce Department on Friday said gross domestic product, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, plummeted at a 3.8 percent annual rate, the lowest pace since the first quarter of 1982, when output contracted 6.4 percent. GDP fell 0.5 percent in the third quarter. These were the first consecutive declines in GDP since the fourth quarter of 1990 and the first three months of 1991.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP contracting 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter. The U.S. economy slipped into recession in December 2007, driven by the collapse of the housing market and resulting global credit crisis….
From Briefing.com:
…Investors now turn their focus to the advance fourth quarter GDP report, which is due tomorrow morning (8:30 AM ET). Given the challenges facing the economy, the consensus forecast calls for a 5.5% annualized fourth quarter decline in GDP.
Anything more than a 5.5% drop and I think the market will sell-off again and after POTUS and Dodd comments on clawbacks of CEO compensation and the ‘shameful’ behavior of bonus -accepting Wall St. Executives, I think we are primed for financials to test the Nov 20 lows…
The markets (and the people) are waiting for the new Administration to step up to the plate on housing and TARP II recapitalization/rescue/split/nationalization of the banking system..
We need certainty of some sort..and the best we can get is a definitive plan from the Obama A Team of Economic Advisers..I suggest they stop waiting on this stimulus to pass and get their TARP/Bank plan out there NOW…
Video Update: New Home Sales Figures Released….
Video Update: CNBC Diana Olick on Deeds in Lieu of Foreclosure increases (jingle mail) and David Faber earlier this month on pending ‘wave’ of foreclosures:
both clips courtesy of RealDealNews:
CNBC’s Diana Olick, Susan Wachter of Wharton Business School, Carl Horowitz of the National Legal and Policy Center and CNBC’s Tyler Mathisen last week discussed the fact that banks and homeowners are increasingly choosing not to go through the foreclosure process. Instead, homeowners are voluntarily giving their homes to the bank. Horowitz said that allowing homeowners to avoid the foreclosure process implies that there are no negative consequences to not paying a mortgage. Wachter said mortgage servicers receive incentives for allowing some mortgages to fall into foreclosure
On CNBC this week, housing analyst Ivy Zelman, CEO of Zelman and Associates, said there is a “tsunami of foreclosures and short sales still to come” over the next several years because of Alt-A and Option ARM loans. Zelman said that the housing market in 2009 will be worse than 2008 because of an oversupply of distressed inventory with home values dropping between 20 and 30 percent
And the beat beating in housing goes on….AWFUL NUMBERS!
CNBC Diana Olick reporting…read her excellent blog here on the housing beat…
New Home Sales PLUNGED 14.7% in December compared to a drop of 4.4% in November…a record low
Inventory-14.7 12.9 months supply, up from 12 months supply in November..
December Median New Home Sale Price $206,500 DOWN 9.3% FROM $227,000 A YEAR EARLIER!!!!! see the drop-off is escalating …WE NEED HOLC!!
Diana sums up PRICES GOING DOWN, INVENTORY GOING UP..why can’t they sell the homes, she asks..FORECLOSURES she says, WORD DIANA WORD!
PS new jobless claims came out and we are now averaging a loss of over a half million jobs a week..but don’t worry Congress is going to RAISE OUR UTILITY PRICES to help us, maroons!
Update: Quinn sworn-in…Blago impeached…Rod ‘Byron’ Blagojevich Speaks at Impeachment….
Update: Senate impeaches 59-0. Quinn has been sworn-in. May he serve the people of Illinois well.
Update 4: 12:45 pm EST: Blago just choked up talking about a woman who takes the train to work and the hours she works and her hard life…ah okay he is linking it to his policies and AllCare and how the actions he is charged with helped her life and her family’s life…and how he went around legislative gridlock and he confessed maybe he was frustrated and he pushed too hard and maybe he fights too much but it aint about him..charge it to my heart a desire to help families like I came from…
he says this sets a dangerous precedent for America, and how no wrong doing has been proven and his right to bring in certain witnesses was denied and what future Governors will face if he is thrown out of office under these circumstances..
