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Other • The Decline of Self-Employment and Small Business
The Decline of Self-Employment and Small Business
April 22, 2013
Small business is the incubator of employment. As it declines, so too do opportunities for first jobs, second chances and economic independence.
Self-employment and small business are two sides of a single economic coin: financial independence. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counts two types of self-employed, the unincorporated and the incorporated. The unincorporated may have employees, but typically do not, i.e. they are sole proprietors. The incorporated have employees, starting with the owner, as the BLS counts the incorporated self-employed as employees of their own corporation.
I know that’s confusing, but it’s important to separate the sole proprietors from those "self-employed" incorporated businesses that have employees: law firms, doctors’ offices, accountants, etc.
When we speak of "small business," we’re referring in large part to the incorporated self-employed: people who establish corporations as the legal structure for their enterprise.
Nothing is simple when it comes to parsing all the data, of course, but the BLS has a paper that explains the basic categories: Self-employment in the United States (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
The BLS attributes the decline in unincorporated self-employment from 1950 to 1970 to the consolidation of agriculture. As agriculture became more mechanized, small farms were no longer viable and farming required less labor. As a result, many self-employed farmers and laborers became employees or moved to other sectors.
The trajectory of self-employment from 1970 to the mid-2000s tracked general economic growth, which was weak in the 1970s but began a 30-year boom in the early 1980s. Things changed in the recession, as the self-employed ranks have lost 1.6 million from the peak in 2007. The number of self-employed has fallen to early 1980s levels: (All FRED charts courtesy of frequent contributor B.C.)
This chart displays the self-employed as a share of total non-farm employment. The first chart showed a strong rise in self-employment from 1970, but this chart shows that employment rose even faster: the self-employed share of all those employed has been declining for 30 years:
We can attribute this trend to the rise of global Corporate America and government employment. The workforce expanded, and relatively more people became employees of corporations or the government than became self-employed.
It’s important to note here that the BLS does not break down the income of unincorporated self-employed: if millions of self-employed saw their net incomes slashed in the recession, the BLS still counts them as self-employed. So a consultant who earned $100,000 prior to the recession and now scrambles to net $10,000 is still self-employed.
This is the statistical equivalent of 6 million people losing full-time jobs and then 4 million of those people getting part-time jobs. Did employment truly recover most of the losses?
This chart displays total non-farm employment (blue) and the incorporated self-employed. Unsurprisingly, the rise and decline of the incorporated self-employed tracks the general economy and total employment.
But once again we have to note the limitations of the data. As B.C. observed, some of the recent rise in incorporated self-employed is the result of tax policies favoring corporations; the newly incorporated may well not have any employees, i.e. they are simply sole proprietors who incorporated for the tax benefits:
Historically, in order for incorporated self-employment to grow, it requires an increasing share of the population that is inclined to, or capable of, first becoming unincorporated self-employed. A growing share of the incorporated self-employed since the ’00s are one-person S corporations (to take advantage of favorable tax treatment) or limited partnerships (LPs) and limited liability corporations (LLCs) in real estate for pass-through purposes that hire few, if any, employees.
Consider that the US employment base is disproportionately dependent upon the viability of as few as 4% of the labor force and fewer than 2% of the population as the primary "job creators", i.e., incorporated self-employed.
After a brief increase in 2012, the self-employed as a share of total employment is falling off a cliff:
United States’ new business formation rate continues dropping steadily
Spend some time walking through Silicon Valley or New York City, and you’ll likely leave under the impression that entrepreneurship is alive and well in the United States. But spend some time wading through some of the latest census data, and you may come away with a very different impression.
This trend is reflected in the decline of small business in general:
Although many analysts claim most employment growth now comes from corporations, once again we have to look beneath the surface and ask what kind of jobs are corporations creating? More part-time fast-food positions?
Small business plays two critically important and often unrecognized roles. One, it tends to give new workers their first employment experience. The corporate human resources departments are not so forgiving–have you had your third interview yet? Only two more to go….
Two, small business tends to train workers who are then able to move up the job ladder to better paying corporate jobs, having learned the ropes at a small business. If you talk to corporate insiders, they will admit (in private) that their own job training efforts are limited: it’s faster and more productive to poach your new hires from a competitor than invest years bringing up new talent.
