We Live Longer Than Ever, Food's Never Been Cheaper, Economy's Never Been More Efficient

Bottom Line: Life expectancy for Americans has never been longer, food has never been cheaper, and the U.S. economy has never been more energy efficient than today. These are just a few of many long-term trends that demonstrate that the “good old days” are now, and life for the average American keeps getting better and better all the time (see related American.com article, “How Are We Doing“).

Read my full post here at the Enterprise blog. 

The Imaginary Hobgoblin of "The Unbanked"

In Sunday's Washington Post, personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary provides some unbelievable commentary about the 60 million Americans who decide voluntarily to forego bank accounts, and she then goes on to support government intervention through the Community Reinvestment Act (didn't that contribute to the housing crash?) to "open banks' doors to all." 

Here is the opening:

Millions of Americans -- 60 million, in fact -- conduct their day-to-day financial business outside the banking system, leaving many to be preyed upon by payday-loan companies, rent-to-own establishments and other non-bank institutions.

Banks have largely ignored the unbanked and underbanked, arguing that it's difficult to figure out how to make money off them. But the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says it may look at using the Community Reinvestment Act -- and the weight that the act carries in bank examinations -- to encourage financial institutions to provide low-cost banking services and products.

A new FDIC report found that 17 million U.S. adults are unbanked. An additional 43 million are classified as underbanked. You're considered unbanked if you don't have a checking or savings account. The FDIC defined underbanked households as those that have a checking or savings account but use non-bank money orders, check-cashing services, payday loans, rent-to-own agreements or pawnshops at least once a year.

The FDIC survey, conducted by the Census Bureau, is the most comprehensive look to date at the unbanked and underbanked. The survey finally provides proof of the problem that consumer advocates have been trying to address for years, lobbying for products and services for the millions of people shut out from the traditional banking system. Under a 2005 law, the FDIC is required to monitor the financial industry's efforts to bring people into the mainstream banking system.

MP: Where to start? Here's an alternative version of the opening sentence:

Millions of Americans -- 60 million, in fact -- VOLUNTARILY conduct their day-to-day financial business outside the banking system, leaving many to be preyed upon SERVED VERY WELL by payday-loan companies, rent-to-own establishments and other non-bank institutions.

Second sentence:

Banks have largely ignored the unbanked and underbanked, arguing that it's difficult to figure out how to make money off them.

That statement seems ludicrous from beginning to end, and makes it appear that banks routinely turn certain people down when they show up with funds and attempt to open a checking or savings account.  Banks make money by converting savings and checking deposits into loans, and would therefore have no incentive to ignore or turn down new customers bringing new deposits to the bank (their main input), and banks would have no trouble at all figuring out how to make money from any customer's deposits - they loan them out!   

Given the proliferation of U.S. banks (more than 8,000) and the proliferation of banks advertising for new accounts and for free checking (examples here, here, here and here for the DC area), it seems absurd to suggest that new government regulations are necessary to address the imaginary problem of "unbanked and the underbanked."

H.L. Mencken accurately sums up the situation this way:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Manufacturing Areas Lead Surprise Job Comeback

ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Counties with the heaviest reliance on manufacturing income are posting some of the biggest employment gains of the nation's early economic recovery. This is a big change from just half a year ago, when some economists worried that widespread layoffs by U.S. manufacturers might be part of an irreversible trend in that sector.

The Associated Press Economic Stress Index, a monthly analysis of the economic state of more than 3,100 U.S. counties, found that manufacturing counties have outperformed the national average since March. The Stress Index calculates a score from 1 to 100 based on a county's unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy rates. The higher the number, the greater the county's level of economic stress.

Mind the Gap: Obama's Job Approval Spread Narrows to Record Low 3.9%, vs. 44.2% in January

From a spread of 44.2 points at the end of January for Obama (63.5% Approve - 19.3% Disapprove), the Real Clear Politics poll average has now narrowed to a record low spread of 3.9% points (49% Approve - 45.1% Disapprove).

