http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_28/b4092028848087.htm?chan=search

reporting that 1.3% retail sales growth during first quarter may be overstated because US web site sales to foreign consumers are counted as US retail–even the foreign language versions of US web sites.

David Leonhardt discusses a few items today which are regular discussion points here at TBP. My favorite lately is why the public is so much gloomier than the pundits: Pundits have been scratching their heads about why the public mood is so grim. Last …

Just hv to say tho after reading your piece on constructive criticism; this’d be a good time to remind ourselves sometimes to read thru the fine print as well instead of just the headlines wouldn’t it?

That said I do enjoy your work, Sir. Only bringing this up because I caught myself doing it, too.

God Speed!

The story from these data is one of rising risk with age. The average age for filing bankruptcy has increased, and the rate of bankruptcy filings among those ages 65 or older has more than doubled since 1991. The corresponding decline in filing rates among young Americans might signal better financial security than that of their earlier counterparts. But the fact that previous generations show a sharp rise in filings in their early middle age may signal instead that people are living with financial stress for years, putting off the day of reckoning in bankruptcy for as long as possible.

If he’s going to go through the trouble to compare apples to apples (use the 70′s methodology for today’s numbers) for the employment stats, he needs to do his digging and learn how to report the stats similarly.

“The last time consumers were this miserable, in May 1980, the jobless rate was 7.5 percent and inflation was 14.4 percent” — spiffy, yet when you use the same metrics as in that era.. voila, the jobless rate is ABOVE that (shocking) and the annualized inflation rate is ABOVE that (19%, just in case anyone’s counting.)

I’m frosted when I see people trotting out whatever collection of metrics serves some bizarre short-sighted purpose without including… the big picture. Core inflation has no meaning or relevance to anything – the guy who “invented” it repudiated it before he died. The chief theory behind core is what? Energy prices don’t change. Not “are rising consistently” – nope, that the dollar value for one BTU today is the same as last month and next month.

Bottom line: WaPo is part of the MSM. They truly believe (as a matter of faith) that if they jawbone with enough editorial space, their readers will somehow “believe” the fantasy world of people who make more after-tax in one month than they do in a year.

Much like leaving Ben Stein to Felix Salmon’s rapier, couldn’t we dispense with the notion that ANY mainstream economics reporter has a single globule of sense? Seriously – I’d bet money that the factually correct, useful, interesting economics articles in the print media are under 5% of the total written. Anybody want to cover? :)

“Shortly afterward, the real economic bottom was reached, and then began an amazing run of economic, political and military superiority never before seen in human history…”

You must be referencing a country other than America:

* Economically, in addition to the Standard of Living of the vast majority of Americans going backwards by about 20%, both Unemployment and Poverty spiked, there were massive federal deficits and debt as a result of failed tax cuts for the Rich & Corporate, as well as a widening inequality.

* Politically, we were seen as regressive, unenlightened, and a pariah around the globe.

* Militarily, they sold chemical and biological precursors to Saddam Hussein, supported the Mujahadeen, and they are still unearthing mass graves of men, women, and children, in both Nicaragua and Honduras, as a result of their political, economic, and military support for RightWing Death Squads in Central America.

“This, I think, explains the paradox of pessimism and despair even while things are still very, very good.”

WHERE ?

* Bankruptcies are at the HIGHEST level in history

* Home foreclosures are at the HIGHEST level in history

* We have the LARGEST Inventory of unsold vacant homes in history

* Federal budget deficits are at the HIGHEST level in history

* The savings rate went NEGATIVE for the first time since the Great Depression

* Poverty has INCREASED every year of the past seven years

* American worker’s wages have DECLINED every year of the past seven years

* We are down MILLIONS of jobs since 2000

* The S&P 500, in inflation-adjusted dollars, would need to be over 15,000 just to get back to where it was in 2000
.

I worked at Bloomberg TV and though there were great people there, there were too many stenographers who reported what companies reported and what ‘analysts’ said, rather than doing their own analysis. There were too many who were much more viscerally interested in politics than credit markets. Too many who are looking to get on TV so they can make their next career jump to a ‘real’ channel.

Can you blame them? Let’s pretend you’re a recent grad from a top college with an economics degree and some quantitative skills. Do you choose Wall Street for $100k or business news for $30k? How about if you’re graduating from B-school with some real tools?

On a different note, I like Marcus Aurelius’s image of the marks realizing they’ve been had then the “pitchforks, shovels, torches, tar, and feathers come out.” I’m not sure I buy into it though. More then likely there will be some symbolic prosecutions, a la Mssrs. Chioffe and Tannin, but the overwhelming number of the culpable will get away, mostly because the crimes were not crimes per se. Of course, if the pain is too great, if this were to turn into a ‘great depression’ scale catastrophe, then all bets are off.