Daily news sites

The following chart shows the annual job growth using the quarterly average of the equally weighted government establishment and household employment surveys. I'm using the quarterly average to filter the noise out a bit.


Click to enlarge.

Perhaps an optimist can find something good in that chart, but I certainly can't (at least over the long-term and/or full business cycle anyway).

May 18, 2012
Recession Prediction



For what it is worth, the odds of me turning optimistic any time soon are somewhere between slim and none. Just so you know, slim left town. Put another way, I see little reason to change my long-standing prediction.

This is not investment advice. Predicting the future is a fool's game. That said, it might be even more foolish to ignore the risks entirely. It's certainly easy and popular these days though. I'll give you that.

January 6, 2014
Hussman Funds: Confidence Abounds

Hey, what do you know? No sarcasm this time, unless sheer unadulterated long-term employment chart terror counts. I don't think it does but it is certainly open for debate.

See Also:
The Overleveraged Cone of Shame

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

Reuters reports Target Corp and Neiman Marcus are not the only U.S. retailers whose networks were breached over the holiday shopping season last year, according to sources familiar with attacks on other merchants that have yet to be publicly disclosed.


Smaller breaches on at least three other well-known U.S. retailers took place and were conducted using similar techniques as the one on Target, according to the people familiar with the attacks. Those breaches have yet to come to light. Also, similar breaches may have occurred earlier last year.

The sources said that they involved retailers with outlets in malls, but declined to elaborate. They also said that while they suspect the perpetrators may be the same as those who launched the Target attack, they cannot be sure because they are still trying to find the culprits behind all of the security breaches.

Law enforcement sources have said they suspect the ring leaders are from Eastern Europe, which is where most big cyber crime cases have been hatched over the past decade.

Only one well-known retailer, Neiman Marcus, has said that they too have been victim of a cyber attack since Target's December 19 disclosure that some 40 million payment card numbers had been stolen in a cyber attack. On Friday, Target said the data breach was worse than initially thought.

More here

Click to enlarge.

As of November of 2013, 3.28% of our population works in the food services and drinking places industry. That's a new record. Can't ever have too many highly compensated restaurant workers in this brave new world!

As clearly seen in the chart (red trend line), it will only grow exponentially higher from here. Just look at that 0.990 correlation!

What's that blue line you say? Oh, that's an old trend that you need not concern yourself with all that much. With a lower correlation of just 0.988 it was surely doomed to fail at some point. And what a pathetic growth rate it had. That 1.78% annual growth rate pales in comparison to the new and improved 2.42%.

And to think, all we needed to get here was a Great Recession to speed things along. It's only a matter of time before every man, woman, and child in America will be flipping burgers for a living! Hurray! What could possibly go wrong?

Motherboard: Meet the Robot That Makes 360 Gourmet Burgers Per Hour


Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

News 10 reports a church pastor and three others were arrested for trying to burn down a Vacaville home that had six people asleep inside.


Fellowship Baptist Pastor Mark Lewis, 39; Anthony Newbolt, 33, of Sacramento; Richerd Wright, 28, of Sacramento; and Kristen Broyles, 30, of Citrus Heights were arrested for arson and other crimes.

Vacaville Police Sgt. Jeff King said officers got a call from someone at the home on Chateau Circle on Thursday around 3:30 a.m. reporting that a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the house.

No one was injured in the fire. King said the residents were able to put the fire out before emergency personnel arrived at the home, which only had minor damage.

Lewis, Newbolt and Wright were arrested when officers arriving at the scene saw a suspicious vehicle leaving the area, King said. Officers pulled the car over at the intersection of Ulatis Drive and Leisure Town Road on a code violation. King said it was the only vehicle on the road at the time and was heading to the highway from Leisure Town Road

Inside the vehicle, officers found evidence of the Chateau Circle "fire bombing", King said. Lewis, Newbolt and Wright were booked into Solano County Jail for arson of a home with people inside and possession of an incendiary device.

During the investigation, officers found that the three suspects were living at the church, and one of the people living at the home on Chateau Circle had an active restraining order against the Lewis. King said Lewis was a suspect in four separate cases of harassment and vandalism since Christmas against the same victim. Bushes in front of the victim's home were set on fire in one incident, King said.

More here

The following chart shows construction and manufacturing payrolls as a fraction of nonfarm payrolls.


Click to enlarge.

That sure looks like a fish ladder to me. The only difference is that the fish aren't supposed to be heading downstream. Down 19% and temporarily holding!

Fish Ladder


Oh oh. Sounds like a faulty dam. What went wrong?


Click to enlarge.

Craziest monetary god dam design ever! That's what! Who in their right mind would put the monetary floodgate below the fish ladder?



I said in the past that some posts are mostly for the puns. How could I pass up this post's title once it got stuck in my head? Hahaha! Sigh. I sigh because the data is ugly, especially over the long-term. Gallows humor can't fix that.

See Also:
The "Recovery"

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
St. Louis Fed: Monetary Base

Wall Street Journal reports chalk up a big victory for the First Amendment. On Friday a Wisconsin judge struck a major blow for free political speech when he quashed subpoenas to conservative groups and ordered the return of property to the targets of a so-called John Doe campaign-finance probe.


John Doe probes operate much like grand juries, allowing prosecutors to issue subpoenas and conduct searches while gag orders require the targets to keep quiet. We wrote about the kitchen-sink subpoenas and morning raids by special prosecutor Francis Schmitz that targeted dozens of conservative groups that participated in the battle to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker ("Wisconsin Political Speech Raid," Nov. 16, 2013).

Now we learn that Judge Gregory A. Peterson ruled on Friday that at least some of those subpoenas were improper. They "do not show probable cause that the moving parties committed any violations of the campaign finance laws," he wrote. His opinion remains under seal but we obtained a copy.

The quashed subpoenas were sent to Friends of Scott Walker, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Inc., the Wisconsin Club for Growth, and Citizens for a Strong America, as well as their officers and directors. Judge Peterson's order doesn't apply to other subpoena targets, but they can presumably get the same result if they file a motion with the judge and have a similar factual basis.

More here