Climate Change Propagandistic Lockstep, Delusions of Intellectual Adequacy, and Messiah Complexes

Never in peacetime history has the government-media-academic complex been in such sustained propagandistic lockstep about any subject [climate change].

A CRU e-mail says: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment" -- this "moment" is in its second decade -- "and it is a travesty that we can't."

The travesty is the intellectual arrogance of the authors of climate-change models partially based on the problematic practice of reconstructing long-term prior climate changes. On such models we are supposed to wager trillions of dollars -- and substantially diminished freedom.

Some climate scientists compound their delusions of intellectual adequacy with messiah complexes. They seem to suppose themselves a small clerisy entrusted with the most urgent truth ever discovered. On it, and hence on them, the planet's fate depends. So some of them consider it virtuous to embroider facts, exaggerate certitudes, suppress inconvenient data, and manipulate the peer-review process to suppress scholarly dissent and, above all, to declare that the debate is over.

Consider the sociology of science, the push and pull of interests, incentives, appetites and passions. Governments' attempts to manipulate Earth's temperature now comprise one of the world's largest industries. Tens of billions of dollars are being dispensed, as by the U.S. Energy Department, which has suddenly become, in effect, a huge venture capital operation, speculating in green technologies. Political, commercial, academic and journalistic prestige and advancement can be contingent on not disrupting the (postulated) consensus that is propelling the gigantic and fabulously lucrative industry of combating global warming.

~George Will in today's Washington Post

More Evidence on Why Ethanol Really IS More Than Just Hype, It's "Dangerous, Delusional Bullshit"

From the NY Times article "U.S. Unlikely to Use the Ethanol Congress Ordered":

Two years ago, Congress ordered the nation’s gasoline refiners to do something that is turning out to be mathematically impossible. To please the farm lobby and to help wean the nation off oil, Congress mandated that refiners blend a rising volume of ethanol and other biofuels into gasoline. They are supposed to use at least 15 billion gallons of biofuels by 2012, up from less than seven billion gallons in 2007.
 
But nobody at the time counted on fuel demand falling in the United States, which is what has happened during the recession (see chart above, data here). And that decline could well continue, as cars become more efficient under other recent government mandates.
 
At the maximum allowable blend, in which gasoline at the pump contains 10 percent ethanol, updated projections suggest that the country is unlikely to be able to use all the ethanol that Congress has ordered up. So something has to give. “The market is full,” said Jeff Broin, chief executive of Poet, a company in Sioux Falls, S.D., that produces ethanol.

When Congress wrote the rules, in 2007, gasoline consumption had been growing for years, and it looked as if the nation would be able to use considerably more ethanol in the future. Gasoline consumption hit a peak of 3.4 billion barrels that year (see chart above). But gasoline demand fell in 2008, after soaring gas prices early in the year were followed by the economic crisis. Consumption was slightly less than 3.3 billion barrels last year, and it could end 2009 at about the same level. With consumers buying more fuel-efficient cars these days, and carmakers rushing to bring even more of those to market, gasoline demand may not recover much in coming years, even as ethanol production soars.

MP: As I have said before: Anytime you have prominent left-wing economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman agreeing that "demon ethanol" is a "scam" with such a diverse group as the Wall Street Journal, Reason Magazine, the Cato Institute, Investor's Business Daily, Rolling Stone Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, John Stossel, The Ecological Society of America, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, George Will and Time Magazine, you know that ethanol has to be one of the most misguided public policies in U.S. history.

From RollingStone Magazine in August 2007:

Ethanol is not just hype -- it's dangerous, delusional bullshit. Ethanol doesn't burn cleaner than gasoline, nor is it cheaper. Our current ethanol production represents only 3.5% of our gasoline consumption -- yet it consumes twenty percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, causing the price of corn to double in the last two years and raising the threat of hunger in the Third World.

So why bother? Because the whole point of corn ethanol is not to solve America's energy crisis, but to generate one of the great political boondoggles of our time.