Corporations may point to their intern program as "job training," but this is all too often a PR facade for unpaid slave labor. How many interns learned anything remotely useful? How many end up with full-time jobs at the company? The typical answer is: very few.
Small business is the incubator of employment. As it declines, so too do opportunities for first jobs, second chances and economic independence.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Mon Apr 22, 2013 12:07 am
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Gold and Silver • Re: Peter Schiff Explains Gold Decline (Video)
y: Peter Schiff
Monday, April 15, 2013
In the opening years of the last decade, most mainstream investors sat on the sidelines while "tin hat" goldbugs rode the bull market from below $300 to just over $1,000 per ounce. But following the 2008 financial crisis, when gold held up better than stocks during the decline and made new record highs long before the Dow Jones fully recovered, Wall Street finally sat up and took notice. The new devotees helped to push gold to nearly $1,900 by September of 2011. For the next year and a half it held relatively steady, trading mostly between $1,500 and $1,800 as more mainstream investors caught the fever. But now it appears that the brief love affair is at an end. It was really only a flirtation as the two were never a good match in the first place. Gold’s new suitors never understood the fundamental case for gold and now they are turning their affection back to their true love: U.S. equities.
This is creating a brutal season for gold investors. The metal is in the midst of its largest pull back in nearly five years, and as the selling has gathered momentum powerful Wall Street voices as diverse as Goldman Sachs and George Soros have declared the end of its nearly fifteen year run of dominance.
The story line put out by most of these analysts is that gold shined as a safe haven during the Great Recession, but its allure has evaporated with the recent "improvements" in the global economy, particularly in the United States. Ironically, this ignores the fact that gold actually performed better in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis than it did during or following the crisis. That may be because the inflationary monetary policy that fueled the housing bubble also powered gold. Deflation fears led to gold’s 35% decline in 2008, but once the Fed reopened the monetary spigots gold rallied to new highs. But in 2008 gold fell in concert with nearly every other asset class. This time, it’s falling while other assets are rising. The negative spotlight makes the current decline potentially more meaningful.
Neither the new round of Keynesian expansion in Japan nor the recent fallout from the Cypriot solvency crisis produced gold rallies. Bears cite these failures as the signs that the bull is dead. The latest warning bell came late last week when the Bank of Cyprus announced that it would be selling its gold reserves in order to raise the cash to pay its debts. Concerns quickly spread that other heavily indebted Mediterranean countries with large gold reserves like Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain would follow suit. The tidal wave of selling would be expected to be the coup de grace for gold’s glory years. While this neat narrative may be sufficient to convince the financial media that an historic shift is underway, wiser minds will see more nuance.
While the vast majority of economists see gold as the "barbarous relic" described by Keynes, the sentiment has not stopped many central bankers from holding huge quantities as currency reserves. It is a curious phenomenon that the countries with the most daunting debt problems have the highest percentage of gold in their foreign exchange reserves. Many of these countries were formerly prosperous, and at various points in their histories had gold-backed currencies that required large reserves. These legacy assets now account for the bulk of their reserve wealth.
The United Stated leads the pack with both the largest amount of gold in reserve (8,133 tons) and one of the highest percentages (76%). Other heavily indebted developed countries are not far behind: Italy has 2,450 tons and 72% of reserves, France has 2,435 tons and 71% reserves, Portugal has 382 tons and 90% reserves, and Greece has 112 tons and 82% reserves. Tiny Cyprus, whose travails are creating global ripples, has just 14 tons (58% of reserves).
In contrast, the quickly developing emerging market economies are conspicuous for very small gold reserves, particularly in comparison to their much larger reserves of foreign currencies. Many of these countries have generated large amounts of U.S. dollar reserves as a result of ongoing trade surpluses. While China has more than 1,000 tons of gold, the cache only represents 2% of their enormous foreign exchange coffers. Even gold loving India has just 10%. Neither Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Mexico, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, nor Brazil has more than 10% (with most having far less than 5%). Bankers and political leaders in all of these countries, particularly India and China, have lamented publicly about the very high percentage of U.S. dollars in their reserves, and have even spoken fondly about the reliability and importance of gold.
