The good news is, and the bad news is:

And if you don't have a phone you will never be included in the survey or the unemployment figures unless a census collects statistics on the employment status of people who do not have phones. It would be a logical fallacy to argue that the proportions of people who do not have phones and are looking for work are the same proportions as those who do have phones and are looking for work for obvious reasons.

 

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Not sure this means much to most, but:
The good news is Cornell had more than 40,000 admission applicants for class of 2017 and accepted only 6062 but more than half were women.

Here is the bad news for Cornell and others centers of higher learning:

- just what a forward looking society needs

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This following article is very interesting and also includes us jobs breakdowns (FT/PT etc). Would you listen to someone who told you what you wanted to hear or told you what you should hear?

http://www.gowdiewealth.com.au/articles/the-big-picture-5-april

 

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Think Your Taxes Are High? The 5 Countries With the Highest Taxes (April 14, 2013):
Today is D-Day for tax filers across the United Sates. While its easy to bemoan your tax rate...the United States actually has a relatively low personal tax rate compared with other countries. Last October, accounting firm KPMG put together a study of the countries with the world's highest tax rates on personal income. Not surprisingly, Europe was among the most-taxed regions. Western Europe led all world regions with a 46.1% tax rate on personal incomes. By contrast, North America stood at 27.7%.

Not only do tax codes and deductions vary wildly by country, but the services a citizen receives for his or her tax dollars also differ. Services are difficult to measure in an objective manner, but KPMG tried looking beyond purely top tax rates by measuring effective taxes for people who earn both $100,000 and $300,000 per year. Let's look which countries' citizens had the highest tax burden in 2012, and how they compare with the United States.

1. Belgium
2012 top rate of income taxes: 50%
Effective tax rate on $100,000: 47% (13.1% Social Security, 33.9% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $100,000: 1
Effective tax rate on $300,000: 53.4% (13.1% Social Security, 40.3% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $300,000: 2
2. Italy
2012 top rate of income taxes: 43%
Effective tax rate on $100,000: 45.2% (9.6% Social Security, 35.6% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $100,000: 4
Effective tax rate on $300,000: 51.8% (10% Social Security, 41.8% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $300,000: 3
3. France
2012 top rate of income taxes: 45%
Effective tax rate on $100,000: 42% (22% Social Security, 20% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $100,000: 8
Effective tax rate on $300,000: 54% (20% Social Security, 34% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $300,000: 1
4. Denmark
2012 top rate of income taxes: 55.4%
Effective tax rate on $100,000: 42.3% (0.2% Social Security, 42.1% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $100,000: 6
Effective tax rate on $300,000: 51.5% (0.1% Social Security, 51.4% income tax)
World rank on effective tax tate of $300,000: 4
5. Greece
2012 top rate of income taxes: 45%
Effective tax rate on $100,000: 46.5% (16.5% Social Security, 30% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $100,000: 2
Effective tax rate on $300,000: 45.1% (5.6% Social Security, 39.5% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $300,000: 14
The United States:
2012 top rate of income taxes: 35% (rising to 39.6% in 2013)
Effective tax rate on $100,000: 26% (7.3% Social Security, 18.7% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $100,000: 55
Effective tax rate on $300,000: 30.5% (3.7% Social Security, 26.8% income tax)
World rank on effective tax rate of $300,000: 53

While Denmark makes this list as one of the highest-taxed countries, it also routinely scores rankings as the "world's happiest country" and ranks amazingly well in areas such as regulatory efficiency.

 

The good news is US, via fracking mainly has huge surpluss of natral gas* and its cheap price (See red line of first graph below.) is causing many billion dollar plus new factories, that have high energy costs, to be built, especial fertilizer and plastics but even steel etc. They of course oppose the demands of the NG producers for LNG export terminals to be built and hope that the planned widening of the Panama canal is delayed. Although NG is more expensive in EU, there is more supply coming there too. From fracking in Poland, and more conventional NG from Russia with new pipelines and possibly from Norway´s SO and Russian arctic production and/or from N. Africa too and even from off shore wells near Cyprus. (part of EU´s deal to keep Cyprus from total collapse.)