Econ 101: Why Peak Oil is Peak Idiocy

Related to these two recent CD posts about peak oil and how we never run out of natural resources, Mike Munger provides some excellent commentary on his KPC post "Peak Idiocy":

Of all the idiotic things that people believe, the whole "peak oil" thing has to be right up there. It is literally impossible for us to run out of oil. We have never run out of anything, and we never will.

If we did start to use up the oil we have (though, counting shale oil, we still haven't used even 10% of the total KNOWN reserves on earth, and there are lots of places we haven't looked) but suppose we were on our way to using it up. Three things would happen.

1. Prices would rise, causing people to cut back on use. More fuel effcient cars, better insulation on houses, etc. Quantity demanded goes down.

2. Prices would rise, causing people to look for more. And they would find more oil, and more ways to get at it. Quantity supplied goes up.

3. Prices of oil would rise, making the search for substitutes more profitable. At that point (though not now!) alternative fuels and energy sources would be economical, and would not require gubmint subsidies, because they would pay for themselves. The supply curve for substitutes shifts downward and to the right.

This is Econ 101.

Facebook: Actual Friends vs. People You Hate

HT: R. Adams

Markets in Everything: Trained Russian Circus Cats

Thought for the Day: We Never Run Out of Natural Resources, We Just Find Better Alternatives

The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones, and the petroleum age won't end because we run out of petroleum.

Likewise, the age of horse/animal power didn’t end because we ran out of animals, and we didn’t stop using steam power because we couldn’t build enough steam engines.

And the age of whale oil didn't end because we ran out of whales, and the age of using wood for heating homes didn't end because we ran out of trees.

Cheap Oil is Here to Stay; Forget "Peak Oil," We Now Have "Peak Demand," We'll Never Run Out

CNN Money -- A growing number of experts are saying that oil prices will remain well below $100 a barrel as the economy remains fragile and efficiency measures kick in.

"The world will never run out of oil," Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a recent research note, echoing the old logic that the Stone Age didn't end because the world ran out of stone. "If the oil age does end, it likely will be because we become more efficient and simply use less petroleum." It's this "becoming more efficient" idea that the Deutsche Bank analysts use to predict even lower oil prices in 2010 than now - an average of $65 a barrel next year compared to nearly $80 currently.

To get there, they employ a metric known as energy intensity, which basically measures the amount of oil used in relation to the size of the economy. The energy intensity of the U.S. economy has actually dropped by about 2% a year every year since the early 1980s (see updated chart above). In the next couple of years Deutsche Bank expects it to decline by around 3% as people buy more fuel efficient cars and respond in other ways to the high prices of 2004-2008 and as government conservation measures kick in.

"US oil demand may have already peaked," the note said. "There's so much spare capacity right now," said one analyst, noting that oil prices in the $70 range are still high enough to insure new supplies are being brought online. "It's very difficult to see prices much higher."

The Motley, Motley CRU (Climatic Research Unit) Has Given All of Science a Massive Black Eye

Ken Green of The American Enterprise Institute sums up the fallout from Climategate:

Most troubling are the suggestions that a tribe of incestuous climate scientists may have actively conspired to undermine the peer-review process, until now considered a determinant of what is worthy of scientific consideration, and what is not.

Science is vitally important for the operation of a highly technological society, and that science must be open and transparent, and must adhere to the scientific method and the institution of science, which has no place in it for hiding data, hiding data-processing, shaping data to conform to pre-existing beliefs, undermining the peer-review process, cherry-picking reports in order to slant political IPCC reports, or slandering critics by comparing them with flat-Earthers, moon-landing conspiracy theorists, or holocaust deniers.

The climate scientists at the CRU have given not only climate science, but all of science, a massive black eye, and should the public lose faith in science, a great deal of the responsibility will accrue to them. The scientists involved in the Climategate scandal should be permanently removed from any position in which they can influence climate policy. They should be excluded from peer-review panels, banned from participating in the IPCC process in any capacity, and kept far away from editorial positions at journals. Their data and methods must be made absolutely transparent and available for outside inspection.

