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Russ Henke
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Author: |
Russ Henke |
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3/2/2007 6:15 AM |
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Thoughts of interest to COFES and COFES attendees |
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May 29 News |
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By Russ Henke on
5/29/2008 5:01 PM
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So many things to comment on today; too little time…
1. Scott McClellan’s new memoir about the Bush 43 White House
2. Bear Stearns disappearing into JP Morgan Chase
3. SPAM sales on the rise
4. Q1 GDP being revised up from 0.6% to 0.9%
5. …and many more
We’ll leave most of these to another time soon, although #3 is immediately tempting, mostly due to Monty Python and to the fact that dinner time is near.
No, today we’ll talk about #4.
I just have one question: Do you feel luckier, now that the Q1 GDP was actually 0.3% higher in Q1 2008? Well, do ya?
Not I !!.
The number of US jobs lost in Q1 2008 remains at 240,000. There were still 7.6 million US people unemployed at the end of Q1, up from 6.8 million unemployed only a year earlier, and est ...
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Break out the Champagne? |
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By Russ Henke on
5/27/2008 4:54 PM
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On Tuesday May 27, 2008, the price per barrel of oil dropped from the mid-$130’s that it “achieved” last week, to end trading below $129. Hallelujah?
Well, maybe not! Just as General Petraeus recently warned us all to keep the champagne in the back of the fridge when it comes to IRAQ, maybe likewise we’d better hold off on the “economic toasting” for awhile.
Because the latest economic news is not good, my friends.
While the price of oil did close down a few percentage points on May 27, US average gas prices hit another record high at almost $3.94 a gallon of regular, according to a survey of stations by the AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Now, enterprising thieves have added puncturing gas tanks and gas lines to steal gasoline to their previous nefarious methods of either siphoning gas, or just driving off without paying after fill ups at gas stations.
While the Dow ticked ...
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Economic Data Continue Grim |
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By Russ Henke on
5/18/2008 4:48 PM
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Here are a few more data points that have emerged since the last blog entry in this space:
In 1993, the richest 1% of American families pocketed 14% of the nation’s income. By 2006, their slice had grown to 23%.
In a new US corporate IT spending survey by ChangeWave Research in April 2008, 25% of the respondents said their company will spend less on software in coming months. This figure is 3 points higher than a study ChangeWave conducted in January and 11 points higher than one completed in October 2007, indicating a deepening trend.
Consumer prices increased a hefty 0.6% in April 2008, the US Labor Department said on May 15, 2008, if you take out seasonal adjustments. Of course, if one does not eat or drive (i.e. ignoring price increases in food and gas), April consumer prices increased only 0.2%. During the last 12 months, overall consumer prices increased 3.9%. Food alone has risen 5.1%; gaso ...
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April Jobs Report – the Worst is Over! |
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By Russ Henke on
5/3/2008 8:23 AM
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Yesterday, May 2, 2008, the US Labor Department issued its monthly Jobs Report for April 2008. The Report estimates that “only” 20,000 more US net jobs were lost in the month. Hey, the recession is over, right?
Not so fast!
Lest we forget, April marked the fourth consecutive month of declining US jobs. During that 4-month period, 260,000 net jobs were lost –- an average of 65,000 jobs lost per month. Since it takes 127,000 new jobs every month just to stay even, that means the US has fallen behind some 192,000 jobs in each of the last four months, or 768,000 for the 4-month period.
And as usual, April’s mix of jobs lost & gained was telling: 46,000 US manufacturing workers were laid off last month; 326,000 such positions have been lost over the last year. Construction lost 61,000 jobs. In April alone, that’s 107,000 more workers lost in these two key wealth-producing sectors where ...
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"Slowdown" or "Recession" ?? |
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By Russ Henke on
4/25/2008 6:31 AM
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Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, the current administration continues to deny that a recession is abroad in the land. Just a few days ago, Bush 43 rejected claims that the nation was in a recession, instead saying only, “We are in a slowdown.”
If the economic facts in my April 23, 2008 blog entry were not enough, here are some more depressing data points on the US economy --- data just released late on April 24:
Sales of new homes dropped by 8.5% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units, the slowest sales pace since October 1991 (during Bush 41’s reign). The median price of a new home sold in March 2008 dropped by 13.3% compared with March 2007, the biggest year-over-year price decline since a 14.6% fall in July 1970 (during Nixon’s first term).