The heavy debtors in the Eurozone have few pleasant options to deal with their insolvency. As illustrated by Cyprus, the choices may come down to painful austerity or raiding supposedly sacred bank deposits. The sale of gold reserves may provide a much more palatable option for politicians. After all, do voters really care how much gold sits in national vaults? For now at least, international central bank gold agreements limit the amount of gold that they can sell in a given year. But as these sovereign debt crises deepen for countries like Italy and Portugal, many justly question how long these paper agreements will keep the selling pressure at bay.
While I believe that they may indeed succumb to the temptation, such moves may not be disruptive, or even negative for gold. Large divestitures by some countries may lead to corresponding accumulations cash rich, but gold poor, creditor nations like India, China, Russia, and Indonesia. Such transactions would likely take place through private, direct, and tightly communicated sales. As a result, they would be far less disruptive than would be the case were they to occur in relatively thinly traded public markets as many now fear.
Such a transfer in gold holdings would be the logical result of the drift of the global economy over the past half century. Despite its current disfavor, gold is real wealth. Governments and bankers know this. As the emerging economies gain wealth, and the developed countries dissipate wealth through welfare-state debt accumulation, it is inevitable that the gold follows. It’s not a question of if, but when.
While nations buying gold will pay for their purchases with dollars, the sellers will not re-invest the proceeds into Treasuries. Dollars raised through gold sales will be converted to local currency and used to repay debt. This will put downward pressure on both the U.S. dollar and Treasuries. In addition, emerging market central bankers will be more likely to hold onto gold for the long-term, thereby providing a bullish impact on the market. In essence, such a shift would flush out the weak hands who don’t have the resources to protect their wealth in favor of stronger hands that do.
Creditor nations that buy gold cheap from bankrupt nations forced to sell at distressed prices will see the value of their reserves swell, thereby gaining the independence and confidence they need to finally break their reliance on the U.S. dollar as their principal reserve asset. When the reign of "king dollar" finally comes to a belated end, let’s hope all the gold we allegedly have stored in Fort Knox is actually there. We’re going to need every ounce of it.
Statistics: Posted by DIGGER DAN — Tue Apr 16, 2013 5:32 am
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Zimbabwe’s Decline
Ian Vásquez
Zimbabwe, a country with one of the world’s least free economies led for decades by the authoritarian Robert Mugabe, has been growing rapidly in recent years. It has outperformed the group of six African countries dubbed the “Lion Kings” because of their high growth. In a Cato paper released today, Craig Richardson explains the factors behind Zimbabwe’s growth, including high commodity prices, and why its performance is unsustainable.
On Saturday, Zimbabwe voted on a referendum on a proposed constitution. The results should be known later this week, but as Richardson wrote Friday in a Wall Street Journal Europe op-ed, if the constitution is approved as expected, it will enshrine “government land grabs as perfectly legal.” Recall that the country began a period of severe economic and political turmoil precisely when the government began seizing large commercial farms at the beginning of the last decade. Unfortunately, most signs point to further decline for Zimbabwe.
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Agriculture • Restaurant sales, traffic decline notably in February
Report: Restaurant sales, traffic decline notably in February
Black Box Intelligence analyzes the results of the latest Restaurant Industry Snapshot
Mar. 6, 2013
Editor’s note: This exclusive series to Nation’s Restaurant News provides C-level insights into the sales and traffic data from clients subscribing to Black Box Intelligence, a financial performance benchmarking company. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Nation’s Restaurant News.
Black Box Intelligence and People Report released The Restaurant Industry Snapshot for February this week, showing significant downturn in sales, traffic and consumer sentiment during the month.
Same-store sales fell 5 percent in February, compared with January’s increase of 0.4 percent. The first two weeks in February experienced very poor sales, influenced by inclement winter weather. The Western region performed the best, with a 2.1-percent same-store sales decrease, while New England was the lowest performing area, with a same-store sales decrease of 8.9 percent.
Source: Black Box Intelligence, Feb. 2013
Traffic showed a decline of 6.2 percent, worse than January’s decline of 3.1 percent.
In addition, the February Restaurant Willingness to Spend Index from Consumer Edge, a partner company to People Report and Black Box Intelligence, showed a second straight month of pullback. The results show that it dropped to 82, compared with 83 in January and 91 in December.