Denmark's 200% Car Tax: Crazy and Crazier

NY Times -- Is saving $40,000 at the showroom enough to get drivers behind the wheel of an electric car? With a program in the works to add easy access to charging stations, Denmark is about to find out. The country imposes a punitive tax of about 200% on new cars, so a vehicle that would cost $20,000 in the United States costs $60,000 here. For a quarter-century, electric cars have been exempt from that tax. But the models on the market were so limited in their capabilities that only 497 of them are registered in the entire country.

For all their potential, electric cars have always been the subject of more talk than action, and only a handful are on the road in Denmark. But now the biggest Danish power company is working with a Silicon Valley start-up in a $100 million effort to wire the country with charging poles as well as service stations that can change out batteries in minutes.

The government offers a minimum $40,000 tax break on each new electric car — and free parking in downtown Copenhagen. But even in Denmark, one of the most environmentally conscious nations in the world, skepticism abounds. It is not clear that car buyers can be persuaded to make the switch.

“There is a psychological barrier for consumers when their car is dependent on a battery station,” warned Henrik Lund, a professor of energy planning at Aalborg University. “It’s risky.”

MP: Two amazing points: First, a 200% tax on cars in Denmark? That seems crazy. Second, most car buyers in Denmark actually pay the 200% tax and buy a regular car when they could avoid it by buying an electric car? That seems even crazier. I always thought that if you subsidize something you get more of it. Not in Denmark I guess.

Thanks to Stuart Anderson.

Update: Denmark, which hosts the UN climate change conference next week, is often seen as one of the most environmentally friendly countries in the world. This reputation is mostly undeserved, but Denmark is doing its best to catch up.

MP: Undeserved is maybe right, since many seem perfectly willing to pass up $40,000 in green subsidies and tax savings?

Las Vegas Home Sales Increase for the 14th Straight Month; Highest October Sales Since 2006

DQNews -- First-time buyers and investors pushed Las Vegas-area home sales higher in October as the overall median sale price held at $130,000 for the fourth consecutive month. Foreclosure resales remained a major market force but continued to wane. In October, 66.8 percent of the Las Vegas-area houses and condos that resold were foreclosure resales, meaning those homes had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months. That was down from 67.1 percent in September but up from 64.7 percent in October 2008. Foreclosure resales peaked in April this year at 73.7 percent of the region’s resales.

A total of 5,068 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the Las Vegas-Paradise metro area in October, up 1.1 percent from September and up 22.2 percent from a year earlier (see chart above). It was the highest sales total for an October since October 2006, when 5,693 homes sold. October marked the 14th consecutive month in which sales have risen on a year-over-year basis.

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the Las Vegas metro area in October was $130,000, unchanged from September but down 33.7 percent from $196,000 a year earlier.

Adjusted Jobless Claims Signal End of Recession

The November employment report was released today, and the graph above of Initial Jobless Claims as a Percent of the Labor Force (1974-2009) has been updated to reflect the November labor force of 153,877,000 and the November average for initial unemployment claims (502,562 for the 4-week moving weekly average). This measure of initial jobless claims, adjusted for the size of the U.S. labor force, shows that jobless claims peaked during this recession above the levels of the last two recessions (1990-1991 and 2001), but were never anywhere close to the levels of the previous three recessions in the mid-1970s and early 1980s (see chart above).

The sharp reduction in adjusted jobless claims from the March 2009 high follows the same pattern of sharp reductions in adjusted claims at the end of the 2001 recession and at the end of each of the last five recessions.

See a very similar analysis here from Scott Grannis, who alternatively calculates jobless claims as a percent of payrolls with the exact same graphical pattern presented here using jobless claims as a percent of the labor force (slightly different denominator, but same numerator, and same story).

The Real Fiscal Cost of Government-Run Healthcare

This CF&P Foundation video explains why healthcare proposals in Washington will result in bloated government and higher deficits. This mini-documentary exposes the pervasive inaccuracy of congressional forecasts and succinctly lists 12 reasons why Obamacare will be a budget buster.