Currently,** the main market for NG is Japan and S. Korea (see second graph below.) These dreamers of US export earning to the main high cost market are forgetting the huge new supplies that will come from huge new off-shore fields in NW Astralia and East Africa. - They can ship their cheaper (conventional well, not fracking NG) with less transport cost. (I.e. the bad news is NG will not help with US´s balance of payments problems.)

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Note China is large part of the 50% "rest of world" but has more NG available according to most experts, than the US has, onces its fracking techonolgy is in full operation. China, as often is the case, is buying companies with the technology it wants - nice to have money coming out of your ears instead of 16+ trillion of debt.

* Currently 1/3 of NG produced in the US is burnt at the well - just "flared off." See photo of big flare here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?133084-Apocalypse-Soon&p=3064074&viewfull=1#post3064074

** In a little more than a decade, China may be the main supplier of NG to S. Korea, and Japan too, if they don´t fight over some small uninhabited islands in the S. China Sea.

BTW: You can get a huge break down of both good and bad news by subject areas every Friday here: http://www.stateofthemarkets.com/report/20479/The-State-of-the-Economy-Friday-4-26-13
But obviously need to change the date at end of this link.

 

I cant see the bad news

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Perhaps this will improve your vision enough to see the bad in the "good news.":

* That decline has already turned the jobs clock back to 2006 even without the 3D printer helping:

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Note blue line going back to 2006.

 

First the good news:

Don't get excited. That just means the debt to GDP ratio is getting worse more slowly The ship of state is still headed for the iceberg.
Now the bad news:

My radar seems to be picking up a triad of black swans, which will arrive together in about November 2013: Leading the group is Government shut down with brief defaults - which have long lasting effects on strength of the dollar. Flying right wing guard is appointment of Summers to be new head of the FED. (Actually he is more of a hawk than black swan, but can be one of those too for an economy hooked on the drug of QEs.) The left wing guard is talk of "taper" will cease to be just talk. Even though the 85 is only slightly changed to 75 billion per month, investor know that can also lower, so they rush for the exit and stock crash as Fed's printing press making huge new funds for the economy was main reason for stocks to surge up to all time highs. The down turns are always much faster than the climb to the top and very self-accelerating. Even if these three black swans over fly the US and land in Europe, the effect on the US will be essentially the same.

Now same news (from Money Morning's Email to me) that is both good and bad:
"The trade balance showed that the deficit narrowed much more than expected to $34.2 billion in June, versus the estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg, which called for the deficit to shrink to $43.5 billion from the downwardly revised $44.1 billion seen in May. Imports were 2.5% lower month-over-month (m/m) to $225.4 billion, while exports were up 2.2% m/m to $191.2 billion. "
The good aspect is obvious. The bad aspect only when you ask "Why" and think the answer is: Americans are too broke / indebt to import like they once did.

 

There is ALWAYS good news for lawyers. The corollary is that (on average) there is bad news for those dealing with them:

I have a years old post, too much trouble to find, that tells that in two states (one in New England, and other Washington state if memory serves correctly) some home owners stopped paying their mortgages, were taken to court and won their case by demanding that the mortgage collector show evidence that they owed the money. I.e. show me you own the mortgage or have authorization from all who do to collect from me.

Their mortgages had been "sliced and diced" into Mortgage Backed Securities, MBSs, and now had hundreds of "owners" of tiny pieces of it. This is a different disaster from the one of the above quote. Not only did they no longer need to pay their mortgage, but their states were also going after money form the banks or mortgage firms that did the "slicing and dicing." In almost all, if not all, the transfers of mortgage is recorded, usually at the county level, and a fee is due. I.e. these transfers to many owners were done by-passing the state laws requiring recording of mortgages transfer with fees paid.

