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Thursday, October 2, 2008

Jobless claims rise to 497,000

From WSJ:

Even accounting for the roughly 45,000 claims that the government said were related to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, the trend remains very weak for labor markets at a time when the crisis on Wall Street threatens to pull consumer spending and the overall economy into a deeper downturn.

Initial claims for jobless benefits rose 1,000 on a seasonally-adjusted basis to 497,000 in the week ended Sept. 27, the Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday. That's the highest since Sept. 29, 2001. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected claims would fall by 18,000.

For those who think we've hit bottom in housing, we've been telling you there are still more risks out there.  We have been talking about umemployment getting worse.  And this report shows us it's going to get worse. 

We've had pretty bad data on the economy this week.  First we saw signs of stagflation on Monday.  We saw a big drop in manufacturing activity.  And now this weekly unemployment report.  We can probably be sure we are in a recession. 

 

 In other news, the SEC extended the short sale ban.   From Reuters:

The Securities and Exchange Commission said the ban would expire three business days after a $700 billion federal bailout bill was enacted, but would not last beyond October 17. 

Didn't Wachovia and Wamu go down while the ban was in effect?  But that doesn't matter.  Once these rules are added, they are hard to undo.  Just ask Ben B.  He's just can't stop any of his alphabet soup lending facilities.

 

 


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