Retail Clinics Provide Network of Vaccine Outlets

TAMPA - Swine flu immunization clinics hitting the Tampa Bay area this weekend may be a sign the vaccine is finally reaching the general public.

Starting Saturday, immunization clinics in Polk and Sarasota Counties will begin offering the vaccine to people outside the priority groups for swine flu vaccination. Also, in larger counties including Hillsborough, retail health clinics at Walgreens and CVS are being approved to serve as vaccine outlets for the general public.

MP: This highlights another advantage of the 1,200 retail health clinics around the country - they provide an automatic and efficient infrastructure that is already in place to help promote certain public health initiatives, in this case by providing a network of outlets to facilitate the distribution of the swine flu vaccine.

Jobless Rate Drops, Overtime and Temp Jobs Rise

WSJ -- U.S. job losses slowed sharply in November and the unemployment rate unexpectedly declined, in a sign the labor market is finally starting to heal as the economy recovers. Nonfarm payrolls fell by just 11,000 last month, slowing down from a downwardly revised 111,000 drop seen in October, as the recovery encouraged companies to retain workers, the Labor Department said Friday.

It was the best showing since December 2007, when payrolls rose by 120,000, said a Labor department official. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a payroll decrease of 125,000. The unemployment rate, calculated using a survey of households as opposed to companies, edged lower to 10% in November from 10.2%. Economists had forecast the jobless rate would remain at October's level of 10.2%, when it rose to the highest level since April 1983. Employment fell in construction, manufacturing and information, while temporary help services and health care added jobs.

MP: Two additional positive signs from today's employment report are: a) the increase in manufacturing overtime to 3.3 hours, the highest level since October 2008, and b) the increase in temporary help workers to the highest level since February 2009 (see graph above). Both of those signal a labor market that is slowly recovering, and strongly suggest that the worst is behind us.

Black Women Earning College Degrees Outnumber College-Educated Black Men 2 to 1

I've written before about the huge and growing female-male "college degree gap" see posts here, here and here. Women now dominate men at almost every level of higher education, in terms of degrees conferred (the only exception is for Professional Degrees - MD, JD, and DDs). Here's the breakdown for graduates of the Class of 2009 (estimates from the Department of Education, data here):

Associate's Degrees: 164 for women for every 100 for men.

Bachelor's Degrees: 137.5 for women for every 100 for men.

Master's Degrees: 152 for women for every 100 for men.

Professional Degrees: 99.15 for women for every 100 for men.

Doctoral Degrees: 105 for women for every 100 for men.

The Department of Education also has college degree data based on sex and race/ethnicity, but it's only through the 2006-2007 academic year. The chart above shows the college degree breakdown for the graduating classes of 1977 and 2007 based on the number of degrees earned by black females for every 100 degrees earned by black males. The "degree gap" is much wider for black college graduates compared to the degree gap for all racial/ethnic groups.

For example, there were almost 250 master's degrees awarded in 2007 to black females for every 100 degrees earned by black men. Consider also that in 1976-1977, black men outnumbered black women for doctor's degrees and professional degrees (MDs and JDs) and there were 100 doctor's degrees earned by black men for every 67 degrees awarded to black females, and 100 professional degrees for black men for every 44.1 degrees earned by black women (more than a 2:1 ratio in favor of black men). By 2007, the gender imbalance had completely reversed and black women outnumbered black men by almost 2:1 for both doctor's and professional degrees.

Comments welcome.

Jobless Claims Drop for 13th Week to 13-Mo. Low

WASHINGTON — New claims for unemployment benefits in the United States fell unexpectedly, according to the latest weekly data Thursday, showing fresh signs of stabilization in the ailing labor market. The seasonally adjusted number of new unemployment claims in the week ending November 28 fell to 457,000, down 1.1 percent from the previous week's downwardly revised figure of 462,000, the Labor Department said.

New claims for unemployment insurance benefits are now at the lowest level since September 2008 and have declined for five consecutive weeks, the longest streak since the US economy entered recession in December 2007. The four-week moving average, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, was 481,250, a decrease of 14,250 from the previous week's revised average of 495,000 (see chart above).