I am surprised I have not heard/ read more about this - If all who have had the mortgages "sliced and diced" to hundreds if not thousands* of different owners stop making their monthly payment, a lot of s**t will hit the economic fan. For example, major banks and mortgage companies may fail - go bankrupt, making Lehman Brothers collapse look like some pocket change that fell thru a hole in your pocket!

*The "sliced and diced" the MBSs were in turn sliced and diced into other investment package, first for greater regional diversity, and these investment packages were often repackaged into other "derivatives." In some cases nearly a million owners have tiny parts of your mortgage - why pay it? This legal mess is just starting to blow up!

 

Merely stating that the numbers are manipulated. I was merely backing that point up by saying the in fact (like it or not) the numbers do not add well for your boy.

 

Good news for 1% & bad news for 99% quoted from AP article of 10 Sept 13 (with actual sources in article)

"The pay gap between the richest 1 percent and the rest of America widened to a record last year. The top 1 percent of U.S. earners collected 19.3 percent of household income in 2012, their largest share in Internal Revenue Service figures going back a century.

U.S. income inequality has been growing for almost three decades. But until last year, the top 1 percent's share of pre-tax income had not yet surpassed the 18.7 percent it reached in 1927, according to an analysis of IRS figures dating to 1913 by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, the Paris School of Economics and Oxford University."

Just an interesting observation and question:
When wealth gets too concentrated in hands of just a few, doesn't that make trouble for an economy 2/3 based on Joe American's buying.
Did anything bad happen to the economy after last time old peak concentration occurred in 1927?

 

Or to say it another way: Incomes of the 99% rose last year, but due to jealousy they weren't satisfied with it and were annoyed that the 1%'s incomes grew by more and falsely believed their gain was actually a loss.

No. As long as Joe American's income is rising, his buying power will rise (that's a tautology, but still needed to be said) which means the economy will rise.

 

No, good news for everyone. Everyone's income is going up; all quintiles are showing higher average pay, both in actual and adjusted dollars.

 

Between what years are you or your source stating inflation adjusted incomes are going up especially for the more poor who don't own stocks? Please give a reference. Also how was income defined; specifically did unrealized (paper) gains on shares count? Are you counting value of food stamps ~50 million Americans now get as "income"?

Graph below (US government data) shows that was true up to year 2000, but ALL quintiles are at end of the graph slightly LOWER than in 2000. I.e. last decade real purchasing power has decreased, despite product "substitution" in the computation of CPI, which tracks the replacement in average buying patterns towards increased volume of lower cost items that do the same job.

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I'd be interested to see the data too. Billy's source two posts up just says incomes for the 99% were up last year, but doesn't break it down or source it. And the census dept doesn't have the data up yet that I can find.

But Billy, we're talking 2012 change only. You can't change the timeframe you picked!

 

Post 91 gives the source for the data I quoted as a study by three very high quality universities. I.e.:
"analysis of IRS figures dating to 1913 by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, the Paris School of Economics and Oxford University."

Although I did not try to find copy of their report, I gave three links to their report's results (or even worst in the NYTimes study). Yes, I don't doubt that the nominal value of salaries has increased for the upper quintiles, but probably not the lowest who typically work part time jobs, if they even have a job. The average number of hours worked has been decreasing so at constant salary, their take home pay is dropping. The fraction of the potential work force with any job has also been decreasing (for more than a decade, I think) - Called the labor force participation rate (low 60s now as I recall)

Also I think many may not have understood the point I was making about "product substitution" in the calculation of the CPI, so will give an example, but first note the larger the CPI is from zero the greater the difference between nominal and purchasing power of salaries is. For example if the nominal increase in salaries is 3% and the CPI = 2% then there is a 1% increase in salary's purchasing power, (which is of course what the BLS likes).* But if more honestly computed CPI = 4% there has been a decrease in the purchasing power of salaries by 1%. Now for example of "perverse product substitution" effect. i.e. Products prices increasing making the CPI tend to decrease (as the BLS likes):