Source: Black Box Intelligence, Feb. 2013
“As we stated last month in our January Restaurant Industry Snapshot, the impact of payroll taxes and tax refund delays is hurting consumers and their spending, as compared to one year ago," said Bill Schaffler, president at Black Box Intelligence and People Report. "Couple that with bad weather, which we were lucky not to have last year, and it makes for a disappointing month overall."
Source: Black Box Intelligence, Feb. 2013
Possibly the most telling data point emphasizing the broad-based drop in spending is that only 1 out of 172 total DMAs reported a positive result in February.
People Report data also reveals turnover results by position by segment to its member companies each month. In February, results show management turnover and hourly turnover increasing.
Job growth, as reported by People Report, is 0.9 percent, an increase from last month’s number of 0.7 percent, but significantly below last year’s job growth momentum.
Source: Black Box Intelligence, Feb. 2013
"We will be monitoring how the consumer continues to adjust to these challenges in March, but we certainly have a disappointing start to 2013,” said Schaffler.
http://nrn.com/black-box/report-restaur … y-february
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:43 pm
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Canadian • 44% decline in Canadian housing prices – Moody’s
Moody’s ‘stress’ analysis assesses 44% decline in Canadian housing prices
Republish ReprintReprintsRepublish OnlineRepublish OfflineBarbara Shecter | 13/03/11 More from Barbara Shecter
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Tyler Anderson/ National Post“As with Australia, Spain and the U.K., we expect house prices in Canada to suffer the most due to the misalignment of current house prices with historic fundamentals,” the ratings agency said..
.A severe economic shock, such as the kind that hit Japan in the early 1990s and California and Nevada in 2006, would have to knock Canadian housing prices down by 44% to cause securities linked to Canadian mortgages to lose the highest ratings assigned by Moody’s Investors Service.
House prices to remain flat for 10 years: TD
OTTAWA — Canada’s real estate bonanza of the past decade has come to end and the long-term trend as one of the most profitable places to invest is also not encouraging, a new research paper from the TD Bank argues.
.Such a house price decline, were it to happen, would be driven primarily by the phenomenal upswing in Canadian home prices over the past decade, Moody’s said.
Canada joins Spain, as well as the United Kingdom and Australia, in the ratings agency’s assessment of countries where growth in housing prices over the past 10 years has driven their values away from sustainable market fundamentals and into “overheated” territory.
“As with Australia, Spain and the U.K., we expect house prices in Canada to suffer the most due to the misalignment of current house prices with historic fundamentals,” Moody’s said.
The ratings agency released the report Monday that included its housing market analysis, along with request for comment on its proposed approach to analyzing the credit risk of non-insured mortgage pools.
“Moody’s Investors Service is in no way predicting the extent nor the causes of a large scale house price depreciation in Canada,” spokesperson Thomas Lemmon said in an emailed statement.
“Along with many other factors, the home price component of our analysis provides that in order to achieve our highest rating, a mortgage pool would have to be able to withstand a 44% downturn.”
Moody’s is the second ratings agency in as many weeks to seek input on a proposal to change the methodology used to analyze securities linked to mortgages.
..Last week, London and New York-based Fitch Ratings unveiled a proposed a two-step model that reduces home prices to a “sustainable” value based on a number of factors including data provided by Canadian banks. It then further subjects the homes to a “stressed market” value decline assumption.
Fitch said Canadian home prices are overvalued by about 20%.
Ratings agencies came under harsh criticism in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 for what was perceived as a failure to predict the U.S. housing market meltdown that precipitated it.
Since then, there has been an attempt to strike a balance of thorough analysis with timely analysis, according to Grant Connor, an associate in equity research at National Bank Financial who previously worked on structured finance at Moody’s.
“At the simplest level, a stress case scenario should represent a realistic worst case scenario,” Mr. Connor said.
As with Australia, Spain and the U.K., we expect house prices in Canada to suffer the most
.The model proposed by Moody’s on Monday determines house price “stress” rates, used to assign ratings, by looking at variable factors such as house price and income growth over 10 years, and fixed factors such as monetary policy.
The analysis of housing prices in the event of economic shocks includes data from Finland in 1989, Japan in 1991, and Hong Kong in 1997, as well as Ireland, Nevada, and California in 2006.
