Central Perk

sâmbătă, 3 mai 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Civil War in Ukraine (But Please Don't Call it That!)

Posted: 03 May 2014 10:46 AM PDT

A civil war is underway in Ukraine. Curiously, no one has labeled it as such even though the Ukrainian government launched an offensive, helicopters were shot down, dozens were killed in the process, and military operations took place in multiple cities.

Two Ukrainian government helicopters were shot down and six people reported to have been killed on Friday morning as state forces launched a military offensive in Slavyansk, the eastern separatist-held city where armed pro-Russia militia fighters are holding several people hostage.

A spokesman for Russian president Vladimir Putin described the offensive as a "punitive operation", raising the stakes in Ukraine's confrontation with pro-Russia rebels and Moscow, after a week that has seen separatists seize control of more government, police and judicial buildings in the country's east.

Punitive Operation

Let's not call it a war, let's call it a a "punitive operation".

"While Russia is making an effort to de-escalate and resolve the conflict, the Kiev regime has ordered combat aircraft to fire at civilian towns and villages, launching a punitive operation and effectively destroying all hope for the viability of the Geneva agreements," said Dmitry Peskov, in remarks quoted by the Interfax news agency.

Anti-Terrorist Operation

Later in the day, Kiev labeled the non-war war an "anti-terrorist operation" complete with the following promise: "Ukraine's leadership is ready to grant amnesty to all . . . that did not commit capital crimes"

Warnings of "War"

Today, the non-war talk turned even more serious and dozens were killed. Bloomberg reports Ukraine Presses Assault on Rebels With Warning of 'War'

Ukrainian forces pressed their assault on separatists today and the head of the anti-terrorist center warned eastern regions are "essentially" at war, even as OSCE hostages were released.

The Ukrainian anti-terrorist operation in the Donetsk region left five dead and 12 wounded, said the center's chief, Vasyl Krutov. Government forces secured Slovyansk as operations in Kramatorsk continued, he said. Another 42 people were killed and 125 were injured in a building fire and street battle in Odessa that began last night when pro-Russians attacked marching football fans and a pro-Ukrainian rally.

"What is happening in the east is not a short-term action, this is essentially a war," Krutov said today.

Open clashes are sweeping Ukraine's east, from Donetsk near the Russian border to Odessa, about 100 miles from the European Union's southeastern frontier in Romania, amid signs the industrial and coastal regions are slipping out of the Kiev government's control.

"We, Ukrainians, are now constantly pushed into confrontation, into civil conflicts and to ruination of the country from inside," said acting President Oleksandr Turchynov on his website today. "We cannot allow this to happen and have to be united in our fight with a foreign enemy who wants to destroy Ukraine."

Kerry Warning

"It's important for Russia to withdraw support from the separatists and to assist in removing people from the buildings and begin to deescalate the situation," Kerry said in remarks to the press in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

In his own website statement following the conversation, Lavrov said he warned Kerry about a "fratricidal conflict" brewing in Ukraine. He also urged the U.S. to get Ukraine to stop the offensive in the eastern regions.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a briefing today in Jezioro, Poland, that officials are "losing hope" about a diplomatic solution to end the crisis.

"This is a war of maybe a different kind, it is a war that's undeclared," Tusk was quoted as saying by PAP newswire at a media briefing. "But what we're really dealing with is de-facto a war. You can clearly see that actions taken by the international community haven't brought results."

What Is It?

It's not a civil war it's a ...

Punitive operation
Anti-terrorist operation
Warning of war
Civil conflict
Desperate situation
Confrontation
Fratricidal conflict
Offensive
War of a different kind
De-facto war

You can call it whatever you want, but please don't call it what it is: a civil war.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Damn Cool Pics

See What It Takes To Keep Facebook Up And Running

Posted: 02 May 2014 07:42 PM PDT

Facebook is an absolutely massive website. Every single day billions of people visit Facebook to get their social media fix and it takes a lot to keep the site up and running. Get an inside look at some of the equipment that keeps Facebook going.

The President’s Year of Action

Featured

Weekly Address: The President's Year of Action

In this week's address, the President provided an update on the work his Administration has done to strengthen the economy and expand opportunity for hardworking Americans in this Year of Action. While Republicans in Congress are setting records in obstruction, the President is making progress for the American people and has taken more than 20 executive actions since January.

The President vowed to continue taking action on his own wherever possible, but underscored that much more progress could be made if Republicans in Congress were less interested in stacking the deck in favor of those at the top, and more interested in expanding opportunity for all.

Click here to watch this week's Weekly Address.

Seth's Blog : Embracing the power user

Embracing the power user

Zipf's law applies to more than just the letters in the alphabet. In just about every system and every market, a power law is in force.

Heavy users make markets work. There are a few people who eat out every night, or go to 30 Broadway shows a year, or send 200 greeting cards annually or buy $100,000 worth of jewelry at a shot. There are people who tweet every three minutes, individuals who work to have tens of thousands of Facebook fans or work overtime to be the top of the heap at door-to-door selling.