More on ‘Decoupling’ Utility Billing
The Amendment to remove this ‘decoupling’ from the Stimulus Bill passed the Energy Cmte but was ‘removed’ from consideration by the ROOLZ Cmte, (ugh ROOLZ CMTE, gives all of us a flashback to the horror of the May 31 RBC doesn’t it?) Anywho under Pelosi’s new ROOLZ, they have total control over what is offered so the Amendment never even got to the floor..result- Decoupling utility rates from usage IS in the bill as passed by the House…call your Senators!!
From The Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana:
Electric Utility Decoupling
Duke Energy has hijacked the stimulus bill by successfully lobbying for the inclusion of an amendment regarding the decoupling of electric rates. (See Wall Street Journal website: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123266431226307785.html)This amendment presents a veiled attempt at another corporate bailout. The concept of decoupling results in taking most of the savings ratepayers receive from energy efficiency in the form of reduced utility bills and handing the vast majority of those savings over to utility companies.
What Duke’s Amendment Does:
Duke Energy’s amendment ties energy efficiency block grants to states to the governor of a state telling the federal government that he/she will seek favorable rate treatment for utilities in the form of decoupling. In other words, if the governor is not willing to sell ratepayers out, the state will not receive money to assist homeowners and businesses in reducing their energy bills and saving money.Why Duke’s Amendment Must be Removed:
There is nothing more important to the middle class now than the concept of affordability. It is obviously clear that issues once considered the realm of low-income families are becoming middle class issues. People can’t afford their health care insurance or bills, their mortgages, retiring, the kids’ educations etc, — and Democrats decide to hand windfall profits to rich utility companies??It makes no sense whatsoever to convert ratepayer savings into utility profits under the current circumstances. It makes absolutely no sense to tie energy efficiency block grants to states under the stimulus package to utility malfeasance.
Please Take Action Today!
Please call your Congressperson ((202) 224-3121) and Henry Waxman ((202) 225-3976), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
- Urge them to use at least 50% of the transportation funding for public transit.
- Urge them to remove the decoupling amendment so that residential and business ratepayers are not punished for saving energy.
- Tell them that affordability of utility bills is paramount to people keeping their homes and maintaining slim profit margins for small businesses.
- Tell them that decoupling is a slap in the face to people who have been suffering for years under financial duress.
- Tell them that decoupling is not in keeping with the President’s message of positive change for the people but, instead, reinforces continued corporate high jacking of our economy and incomes on behalf of short term profit motive.
Why dropping Housing Values affect us all..school budgets slashed and burned…
Here is the battle we are facing in Arizona..our DEM Governor has been tapped as DHS Secretary and our GOP SoS has taken over…the plummeting housing values have crippled the budget and here comes the GOP with their red pen..
This is why we NEED HOLC, we will not recover until a floor is put under housing….and frankly states with large immigrant populations that spend so much of their budgets on english as a second language need more money from the budget as long as that is in our mandate…
Republican Legislators Propose Heavy Education Cuts
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PHOENIX (By Mary Jo Pitzl, Arizona Republic) — The state could eliminate all-day kindergarten and save $218.3 million next year, according to a plan presented to lawmakers this week.
And there could be an additional $218 million in savings in the budget year that starts July 1 if lawmakers opt to suspend money sent to the schools for such things as furniture, textbooks and school buses.
No cuts to these programs are proposed for the current year.
These are among the details contained in a phone-book-size document released Friday. It outlines more than 500 budget-cutting options from the state’s two budget chairmen to help the state close a $1.6 billion deficit this year, as well as an anticipated $3 billion deficit in 2009-10.
The proposal would phase out state money to help schools pay bonuses to experienced and excelling teachers. Schools would need to cut teaching positions and increase class sizes, said Tom Horne, state superintendent of public instruction.
“It would be harder to attract and retain qualified teachers, and that’s the real impact,” Horne said.
Lawmakers were presented with the generalized plan Thursday but didn’t get the details until Friday.
And some were quick to note that the “budget options” plan is far from a final deal.