The “variable” analysis assesses how much current house prices have departed from “sustainable” market fundamentals. The assumption is that, in the event of a severe economic shock, expected demand that has been baked into current house prices will not materialize. In Canada, the growth in house prices over the past 10 years has ‘’far outstripped” the growth in incomes, according to Moody’s.
“Think of it like an elastic [being stretched],” explains Mr. Connor of National Bank Financial. “The snap back is going to be a lot harder.”
Moody’s also assesses the “fixed” factor, which rates how vulnerable the consumer is to economic shocks, whether there is a large oversupply of houses, how effectively monetary policy can alleviate the shock, and how dependent the economy is on the real estate sector.
Canada scores better in this area, said Mr. Connor, because the stability of the country and its monetary policy is taken into consideration. While Canada’s household debt to income ratio is very high, at 154%, Moody’s notes that savings rates are higher than in some jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom.
In addition, Moody’s does not seem overly concerned about an over-supply of housing with the possible exception of the condominium market.
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http://business.financialpost.com/2013/ … =2e05-c069
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:24 pm
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Agriculture • Number of U.S. farm operations continues to decline
Number of U.S. farm operations continues to decline
John Maday, Managing Editor, Drovers CattleNetwork | Updated: 02/19/2013
The number of U.S. farms and acreage in farmland continued to decline in 2012, although larger operations grew in number and acreage according to an annual report from the USDA. The number of beef-cow operations, listed at 729,000, was down by 1 percent, and dairy, swine, sheep and goat operations also declined somewhat.
The report shows a small decline in beef-cow operations in every size group except the largest – those with 5,000 cows or more – which remained at a total of 50, the same as in 2011. Beef-cow operations with 1,000 or more cows, which total 1,370 operations, account for just 7.7 percent of the total beef-cow inventory. Those with one to 49 cows account for 27.7 percent, 50 to 99 cows account for 34 percent, 100 to 499 account for 38.4 percent and 500 to 999 account for 9 percent.
Among all cattle and calf operations, which includes stocker and feeding operations, those with 1,000 head or more account for 35.2 percent of the total, up slightly from 35 percent in 2011.
The report breaks down farm numbers by economic class based on value of farm sales, and those in the
$500,000 and over sales class increased by 8.6 percent in 2012, in part due to higher commodity prices.
Those in the $1,000 to $9,999 sales class decreased by 2.5 percent while those in the $10,000 to $99,999 sales class increased slightly. The number of farms in the $100,000 to $249,999 and $250,000 to $499,999 sales classes increased 1.9 and 1.1 percent, respectively.
Nationally, the average farm size is 421 acres, up one acre from the previous year. The states with the largest average farm size are Wyoming at 2,796 acres, Montana at 2,056, Nevada at 1,980 and New Mexico at 1,845 acres.
Not surprisingly, small Eastern states tend to have the smallest farms. Farms in Rhode Island average 57 acres while those in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut average 68, 72 and 82 acres respectively.
The total number of farms in the United States, at 2,170,000, has increased over the past decade, from a total of 2,126,860 in 2003. Acreage in farmland however, has declined in every year since 2003, dropping from 936,750,000 in 2003 to 914,000 in 2012.
http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-new … 03511.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Thu Feb 21, 2013 6:06 am
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Gold and Silver • Gold Silver Price Decline Not Over – Monitor Markets For Tur
Gold Silver Price Decline Not Over – Monitor Markets For Turnaround
Sunday, February 17, 2013 at 09:08PM
http://goldsilverworlds.com/gold-silver … urnaround/
We often make a distinction between buyers of physical precious metals, [PMs] and buyers of futures, exhorting the former to buy with impunity, and some may see that as cavalier, given how the price for both gold and silver have been in recent decline.
The point for buyers of PMs is for both protection and creation of wealth. Protection against insidious central bankers destroying currency-purchasing power, over time, and wealth creation as evidenced by those buying PMs over the past decade and seeing the intrinsic value grow dramatically.
Buyers of the physical are less price sensitive and view current declines as opportunity to add more. As an example, we still hold physical silver purchased when price was in the mid-40s. Has the relative value declined? Absolutely. Concerned? Absolutely not. It remains a matter of time when the price of PMs will go dramatically higher, and the concern will not be how much one paid, $1800 or $1600 the ounce for gold, or $45 or $30 the ounce for silver. The concern will be over having any at all.
