I am wondering how much of an effect the spike in gun sales will affect "the economy is improving" meme...

Karl do you think it will be enough to actually move the data in a positive direction enough for Obama to claim, "See, retail sales are improving due to my policies."

We
We're
We are
??

Let me channel your average Obama-voter for a minute...

Average "Educated" Obama Voter wrote..

But, the economy must be improving because the stock market is up - and it wouldn't be up if the economy weren't improving, so you must be a raaaaaaaaaaaacist.

Believe me, except for the last bit (which is almost always implied by the tone of voice) I've heard that directly from the mouths of at least a dozen friends/family who support King Putt.

Try to start a conversation about ZIRP, Da FED, and whatnot and their eyes glaze over in about a nanosecond. I quickly surmise it would be easier, and more effective, to baptize a cat than to try to explain it to them.

There will come a day when these BS numbers these lying
*******s post up will mean nothing. To everybody.
(Well, except maybe Liesman)

Quote:

This is a crap report.

It doesn't seem to matter. The market just keeps wanting to go up.

Something just happened with Gold and silver. They just spiked.

Machine tool orders have also fallen sharply:

"U.S. manufacturers’ new orders for machine tools and related technology fell 11.0% from October to November 2012, to a total of $421,826,000, according to the monthly United States Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) report released by AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology and based on actual data reported by participating companies. The report covers all orders for manufacturing technology, both domestically built products and imported ones.

November represented a second consecutive month of declining totals, following the 31.3% drop from September to October, $473,892,000.

It’s notable that the September result coincided with the biannual IMTS 2012 event, which drove total sales to $674,234 million.

The slower rate of manufacturing technology during November also represented an 8.5% drop versus the comparable figure for November 2012, $460,865,000. It brought the year-to-date USMTO total to $5,212.17 million, up 4.8% compared with the January-November 2011 total."

The graph presented at the link below shows that when the 3 month MA falls below the 12, it often portends an economic slowdown.

http://americanmachinist.com/news/us-mac....

"receiived" looks to be a typo.

Bullish!!!

Market doesn't really care. The FED will save us!!

Remember the tanks in the streets? They will be rolling soon. There is enough bubble gum and bailing wire out there that something is going to come undone. My best guess is Japan who must have a big dildo mounted on the wall to back into. Abe suceeds in producing 2% inflation expectations by intentionally debasing the currency and gets into a scrape with China, the JGB will yield something well north of .8% or whatever it is now. Japan is running a 50 trillion yen deficit, 10% of GDP and Abe is wanting to stimulate. Debt in total is over 1 quadrillion, which is a million billion or a billion million. Japan's population is shrinking.

What happens when $12 trillion goes boom? I would suspect that anything that resembles that $12 trillion starts cracking as well. If Japan has a fiscal crisis, which is really when, as the chances are 100 times 100%, what happens to treasury rates. Contrary to all the lies, there isn't 10 cents worth of difference between the Obama/Bernanke solution and the solution used in Japan. Inflate, deficit spend and protect the banks. There isn't 10 cents worth of difference between these policies and the policies that made a basket case out of France in the 1790's for many years forward.

I hear now that instead of $1 trillion, corporations have $3 trillion in cash. Well, there is $52 trillion in debt in the US and households have about 1/4th of this. Who owes the rest? Who is holding the crap in the pile? From what I have seen, $3 trillion is some $50 trillion roughly short of $52 trillion or so. There were a massive pile of bonds issued last year. Could this be the cash?

The bottom half of society is getting poorer. I mean they have been sucked dry. Their means of financing are rent to own stores, paycheck and title loans. These are such ripoff outfits that they should be bulldozed. They are being carried by government policy, as the income to pay the 300% plus APR on this stuff is coming around the corner in the form of earned income credits, food stamps, section 8 and student loans.

The question is, who owns the assets that is financing all this crap? It will crumble and when it does, we will find these record corporate earnings to be nothing but a mirror for deficit spending, excessive credit and fancy book keeping. Manti Te's and Lance Armstrong aren't the only frauds out there. We could start with our President and go down the list. We will find them later, when the Madoff tide goes out again.

Surely this time it's different,I mean people could not be that stupid and get caught for the third time since the dot com boom.But then again, Sir Isaac Newton reinvested in the South Seas Company and lost big time.
Fortunatly I can't join in this boom as my $500k is still tied up in a bank term deposit for another 2 years at 8% long enough I think for reality to reassert itself. I bailed out at the end of 2006 and as a retiree and cannot afford risk.

Mannfm11 wrote..

I hear now that instead of $1 trillion, corporations have $3 trillion in cash. Well, there is $52 trillion in debt in the US and households have about 1/4th of this. Who owes the rest? Who is holding the crap in the pile? From what I have seen, $3 trillion is some $50 trillion roughly short of $52 trillion or so. There were a massive pile of bonds issued last year. Could this be the cash?

Mann, that's been my suspicion every time I've heard the 'businesses are sitting on record amounts of cash' meme. If it was really true, that they were swimming in hundreds of billions of liquid assets, and the equity markets are approaching ATHs (while rates of return on deposits are at historic lows) , why wouldn't they be investing that money in the markets?

My guess is, because it's not real money. I suppose we'll find out in due time.

Mann wrote..

My best guess is Japan who must have a big dildo mounted on the wall to back into.

That is one way to do an un-natural act to yourself KT

The founders fears were right: Looks like the central bank turned into a tool for malevolent forces after all.

The founders were right because human nature hasn't changed. The tools are a little bit different is all.

Swampwoman wrote..

The founders were right because human nature hasn't changed. The tools are a little bit different is all.

Regardless of one's religious opinions, one extremely helpful insight to get from The Bible (esp. the Old Testament) is that people have not changed in any measurable way over the last 5-6 thousand years. We have more (and newer) toys and a whole lot more leisure, but you're absolutely right - our nature hasn't changed a bit.

Quote:

I am wondering how much of an effect the spike in gun sales will affect "the economy is improving" meme...

Now that's a point to ponder. That is hard-core manufacturing. A lot of it is made in America, purchased in America. I would assume that the Chinese would not have a part of the supply chain.

I guess in a sense Obama has stimulated the economy and created jobs without having to go into further debt.