Consider a young woman of limited means concerned about her skin being soft. She had been able and willing to buy Dove soap, which on a per gram basics costs about 2 or 3 times what the bigger bars of a laundry soap does. Without meaning to say Ivory is only a laundry soap, I'll call the soap she is now economically forced to buy "Ivory." What does the BLS do? They say the cost of personal hygene has decreased, and slight lower the CPI number. Enough of this can convert a loss of purchasing power into a gain - Very PREVERSE, she buying ivory because inflation has priced Dove out of her price range.

PS Billvon gave no particular time period so I asked Billvon for the two years his "purchasing power has increased" was based on; also I asked for his source, so I could check if part of the "income" is the value of the food stamps 50 million Americans now get or the "rent" some deep in debt, just graduated, student is "receiving" by living in his father's basement was included in his "income." Billvon has yet to respond to any of my questions.

To get a meaningful statement one need to compare longer time intervals than just one year. - Like the more than decade of change in graph showing Billvon's statement is false. Certainly one can find two different months in which the purchasing power did go up as price changes are not steady linear increases.

* BTW the IRS not only likes this - they love it as your taxes are based on your nominal salary - your taxes can be going up, even if the purchasing power of your salary is going down!

 

The good news is the police are catching more crooks. The bad news is that the police and firemen are the crooks they are catching:

 

The "good news" for companies paying lobbyist to draft new laws for Congressmen to pass without reading (as too busy campaigning for the next elections) is in this Bloomberg graphic:

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The bad new for me, with no lobbyist working for me, is that If I earn money in Brazil, I must pay taxes on it to the USA and to Brazil! (no tax treaty between them) Part of my taxes and yours, make up the billions in revenue these corporations avoided. So I don't work here (except in a friend's bar if one of his customers wants to practice his English and pay for my beers. I come, if not busy, when he calls me. Its a 4 minute walk from my home.)

"US has the best government, big money can buy." I.e. a government of the rich, by the lobbyists, and for the corporations.

It past time time for Joe American to rise up in revolt (at the ballot box, I hope), but those in control keep him ignorant with poor schools,* locally funded, by poor neighborhoods, so he votes as those with money tell him to, via the idiot box sound bites they buy. So he will not use his electoral power, but find comfort in his crowd of sheep, despite his constantly lower purchasing power, in the fact that (thanks to technology) he has a cell phone, a computer and iPod his dad did not have.

* No corporation will place a $700,000 semi-automatic boring machine (making precise diameter final cuts in the engine block's cast holes) in the hands of a typical US college grad, when there are millions of Chinese high school grads with better math and logic skills. Besides, they sell 4 cars in China for every 3 sold in the USA, now (in 2013 one of the US's best car sale in many years). Local funding of primary schools, done only in America, is the root of most, if not all, of the US's coming collapse. It's only "benefit" is to provide a large ignorant block of voters the rich can control (And put the world's highest percent of the population in jail, as not educated to the level a modern society requires. I. e. store them** where they are not counted as "unemployed.")

** At an annual cost, per person, greater than the tuition at an Ivy-League college!

 

The good news is home sales are up. The bad new is Corportations, not people, are buying them:

Joe American can't get a loan to buy even a very modest home, with his Big-Mac, or part time job. Blackstone, et. al. doing the same will drain more funds from Joe but lucky Joe, he lives in the "land of the free" - is free to sleep in some parks if not in a city.

 

Good day for gold, bad day for stocks:

Later by edit: Dow's steep decline continues: at 16:03 EST dow is at 15,372.80, a decline of 326.05 or 2.08% . The small graph below is the bid price for "spot gold."
The $20.10 gain of text above is "future delivery" price (April 2014 delivery).

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Gold off its peak of the day, but up $12/oz still.