If gold is to go to $3,000, $4,000 $5,000, or wherever, and silver go to $100, $150, or $250, there will be many who will be glad to have paid $2,500 the ounce for gold, and $75 the ounce for silver. How does that compare to $1,800 and /or $45 purchases for physical PMs, at this point? One cannot always time the market, which is why consistent buying over time is strongly recommended, but one can determine whether to be an owner of PMs, or not.
The problem moving forward is fear of central bankers changing the rules and precluding the purchase of any PMs by the public, at any price. Death and taxes are touted as the two things one cannot escape, [not always true for the latter], but the certainty of lies and deception by central bankers/planners runs an immediate third place.
The handwriting is on the wall, as most in PMs know only too well. We mention this for those on the fence, those waiting for “bargains,” [misplaced values, there], and those who have not yet purchased any PMs. Do not wait, do not wait, do not wait!
For futures, while most everyone is of the mind that manipulation is showing a steady hand in PMs markets, that “hand” is losing its grip. It is the charts that show what the market has to say about what those who are participating are saying about their decisions. A not so simple statement, but one that says, watch developing market activity to know what is going on.
That is always our purpose.
While ongoing efforts are being made to suppress the price of PMs and discourage their purchase, mostly in futures markets, the “Discouragees,” [central bankers,] have been net buyers of gold for a few years now, after having been sellers for so long, so do not go by what central bankers say, [often voiced through the puppetmeisters on daily financial "news" programs], go by what they do, only in this area. Ignore them, otherwise.
The larger picture for gold is as bullish as ever. We provide two strong facts to confirm why, on the monthly chart. Bullish spacing is referenced as such because it shows the degree of eagerness of buyers in a market. It is measured by noting the last swing high and the last swing low. Typically, markets retest previous swing highs. When buyers are so intent on being long in a market, they do not wait to see if a retest of the last swing high will be successful. Instead, they, [and by "they" we mean smart money participants, or controlling forces], just keep buying breaks, creating a space that is bullish.
Another and related measure is the extent of a break, or market “give-back,” in a reaction after a rally. Monthly charts are more controlling than the lower time frames, so the information you can glean from them is more reliable and more pertinent. You can see how the current break since the September 2011 high has been relatively shallow when compared to from where the rally began.
Despite the “daily grind lower,” recently, the larger focus is very strong. Very strong.
A trading range is where smart money operates to accumulate or distribute their positions. Controlling market forces require time to acquire positions so as not to disrupt their attempted “sleight of hand” buys/sells during the process, and the TRs are also used to discourage participants from following them.
We said last week that $1600 was a possible target, and it was reached on Friday. Will that area hold? “NMT.” Need More Time to know that answer.
Points 1 and 2 form an upper supply channel line, and a further line down is marked by dashes to show how it extends into the future, well ahead of price activity. Point 3 is the low is between points 1 and 2, and it is from there that a horizontal line, a demand line, is extended lower. It is also dashed to show that it extends into the future well ahead of developing price activity, to be used as a guide to gauge potential support when touched by yet to develop market declines.
You can see how the dashed line held the December lows, and now February is retesting it, again. There is no evidence yet of a turnaround, and it does take time for a market to turn.
The most interesting aspect of the daily chart happens to be the last bar, Friday’s activity. It is a wide range bar lower, a sign of EDM, [Ease of Downward Movement], indicating sellers are in control. The sharply higher volume is a red flag, a point in time for which one needs to pay close attention, moving forward.
Remember, sharp volume increases are usually smart money either pushing a market even more, or starting to take the other side in a transfer of risk. Subsequent developing market activity usually indicates which. This volume day prompted a look at intra day behavior to see if any clues can be gleaned.
We say smart money always tries to hide their intent, but volume is something they need in order to move or accumulate positions, , and they cannot hide that. If smart money sells highs and buys lows, where is the highest volume in this chart? We ask, the chart answers.
The position of the close tells us buyers are more than matching the effort of sellers to cause a rally off the low under such heavy selling pressure. The two preceding bars of increased volume may “look” like selling, but it is quite possible that smart money has been buying on the way down, taking everything offered by weak-handed longs selling out and new shorts getting in.