MP: Jobless claims (4-week moving average) have now decreased for the 13th consecutive week to a new 13-month low of 481,250, the lowest level since November 1, 2008.

60% of All Vanguard Accounts and 71% of Target-Date Funds Have Recovered to 2007 Levels

ABC News -- Another major provider of 401(k) accounts says the typical retirement saver now has more money in their account than they did before the stock market began tumbling two years ago. The Vanguard Group Inc. said Wednesday that 60 percent of participants who continued to contribute and stayed invested have more money in their accounts than they had in September 2007 — before the market decline. That means 40 percent of continuous participants have lower balances, although Vanguard said most of them are less than 20 percent below their earlier peak value.

From Vanguard's press release:

The study looked at Vanguard participant balances between September 2007 and September 2009, a period during which the market peaked in October 2007 and declined dramatically in 2008 and early 2009. At Vanguard as of September 2009, 60% of continuous participants (those with a balance in their plan over that two-year period) had the same or a higher account balance than they had at the stock market’s October 2007 peak. The balances of 40% of continuous participants were lower, although most of them had balances that are less than 20% below their earlier peak value.

The study also found that 71% of pure Vanguard target-date fund investors (those investing their entire plan account in a target-date fund) saw their account balances return to or exceed the level of two years ago. The median pure target-date investor’s account increased more than 80% during the period. These positive outcomes occurred regardless of the stated retirement year of the fund.

“The main reason for the recovery in 401(k) balances is ongoing contributions. Both investment returns and contributions jointly determine retirement savings,” said Stephen P. Utkus, head of the Vanguard Center for Retirement Research. “Growth in one of those factors can offset losses in another over a given period. Our evidence suggests that ongoing contributions plus improvement over time in the capital markets may restore many more of these individuals to their pre-October 2007 wealth levels, perhaps more rapidly than previously anticipated.”

HT: Lyle Meier

Texas vs. California

From "America’s Future: California vs. Texas" in Trends Magazine:

What's the worst state to do business in? According to readers of Chief Executive magazine, it's California. In the same poll, Texas won first place as the best state in which to put your headquarters. As reported in The Economist, the two largest states in the nation have very different philosophies and very different success rates.

What’s wrong with California, and what’s right with Texas? It really comes down to four fundamental differences in the value systems embodied in these states:

1. Texans on average believe in laissez-faire markets with an emphasis on individual responsibility. Since the '80s, California’s policy-makers have favored central planning solutions and a reliance on a government social safety net. This unrelenting commitment to big government has led to a huge tax burden and triggered a mass exodus of jobs. The Trends Editors examined the resulting migration in “Voting with Our Feet,” in the April 2008 issue of Trends.

2. Californians have largely treated environmentalism as a “religious sacrament” rather than as one component among many in maximizing people's quality of life. As we explained in “The Road Ahead for Housing,” in the June 2009 issue of Trends, environmentally-based land-use restriction centered in California played a huge role in inflating the recent housing bubble. Similarly, an unwillingness to manage ecology proactively for man’s benefit has been behind the recent epidemic of wildfires.

3. California has placed “ethnic diversity” above “assimilation,” while Texas has done the opposite. “Identity politics” has created psychological ghettos that have prevented many of California’s diverse ethnic groups and subcultures from integrating fully into the mainstream. Texas, on the other hand, has proactively encouraged all the state’s residents to join the mainstream.

4. Beyond taxes, diversity, and the environment, Texas has focused on streamlining the regulatory and litigation burden on its residents. Meanwhile, California’s government has attempted to use regulation and litigation to transfer wealth from its creators to various special-interest constituencies.

MP: The 4.2% difference in October jobless rates (12.5% in CA vs. 8.3% in TX) tells the story (see graph above). In fact, California's unemployment rate has been more than 4 percent above the rate in Texas every month this year except for January, and that is the first time in state jobless rate history back to 1976 that there has ever been a 4-point difference in the unemployment rates between those two states.