This is a given. Your power users will account for a disproportionate amount of your usage and attention.

The question is this: Is your project organized so that it benefits from the power users? (And so it benefits them in return?)

In the case of Broadway shows, not at all. Frequent ticket buyers do nothing at all to help the marketing or impact of a typical show. On the other hand, Twitter is designed from the ground up to grow as their power users push it forward. Wikipedia thrives on the work of just 5,000 power editors. eBay grew because just a few thousand home businesses used it as a platform to bring in millions of buyers.

Power users can pay you more or they can build infrastructure, or they can do outreach for you. The challenge is in finding them, embracing them and giving them tools to accomplish their goals as you reach yours.

• Email to a friend •

vineri, 2 mai 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Nonfarm Payrolls +288,000, Unemployment Rate Drops to 6.3%; Household Survey Employment -73,000, Labor Force -806,000

Posted: 02 May 2014 08:09 AM PDT

Initial Reaction

This month sported another amazing difference between the household survey and the payroll survey. The difference is so vast that looking at the numbers in isolation, one might think the results were from two different countries.

The headline number from the payroll survey beat expectations by a mile with 288,000 jobs, but beneath the surface, the household survey shows employment declined by 73,000.

April BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance

Nonfarm Payroll: +288,000 - Establishment Survey
Employment: -73,000 - Household Survey
Unemployment: -733,000 - Household Survey
Involuntary Part-Time Work: +54,000 - Household Survey
Voluntary Part-Time Work: -330,000 - Household Survey
Baseline Unemployment Rate: -0.4 at 6.3% - Household Survey
U-6 unemployment: -0.4 to 12.3% - Household Survey
Civilian Non-institutional Population: +181,000
Civilian Labor Force: -806,000 - Household Survey
Not in Labor Force: +988,000 - Household Survey
Participation Rate: +0.2 at 62.8 - Household Survey

Additional Notes About the Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate varies in accordance with the Household Survey, not the reported headline jobs number, and not in accordance with the weekly claims data.
In the past year the population rose by 2,260,000.
In the last year the labor force rose by 62,000.
In the last year, those "not" in the labor force rose by 2,203,000
Over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by 1,993,000 (an average of 166,000 a month)

The population rose by over 2 million, but the labor force was essentially flat. People dropping out of the work force accounts for much of the declining unemployment rate.

April 2014 Employment Report

Please consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) April 2014 Employment Report.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 288,000, and the unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage point to 6.3 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment gains were widespread, led by job growth in professional and business services, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and construction.

Click on Any Chart in this Report to See a Sharper Image

Unemployment Rate - Seasonally Adjusted

Nonfarm Employment January 2011 - April 2014

click on chart for sharper image

Nonfarm Employment Change from Previous Month by Job Type

The establishment survey gain is the largest 1-month gain since January 2012. Nonfarm employment remains just 113,000 below its January 2008 peak.

Hours and Wages

Average weekly hours of all private employees was flat at 34.5 hours. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees was flat at 33.3 hours.

Average hourly earnings of private workers rose $0.03 to $20.50. Average hourly earnings of private service-providing employees rose $0.02 to $20.28.

For further discussion of income distribution, please see What's "Really" Behind Gross Inequalities In Income Distribution?

Birth Death Model

Starting January, I dropped the Birth/Death Model charts from this report. For those who follow the numbers, I keep this caution: Do not subtract the reported Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid. Should anything interesting arise in the Birth/Death numbers, I will add the charts back.

Table 15 BLS Alternate Measures of Unemployment

click on chart for sharper image

Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.

Notice I said "better" approximation not to be confused with "good" approximation.

The official unemployment rate is 6.3%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 12.3%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Labor Force Factors

Discouraged workers stop looking for jobs
People retire because they cannot find jobs
People go back to school hoping it will improve their chances of getting a job
People stay in school longer because they cannot find a job
Disability and disability fraud

Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 9%.

Synopsis

Last month, weather-related effects were taken back and then some. This month we see a return to the divergence between the household survey and the establishment survey. +288,000 vs. -73,000 is massive. So is the decline in labor force of 800,000. That is the only reason the unemployment rate declined. All things considered, this was not a good report.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Damn Cool Pics

Banned Food Items That Americans Are Still Eating
Awesome Idea To Make Your Balcony A Lot Cooler
The Deadliest Animal in the World [Infographic]

Banned Food Items That Americans Are Still Eating

Posted: 02 May 2014 12:19 PM PDT

Did you know that there are several food items Americans eat every single day that other countries have deemed too unhealthy to be consumed? Take a look at these food items that are banned in other countries but still being eaten in America.

Source

Awesome Idea To Make Your Balcony A Lot Cooler

Posted: 02 May 2014 10:30 AM PDT

Sometimes your balcony needs a fresh look but you might not have any ideas on how to make it look new again. These pics should give you some inspiration.