If Benjamin Franklin had been a trader, he would surely have said, “Never a bottom- picker be.”
Bullish spacing exists in silver, just not as strongly. We do point out how the past five months of selling effort has not been impressive, relative to the two month rally prior. It is like an Ali “Rope-A-Dope,” taking all the punches from his opponent, but protecting himself so not much damage is inflicted, despite the effort against him. Eventually, he comes out stronger to defeat his now-weakened opposition.
We show the same intra-TR channel down, just like in gold. Unlike gold, however, silver’s low has held the lows of last December, a small show of relative strength within a negative trading environment. Still, no apparent end is at hand in the decline of futures.
The best way to trade a TR? Not to trade it at all, instead, wait for a price breakout and go with it. Why does that work? As mentioned, TRs are how smart money accumulates positions. Once they are done, they then begin the mark-up or mark-down phase, and it will last for some time, once it gets underway.
Just as a dashed line in a channel projects into the future for support/resistance, you can see where the failed probe lower, at the end of December/beginning of January acted as support. From there, a horizontal line is drawn. We made it dashed to show that is was extended into the future much earlier than when current price activity has returned to it.
Will price hold current lows? No one knows, and anyone who says otherwise is showing an unwise ego trying to be “right,” as opposed to being in harmony with the market. Any bottom requires time in order to turn around, and any potential turnaround always needs to be confirmed by price behavior.
The increased volume on Friday is a red flag, as it was for gold, but a red flag means a sign or caution, to take note and see how price responds to it. That takes time. Futures players have time, or at least the smart ones are exercising it.
With gold, silver and Uranium stocks being out of favor one must decide if this is a problem or an opportunity. We have steadfastly refused to buy gold and silver mining stocks for the last two years and as evidenced by the HUI we feel that our decision to hold back has been vindicated. The damage done to the mining sector may not be over yet but this demise is starting to offer up some exciting opportunities in my view.
Statistics: Posted by DIGGER DAN — Mon Feb 18, 2013 4:11 pm
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Canadian • Canada sees biggest jobs decline in half a year
Canada sees biggest jobs decline in half a year
TAVIA GRANT
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Feb. 08 2013
Canadian employers shed 21,900 jobs last month, the first decline in half a year, as schools and factories reduced headcount.
Despite the drop, the country’s jobless rate ebbed to 7 per cent in January from 7.1 per cent as fewer people looked for work, Statistics Canada said Friday.
Job growth had been robust in recent months, strength that seemed at odds with other data that showed a clear slowdown in the economy. The latest report shows employment levels are now starting to reflect that soft patch, economists said.
“That the labour market continued to power along when the economy was growing at a less than 1-per-cent pace in the second half of 2012 seemed out of whack,” said Dawn Desjardins, assistant chief economist at RBC, in a note.
While January’s report was “disappointing,” she sees the jobless rate gradually easing to 6.7 per cent by the end of next year, helped by an improving global economy.
For the near term, separate reports out Friday showed softer-than-expected housing starts and a weakening trade picture, more evidence of a tepid economy.
The Canadian dollar fell after the reports, trading just below parity.
Last month’s larger-than-expected employment drop came as the public sector eliminated 27,000 positions. The number of private-sector workers also eased in the month while self-employment rose.
In the private sector, Sears Canada, Best Buy, Talisman and Cirque de Soleil have all announced job cuts in recent weeks.
As the federal government prepares its upcoming budget, some say it should ramp up spending on infrastructure projects, in part to bolster employment.
“As federal and provincial governments formulate their budgets, they should invest more in public services and infrastructure to support employment,” said Erin Weir, economist and president of the Progressive Economics Forum, in a note.
Among sectors, education and manufacturing led the decline, falling by 30,900 and 21,600 respectively. Factory employment is now at similar levels to a year earlier, the agency said.
Construction companies added to payrolls and so did public administration.
Employment fell in Ontario and British Columbia last month, and among men between the ages of 25 and 54. Older men and youth saw jobs gains.
Job levels are still higher than a year ago. Employment has grown 1.6 per cent from last year, all in full-time positions, Statscan said.
