Income And Spend: What's Good In Here?
The Market Ticker ® - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Posted 2011-05-27 09:14
by Karl Denninger
in Macro Factors
Ignore this thread
Income And Spend: What's Good In Here?
 

Lookie what the cat dragged in this morning...

Personal income increased $46.1 billion, or 0.4 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $35.1 billion, or 0.3 percent, in April, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $41.5 billion, or 0.4 percent.  In March, personal income increased $54.6 billion, or 0.4 percent, DPI increased $46.3 billion, or 0.4 percent, and PCE increased $54.8 billion, or 0.5 percent, based on revised estimates.

Real DPI decreased less than 0.1 percent in April, in contrast to an increase of less than 0.1 percent in March.  Real PCE increased 0.1 percent in April, the same increase as in March.

So in real terms we have no increase in purchasing power at all.  That's nice.

What do we find inside?

Real PCE -- PCE adjusted to remove price changes -- increased 0.1 percent in April, the same increase as in March.

Ok, so ~1.2% annualized.  This is supposed to impress?  It doesn't; that's roughly flat when one includes population change (~1% annually.)

So let's see if we can recap: The Fed has blown nearly all of their QE2 and for it they've gotten:

  • A stock market increase

  • No material improvement in PCE or disposable personal income (adjusted for inflation)

  • No material improvement in employment.

  • A durables series that reflects and is consistent with the above.

All that for $600 billion eh?  Sounds like a gigantic FAIL to me, but of course opinions may differ....

Discussion below (registration required to post)
 

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User Info Income And Spend: What's Good In Here? in forum [Market-Ticker]
N9lhm
Posts: 92
Incept: 2010-01-28
Gold
South Bend, IN
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Yeah, we're just stuck in a holding pattern.

Was looking forward to your comments yesterday about jobless claims and GDP.

Will we QE3 or won't we? All the numbers seem to be looking too bad to not do it, damn the consequences..........

Frat
Posts: 1934
Incept: 2009-07-15
Silver
NKY
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So... We could have given every American approximately $2k tax-free for about the same amount as QE2 cost us? That $2k, while still a waste of debt cash, would have helped ME more. My household would have gotten $8k and paid bills and taken on a capital project for the house.


Just sayin' - if we're gonna take on more debt to just blow it, that would have benefitted me much more than QE2, without the insane price ramps.

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We're ****ed. Where's Henry Bowman when you need him?
Bagbalm
Posts: 4251
Incept: 2009-03-19
Green
Just North of Detroit
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Fail for the little people. Was never an objective to protect them. The bankers are doing fine.
Susanjbear
Posts: 417
Incept: 2010-06-10
Gold
Salt Lake City, Utah
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Rest assured, Karl, some idiot economist will come along and try to spin this saying the upticks in personal and disposable income are signs of recovery.

Just ignore the increases in food and gasoline prices and ignore how people are taking the "default" option on their mortgages. In other words

income - [life] = + = WIN !

It's like Wall Street not considering those pesky one-time charges on the balance sheet.

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Susan
Reven
Posts: 1009
Incept: 2009-01-27
Green

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I find it quite odd that treasury yields are falling. Who is going to buy at these ridiculously low rates when the Fed stops?

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"We are now paying for the funeral of Keynesian theory." -Eric Sprott
Dji
Posts: 1245
Incept: 2009-04-21
Silver
Ponzi world 3rd rock from the sun
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Frat
You mean trickle up economics? The Bernank never got the memo. besides you are supposed to go to your nearest bankster for a 8k loan with 19.9% interest because the banksters need more of your money. smiley

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Don't be a bag holder-Me

What goes up Must come Down- Alan Parsons Project
Wonderdawg
Posts: 158
Incept: 2010-01-23
Green
Southeast USA
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Investors will buy Treasuries when the stock market tanks. Gold will probably benefit, too, but Treasuries are still the best of the worst when the flight to safety takes place.
Mannfm11
Posts: 3535
Incept: 2009-02-28
Gold
DFW, Tx
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Hard to say the Fed has done anything but raise the cost of gasoline. At $100 billion a month, I would suspect they were supporting $100 billion a month in demand, the growth being about half of that. Looks like we are coming to the bend in the creek where the sewer plant dumps in.

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The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.---John Kenneth Galbraith
Obseedian
Posts: 11872
Incept: 2007-07-26
Silver
BBRY Central
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No meaningful gains in Real PCE -> Decrease in employment due to productivity gains.

Of course, it will be "unexpected".

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Would you give your money to these banks? http://bankimplode.com/list/troubledbank....

“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.” - Joseph Stalin
Tbessi
Posts: 77
Incept: 2010-05-10
Green
Elkhart, IN
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Karl, so basically the government is unable to beat the massive deflationary forces regardless of their spending.

In your opinion is the inflationary forces in food, gas etc. truly prices going up due to the Excess money by FED and the price discovery mechanism of the market chasing more dollars or is it more due to speculation by traders running to necessities at the same time?

i.e. the inflation we are seeing is a head fake caused from all the investors gambling for return.
Ktrosper
Posts: 1498
Incept: 2010-04-06
Silver
ft collins co
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Frat wrote..
..that would have benefitted me much more than QE2...

Frat, the folks who benefitted from QE2 are in a pretty big club, and you're not in it! (paraphrasing George Carlin)

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The unexamined life is not worth living.-Socrates
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Themortgagedude
Posts: 8843
Incept: 2007-12-17
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saint louis
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There hasn't been a sign of recovery in the economy since I entered the work force in 1985. Twenty five years of fail. From Reagan to Obama. A clean sweep of failures. I was a bank examiner in 1985-1990. What we should have done at that time was to take all the fraud out of the banking system. Instead we locked up a few people and turned the rest of the system loose with looser regulations.

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Yaldor
Posts: 2687
Incept: 2008-05-17

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Indeed a gigantic fail - but people feel better about the economy.

Is it all inflation ? Does inflation make people feel rich ?

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For every crash the probability of someone showing that he predicted it is near 1 .

For every prediction of an imminent crash the probability of it being correct is almost zero
Genesis
Posts: 130678
Incept: 2007-06-26
Admin A True American Patriot!
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TMD, look at the speculation/consumption debt-adjusted GDP series. Negative 4.x% annualized for every year since 1983.

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Themortgagedude
Posts: 8843
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saint louis
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And now we won't even lock up a few people. They should have let Dr Black take care of this mess then. Instead they gave him an attaboy and let the bankers turn it up to 11.

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I'm already visualizing you with duct tape over your mouth.
Themortgagedude
Posts: 8843
Incept: 2007-12-17
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saint louis
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yep Gen. A failure to recognize a structural problem in the 1980's has led us to this.

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I'm already visualizing you with duct tape over your mouth.
Tumblebug
Posts: 430
Incept: 2010-03-04
Green
Oceania
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I wonder how much of that is due to the 2% knock off of SS tax?

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Tinsu
Posts: 43
Incept: 2009-09-18

New Lenox, IL
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Does QE2 end on a fixed date or when the Bernak uses up the remaining funds? I have not been able to find an end date. Any ideas?
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