New home sales were down in all regions of the country in March 2008: Northeast minus 19.4%, West minus 12.9%, Midwest minus 12.5%, and South minus 4.6%.< ...
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The US Economy -- not so good... |
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By Russ Henke on
4/23/2008 4:55 PM
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Well, the US economy sure hasn’t improved any since my last blog entry in February 2008. Unfortunately, we are all sinking deeper into W’s second recession.
Rising gasoline prices again tightened the squeeze on US drivers on Earth Day April 22, 2008, jumping for the first time to an average $3.50 a gallon of regular across the country - with no sign of relief. (Drivers here in the San Francisco Bay Area paid an average of $3.98 a gallon for regular).
Crude oil set a record for the sixth day in a row on April 22, this time closing at $117.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Diesel prices at the pump also struck a record of $4.20 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. That will add add to truckers' costs and drive up the price of food, clothing and other goods shipped by truck.
It’s difficult to find good news anywhere across the U ...
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Gusset Plates |
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By Russ Henke on
1/15/2008 11:47 AM
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Our family is planning a modest addition to our relatively small house in California. We plan to utilize internal steel beams similar to those uniquely used in the existing house, built in 1995. We believe the steel cage created by these beams adds seismic stability. However, during the recent planning for the addition, we discovered that the building code in our city has changed since 1995. The steel gussets used where multiple beams are joined must now be designed per a newly adopted code with far stricter strength standards than before.
We are gratified that the building code now has these stricter requirements, even though the CAD software used to design the original steel gussets in 1995 is identical to the CAD software used now.
Because the design of our modest steel cage is no better than the skill and up-to-date code knowledge of the engineer/architect using the CAD software. It has always been thus – CAD software, old or new, is no substitute for the exp ...
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Getting Work Done in Virtual Worlds |
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By Russ Henke on
1/12/2008 11:41 AM
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“Forrester Research is predicting in its “Getting Work Done in Virtual Worlds” report that in five years 3-D Internet will be as important as the Web now is to businesses,” according to SandHill.com. The "Getting Work Done in Virtual Worlds" report released by Forrester during the first week of January 2008 concludes that executives should begin investigating and experimenting with virtual worlds soon because of their promise for remote collaboration, training and the ability to build and share 3-D models.
The virtual model is especially important for professionals like surgeons, architects, engineers and product designers, who use CAD models or visualization systems to explore or create projects, Forrester said. In virtual meetings, these professionals can import models for discussion and modification, according to the report. "You can release near-final designs to a limited group of external users and solicit feedback before starting fabrication," it said.
< ...
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December 2007 US Jobs Report – A Mediocre 18,000 |
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By Russ Henke on
1/5/2008 10:34 AM
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As follow up to the December 9, 2007 blog entry in this space, the Labor Department reported January 4, 2008 that only a measly 18,000 net non-farm US jobs were added in December 2007, the fewest since August 2003. At the same time, the nation's overall unemployment rate rose to 5% (from 4.7%), its highest level since November 2005.
US manufacturing continued its ongoing loses, with 31,000 US manufacturing jobs disappearing in December. The health of the manufacturing sector is key to revenue growth in the US CAD/CAM industry.
For the third consecutive month, wages grew slower than the pace of inflation, cutting into the real income of many US workers. But the FED will likely reduce interest rates still further to boost the deteriorating stock market, and ignore its alleged commitment to control inflation.
In the face of the above data, Bush 43 publicly said January 4, 2008 that the “nation’s economy is strong and solid” and he made no mention of the at ...
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Fears Worsen for W’s Second Recession |
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By Russ Henke on
12/28/2007 1:35 PM
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New-home sales in the US fell 9% in November from October to a seasonally-adjusted annual sales pace of 647,000, the US Commerce Department reported December 28, 2007. Economists were predicting November 2007 new-home sales to decline by only 1.8%. Over the last 12 months, new-home sales in the US have plunged by more than 34%, the biggest annual drop since 1991 (i.e. under Bush 41).
"I think you can classify what we are seeing in the housing market as a crash," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, according to the AP. "Sales and home prices are in a free fall. The downturn is intensifying."
Fed by the persistent lack of federal regulation in the mortgage market, the housing debacle has significantly increased the odds that the US economy will soon fall into a recession, the second one under Bush 43. We recall that his daddy presided over only one recession.
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