Economists had expected 5,000 new jobs with the jobless rate rising a notch to 7.2 per cent.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-o … le8374406/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Feb 08, 2013 1:33 pm
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The Long Run Decline in Actual Homeownership
Mark A. Calabria
It would be far more accurate to label U.S. federal homeownership policy, U.S. mortgage policy. For the primary means of “extending” homeownership, via federal policy, has been the massive increase in mortgage debt. Sadly the actual trend increase in homeownership has been close to nothing since 1960.
If the ultimate intent of housing policy is to help build wealth and enable families to have something to pass along to future generations, then the right measure should be home equity. Even better measure would be the percent of homeowners who own their homes free and clear, that is without any mortgage. As long as there is any mortgage, even a small one, the bank has some ability to foreclose if you are in default. Setting aside the fact that the government can come take your home, with or without a mortgage, it’s hard to say you really “own” it unless it’s all yours.
Currently the percentage of homeowners that own without any mortgage is just under 30 percent. Prior to 1960, an actual majority of owners held their homes with no mortgage at all. For most of American history, the typical homeowner did not have any mortgage, not having to answer to a bank and also having some wealth to pass along to future generations. The primary impact of US homeownership policy has not been to increase homeownership, but to increase debt along with driving up house prices. Not a bad outcome if you’re a mortgage banker or a real estate agent. But not exactly a good deal for home buyers. Yes this has also helped increase the average size of homes, but helping everyone live in a McMansion hardly seems like a compelling public policy goal. And yes, reducing our reliance on debt for purchasing a home would result in lower prices, a huge win for renters. 
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War and Conflict • Stark Evidence of US, British Naval Decline
Stark Evidence of US, British Naval Decline
James G. Wiles
Is it actually possible that, as you read this, the United States Navy has only one supercarrier battle group at sea? Read on – and be amazed.
Look no farther than these two news items, both from today’s Sunday Times of London, to see the effect of two decades of shrinkage in the size of the United States Navy and the retreat of the Royal Navy from the high seas:
For the first time in two centuries, British businessmen and others have formed a private navy to protect shipping off the pirate-ridden coast of Somali on the Horn of Africa. A millionaire businessman has formed a company called Typhoon to furnish escort and protection, including troops, along the shipping lanes which world navies have proved inadequate to police. The first convoy of ships is projected for March or April.
The re-emergence of what used to called "privateers" (Sir Francis Drake is the most famous example from history) is the latest sign of outsourcing or abandonment of traditional military functions by Western nations whose militaries have contracted to pinpoint-size in the wake of the growth of the modern welfare state. Private security and private armies — again, once known to history as "mercenaries," are another aspect of this trend.
Meanwhile, news came that the Russian Navy has deployed ships, marines, combat vehicles and equipment just off the coast of Syria. Five landing ships are accompanied by military vessels.
The Russian Defense Ministry says it’s just a routine exercise off Latakia, where the Russians have maintained a military port (recently visited by the Iranian Navy) since Soviet times. Israelis sources, however, tell the Jerusalem Post the Russian military is there to deter a Western humanitarian intervention against the embattled regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The Assads, and Syria, have been clients of Russia and the old Soviet Union since the 1970′s.
Now, where are the U.S. Navy’s supercarrier battle groups?
As of January 2, 2013, gonavy.jp – a source, with StratFor, which we rely on here, was showing no U.S. supercarrier battle groups in or near the Mediterranean. Last year, with the retirement of "the Big E", the USS Enterprise, the U.S. supercarrier force shrank to ten battle groups. According to the same source, four of America’s ten remaining supercarriers are actually in various types of extended rehabitation, upgrading and maintenance, so they’re not available for sea duty.
One carrier battle groups is currently on station in the Arabian Sea. According to gonavy.jp, that supercarrier, the USS John C. Stennis, appears to be the only one presently at sea. The USS George Washington is home-ported in Yokohama, Japan.
One supercarrier battle group on station in the Arabian Sea, another docked in Yokohama. The other eight U.S. supercarrier battle groups are either off-line (four) or dockside in the U.S. (four).
Any chance the re-appearance of private navies on the world’s high seas will affect the current risk posed by "sequester" to the U.S. military budget and persuade the Obama Administration to re-consider its announced plans to further shrink an American Navy already now half the size it was at the end of the First Gulf War in 1991?
Nope.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 … z2HDZqmm8e
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sun Jan 06, 2013 11:36 am
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