HT: Enterprise Blog

LASIK As a Model for Health Care Reform

Market-based health care solutions are discussed in this Reason.tv video, based on what works quite well in the other five-sixths of the U.S. economy, where choice and competition lead to increases in quality and lower prices over time (electronics, automobiles, clothing, etc.). In one of the few truly market-based areas of health care that is actually consumer-driven (since it's not covered by insurance and patients make direct cash payments) - LASIK eye surgery - there have been market-driven improvements in quality and dramatic reductions in cost, which could be a model for health care reform for other procedures.

Specific recommendations from Reason include:

1. Change the tax code.

2. Scale back state regulations and create a national market for health insurance.

3. Promote Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).

MP: The chart above shows the 42% reduction in LASIK surgery between 1991 and 2009 (in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars).

Corporate Layoffs: The Storm Has Passed

Scott Grannis at the always excellent Calafia Beach Pundit blog produced the graph above on Corporate Layoffs, and comments:

I've been showing this chart since early this year, saying that it was a good indicator of improvement in the economy. Corporate layoff announcements (which are presumably a fairly accurate gauge of distress in the large corporate sector of the economy) are now down to levels that in the past have been consistent with healthy economic growth. The storm has clearly passed.

MP: What's interesting is to compare Scott's graph above to the graph below of the "Search Volume Index" for the term "layoffs" using Google Trends, showing the same surge towards the end of 2008 followed by a huge spike around the first of the year, and then a sharp decline over the year, falling to levels in recent months that are about the same as in 2007. (Note: Google Trends only goes back to 2004 so it's not possible to match the same time periods in both graphs.)

NY Fed Treasury Spread Model: Economic Recovery Underway, NO Chance of a Double-Dip Recession

The New York Fed recently released its latest "Probability of U.S. Recession Predicted by Treasury Spread," with data through October 2009, and the Fed's recession probability forecast through October 2010 (see top chart above). The NY Fed's model uses the spread between 10-year and 3-month Treasury rates (3.32% spread in October) to calculate the probability of a recession in the U.S. twelve months ahead.

The Fed's model (data here) shows that the recession probability peaked during the October 2007 to April 2008 period at around 35-40%, and has been declining since then in almost every month. For October 2009, the recession probability is only 0.18% (less than 1/5 of 1%) and by a year from now in October 2010 the recession probability is only .105%, or about 1/10 of one percent.

Further, the Treasury spread has been above 3% for the last six months (since May), a pattern consistent with the economic recoveries following the last two recessions (see bottom chart above). Finally, the pattern of the recession probability index so far this year (going below double-digits and declining monthly) is very similar to the pattern starting in March 2002 that signalled the end of the 2001 recession.

According to the NY Fed model, the chances of a double-dip recession this year or next year? Zero.

DJ Economic Sentiment Indicator Increases in 11 of Last 12 Months to Highest Level Since August 2008

Increasingly positive media coverage of consumer spending contributed to a significant rise in the Dow Jones Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) in November. The ESI rose to 38.3, up from 36.9 in October.

The Dow Jones Economic Sentiment Indicator aims to predict the health of the U.S. economy by analyzing the broad coverage of 15 major daily newspapers in the U.S. The ESI has risen 11 out of 12 months since its low of 22.2 in November 2008, data that confirm the consensus among economists that the U.S. recession ended sometime early in the summer.

“The Dow Jones Economic Sentiment Indicator climbed to its highest level since August 2008, suggesting the U.S. economic recovery is entrenched and that the number of jobs lost during the month continued to shrink sharply,” Dow Jones Newswires 'Money Talks' columnist Alen Mattich said. “Market expectations for November job losses have been falling, a view supported by the indicator. This in turn could underpin retail sentiment over the next month."

The ESI represents one of the most comprehensive and far-reaching examinations of media coverage as an economic indicator. The ESI’s back-testing to 1990 shows that the ESI clearly highlighted the risk that the U.S. economy was sliding into recession in 2001 and 2008 and suggests the indicator can help predict economic turning points as much as seven months in advance of other indicators.