White House claims 650,000 jobs saved by stimulus: are these numbers really accurate?

Filed under: Economic data, Recession, Financial Crisis

This morning, the White House reported that President Obama's stimulus package has created or saved 650,000 jobs -- of course, this time the Obama Administration promises that the new figures will be "more accurate" than in the past. As for the jobs saved or created, the administration based its finds on roughly $150 billion in spending from the $787 billion stimulus package. These "more accurate" numbers are taken from state reports and private companies. The White House did note that the actual number of jobs created thus far is "likely closer to 1 million" because this report looked at only $150 billion of the $339 billion invested in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds spent.

Continue reading White House claims 650,000 jobs saved by stimulus: are these numbers really accurate?

White House claims 650,000 jobs saved by stimulus: are these numbers really accurate? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Despite crisis, New York still viewed as financial capital of the world

Filed under: International markets, Financial Crisis

To say that it's been a difficult decade for New York City, and the nation at large, would be an understatement. In New York, more than 100,000 lay-offs in the financial community stemming from the bursting of the leveraging bubble and closure of key financial institutions has led to the city's worst recession in more than two decades.

However, the financial and economic crisis that has slowed New York's economy, surprisingly, has not resulted the loss of one city title -- that of financial capital of the world. 29% of respondents to a survey listed the city as the leading global financial center, with the city that never sleeps topping both Singapore, 17%, and London, 16%, according to a Bloomberg Global Poll. The poll of 1,452 Bloomberg subscribers was conducted October 23-27.

Continue reading Despite crisis, New York still viewed as financial capital of the world

Despite crisis, New York still viewed as financial capital of the world originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to know where the Dow is headed? Keep an eye on job growth

Filed under: Forecasts, Indices, Economic data

Now that the U.S. economy is growing -- GDP grew at a 3.5% annualized rate in Q3, according to U.S. Commerce Department data, one key question for investors large and small is: Is the U.S. economic expansion sustainable?

Investors can immerse themselves in data on consumer spending, retail sales, new home sales, auto sales, and factory output etc., and all of those provide clues, no question. But if you're time-pressed and you want one metric to gauge the U.S. economy's likely health 6-9 months from now, monitor: monthly non-farm payrolls, as tallied by the U.S. Labor Department. I.E., how many jobs the U.S. economy lost or created in the previous month.

Continue reading Want to know where the Dow is headed? Keep an eye on job growth

Want to know where the Dow is headed? Keep an eye on job growth originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TV Sports Ratings Are Going Through The Roof! Here's Why

Have you seen sports ratings lately?

Just this week:

The NBA on TNT had its highest ratings in TWENTY SIX YEARS .  Versus had its highest rated regular season NHL game EVER.  The first game of the World Series was the highest rated in 5 years.  The NFL was setting records on cable and achieving viewing levels not seen in TWENTY YEARS !. College Football ratings are killing it as well.

But wait there is more.  TV viewing is up considerably in each of the last several years. We can even look at the box office for movies and the fact that the industry is seeing a theatrical revival.

The question is simple. Whats going on ?

The answer is simple as well.

The internet has trained us.

It has trained us to assign two distinct values to content that is available to us, regardless of media.    The 1st variable is participation value. The 2nd variable is shelf life.  The two variables go hand in hand.

Every type of content has some quotient of participation value. At the bottom of the spectrum are games/shows/movies/events that you watch or attend by yourself, and you have no interest in telling anyone about.  Those shows have zero participation value.  They could be Perry Mason reruns (happened to catch one while I was working out on the road) or shows you watch when you have nothing better to do.

At the top of the scale are games/shows/movies/events that potential viewers have predicted to have high participation value.  These are events that we look forward to not only watching or attending, but that we plan in advance how we are going to extend our participation.  We may plan on tweeting about it or posting a facebook update because we know our friends are there and we are bragging to each other, while at the same time showing off to friends who cant be there. Think going to the opening of Cowboys stadium, or going to a concert or opening night of a movie, or watching the big game.

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See Also:

• Sorry, There's No Way To Save The TV Business

Full story at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/l8cWSas66mY/tv-sports-ratings-are-going-through-the-roof-heres-what-it-means-2009-10

Another Insider-Trading Bust

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit against a former top executive of an activist San Francisco hedge fund and six others charging them with insider trading, saying they made more than $8 million trading on stocks based partly on information the executive learned on the job.

The executive, Ronald Yee, was the chief financial officer of ValueAct Capital, a firm known for taking big stakes in companies and becoming involved in their management, the firm said. ValueAct is run by former Fidelity Investments fund manager Jeffrey Ubben, who is best known for being the second-biggest shareholder and becoming chairman of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. after the company's namesake founder was indicted on charges related to insider trading.

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See Also:

• Watch How Arrogant SEC Employees Dismissed Harry Markopolos
• SEC Makes MASSIVE Friday-Afternoon News Dump Of Madoff Documents

Full story at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/2MQzpyUV81w/another-insider-trading-bust-2009-10

Obama creates 640,329 jobs at a cost of $323,739.83 per job

Inquiring minds are asking the question "How many jobs were created out of the various stimulus programs so far and at what cost per job?"

That is a good question. Not that we can believe the reported number of jobs created, but let's assume for the sake of argument that the figures provided by the administration are correct.

White House Hails Stimulus Jobs

The Financial Times is reporting White House hails 650,000 stimulus jobs.

The US economic stimulus programme has directly created or saved 640,000 jobs so far, the White House said on Friday as it battled to find ways to show that its $787bn package was working, despite persistently high unemployment.

Data this week showed that the US economy had started to grow again but the Obama administration has faced rising criticism that it wasted taxpayers' money on the stimulus.

The White House tried to counter this by championing the jobs figures and even uploading videos to its website showing the dollars in action. The figures showed around half of the jobs were in education and 12.5 per cent were in construction.

"These reports are strong confirmation that?we are on-track to create and save 3.5m jobs through the Recovery Act by the end of next year," said Joe Biden, vice president.

But criticism has mounted this week over the accuracy of some preliminary stimulus data released by the White House. Even the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank which has fervently supported the stimulus, said there were serious problems with the figures.

Bear in mind it is impossible to prove how many jobs were created and it is beyond preposterous to think one can estimate the number of jobs saved.

However, let's take the administration's estimates at face value.

Inquiring minds want the official numbers on which to base the cost per job created. So please consider the administration's own numbers as reported on Track The Money Recovery.Gov as of October 30, 2009.



Let's do the math.

Math To Date

Funds paid out so far = $83.8 billion + $52.1 billion + $71.4 billion = $207.3 billion
$207,300,000,000 / 640,329 = $323,739.83 per job created

Plan Goals Math

Now let's assume this stimulus package will eventually create (or save) 3.5 million jobs and all the money (but no more) will be spent.

Here's the math again.

$787,000,000,000 / 3,500,000 = $224,857.14 per job created

Top States



There is much more information on the site and a quick look at the projects shows many of them are for temporary jobs such as highway repair and weatherizing homes.

Amazingly, the White House is championing the above numbers. Apparently they forgot to do the math (or they are praying no one else will).

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction.
Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Full story at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/obama-creates-640329-jobs-at-cost-of.html