“Those options are just that . . . options,” Rep. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa, said in a news release. “Those options did not come from House leadership but do demonstrate how bad the state’s budget situation is for the foreseeable future.”
Crandall, chairman of the House Education Committee, said he was stung by the suggestion that the options represent the will of the Legislature’s Republican leadership.
Rather, they are ideas set out by House Appropriations Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, and his Senate counterpart, Russell Pearce, R-Mesa.
The two budget chairmen told lawmakers the options are a starting point for revising this year’s budget, as well as building a new budget for 2009-10.
But they cautioned that if any lawmaker wants to rule out an option, he or she must suggest a cut elsewhere to keep the plan in balance. And as far as the current-year budget is concerned, they said there is little time to spare. Kavanagh and Pearce said they want to get a revised fiscal 2009 budget finished by Jan. 31.
“You can’t wait. Every day lawmakers delay, spending continues unabated,” Pearce said Thursday.
Among other details in the options budget:
• Eliminate the KidsCare health-care program, for a savings of $18.3 million this year and $35.6 million next year. The program provides health care to nearly 63,000 Arizona children. These children come from families that do not qualify for the state’s Medicare program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, but whose incomes fall below 200 percent of the federal poverty level of $21,200 for a family of four.
• Eliminate KidsCare Parents, a companion program to KidsCare that covers parents. Ending the program would save $4.7 million this year and $7.3 million next year.
• Cut funding to the Arizona Board of Regents by $26 million this year and $58 million next year. Among the options: Take the official enrollment count on the 45th day of the semester, rather than the current standard of the 21st day. Typically, enrollment is lower later in the semester.
• Save $115 million by cutting various university programs this year, mostly through lump-sum reductions. Another $178 million in savings is suggested for 2009-10.
In a news release, Arizona State University President Michael Crow called the options plan a blueprint for putting Arizona “on the path to resembling a Third World country.”
For Billy Powell….(Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist passes away)
God Bless him and his family and friends..thank you for the music…
via Bazooka270: Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines died in the plane crash in 1977. In 1987, Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited for a full-scale tour with crash survivors Gary Rossington, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson and Artimus Pyle and former guitarist Ed King. Ronnie Van Zant’s younger brother, Johnny, took over as the new lead singer and primary songwriter. This video here is the reunited Lynyrd Skynyrd with Johnny Van Zant as lead vocalist.
…The Jacksonville-based band was formed in 1966 by a group of high school students — famously, it took its name from a P.E. teacher they disliked, Leonard Skinner. Powell joined the group around 1972, the year before they released their first album, “Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd.”
It became one of the South’s most popular rock groups, and gained national fame with such hits as “Free Bird,” “What’s Your Name” and especially “Sweet Home Alabama,” which reached the top 10 on the national charts in 1974.
The band was decimated on Oct. 20, 1977, when their chartered plane crashed in a swamp near McComb, Miss.
-snip-
Two years after the accident, Powell and fellow members Allen Collins, Gary Rossington and Leon Wilkeson formed the Rossington-Collins Band. It broke up in 1982.
Powell was on hand again in 1991 when a revived version of the band put out a new album, “Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991” and launched a tour in Baton Rouge, La., where the band was headed in 1977 when the plane crashed. Fans who kept their tickets from the canceled 1977 concert were admitted free.
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.
Update..Stimulus Hidden Gem: ‘Decoupling’ Billing Model for Electricity for Consumers…does NOT go by usage…
Update: Okay, it’s called ‘decoupling’ BWAAAHAAAA!!! Anyone that follows the street can tell you how the last ‘decoupling’ theory went. HA!
(they said the US was decoupled from the global markets when we US consumers tanked beginning in 05 and they were fiddling while Rome burned, turns out..not so much and we took the global economy down with us, cause it is apparently STILL the American consumer that turns the world’s economies)
Anywho apparently the NRDC (of which I am a member), thinks it’s just the cats pajamas and CA does it this way yada yada yada. Okay and CA also isn’t sending out tax refund checks cause they have no money so don’t sell me that way.
ginaswo
