Oú est ma tête ... It's Another No Worries Friday!

May Pink Martini gently lead you into your weekend.  By the end of the song, if you sing along as I do, you will have lost your head, your arms, your nose, and your feet, which is far worse than the bad news below.  Please press the little arrow before you read my Friday update.

The weekend depegging.  China announced last weekend that it was delinking its peg to the dollar to allow more flexibility in its exchange rate. If you are headed for China, the marinated duck feet may set you back a bit more. The higher the yuan goes (as of today, 6.79 per dollar), the more the US trade deficit drops. And this is something many US politicians, who are claiming that the yuan is still undervalued by 25-40%, would welcome. However … those of us not going to China and who frequent Hobby Lobby and JoAnn's (the Taylorsville store is my “happy place” FYI), you might be seeing prices going up on your jewelry findings and fake flowers. 

1963 was a long time ago ... Home sales have not been so low since 1963 … 300,000 units sold (yee haw, NOT). I think my mom and dad bought our Scottsdale house in 1963, or maybe it was 1962.  The median price is down, housing inventory is up. Mortgage rates are at record lows so a refi may be in order.

Here's me and my brother in the backyard of the Scottsdale house. Oh how I wish I still had that hat!

Touch not those rates.  The Federal Reserve meeting minutes are a little less positive, a little more guarded. Still, not much editing was done to update the minutes since the last meeting.

Falling, rising durable goods orders.  Durable goods orders fell to -1.1%, but not as much as expected (-1.3%). Excluding transportation, durable goods rose by 0.9%, but the expected increase was 1.3% increase. Bummer.

The newly jobless.  My first day as a jobless person I came home and cried while I re-organized tea pots and cups in my barrister cabinet.  Since I've now matured in my jobless state, I can tell you it's a roller coaster. Initial unemployment claims were down to 457,000 versus the previous week's figure of 476,000. The 4-week moving average was 462,750. Just remember folks, these are new claims, and do not represent the ongoing legion of unemployed people which is upwards of 15 million.

Down doobie down down down.  The GDP was revised downward for 1Q2010, 2.7% versus 3.0% as previously reported. For comparison purposes, the real GDP in 4Q2009 was 5.6%, but don't forget we had Christmas thrown in there.  Even if Santa didn't bring you much last year, a boatload of goodies was under somebody's tree.  Well, maybe.

And now for the good news …

• One of my unemployed friends got a new job. She's in education, not in banking, and very well qualified.
• Summer's here but I haven't had to turn on my air conditioning in the house. I hate fake air. The sprinkler guy comes Monday so my grass will get a big drink.
• I finished six more stock options trading classes, for a total completed of 23. Some months ago, I did a post on option trading terminology. Now, I know how to set up the various trades, and how to determine the maximum profit and loss for each one. I can say "condor spread" in a sentence and it's meaningful. At least in theory.
• This blog now has reader from Singapore, continuing the international readership trend that I frankly don't understand but yet appreciate.  I don't have enough data points to fully analyze.
• Amongst a flurry of other activities on this busy weekend, I'm going to Park City Silly Markets on Sunday … a paper making friend is the featured artist and I'll be doing a post on her work very soon.
• A really super important post is coming Sunday so stay tuned. I'm awaiting some feedback from a couple of reliable experts.
• And by the way, don't believe everything you read. It's circulating on my Facebook page that I'm pregnant. Oh my high school chums are soooooo clever.

 Now go on … it's the weekend. Play, party, have fun! {shake it}

The Merry Minuet: Only the Names Have Been Changed, The Situation Is Actual, Well Sort Of

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

A proverb making the observation that turbulent changes do not affect reality on a deeper level other than to cement the status quo.

This week I contemplated more global financial bad news, especially with the recent revelation that Hungary, too, may have participated in creative financial accounting and reporting, and France hinted at devaluing the Euro to parity with the US dollar.  Something tells me that the meetings of the European Union may not be the chummiest of get togethers these days.  (I'm envisioning lots of finger pointing, side conversations, and, at the least, kicking under the table.)  That and the big Gulf Oil spill brought to mind "The Merry Minuet," a Kingston Trio 1959 hit that I heard from the time I was a young girl.  The song referenced threats of war and discord and humanity's attempts at self destruction.  The names have changed, we could substitute other similar crises, but it all boils down to the same old, same old.

The Merry Minuet
Sheldon Harnick

They're rioting in Africa. 

They're starving in Spain. 

There's hurricanes in Florida 

and Texas needs rain. 

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls. 

The French hate the Germans. 

The French hate the Germans. 

The Germans hate the Poles. 

Italians hate Yugoslavs.
South Africans hate the Dutch 

and I don't like anybody very much! 

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud 

for man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud. 

And we know for certain that some lovely day
someone will set the spark off
and we will all be blown away. 

They're rioting in Africa. 

There's strife in Iran. 

What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.

Just a Spoonful of Greek Yogurt Won't Solve Greece's Debt Problems ... But It's Oh So Good

Greek Yogurt truly is food for the gods. Try it sometime! Luscious and good enough to be retained as a necessary luxury item in spite of my own personal austerity plan.


And by the way, have you heard about what's going on in Greece?  In a nutshell, Greece was a nation where government spending sprees and subsequent "creative" financial reporting were the name of the game.  Now Greece's national debt is bigger than its economy and is forecast to reach 120% of its gross domestic product in 2010.  The country is also out of compliance with eurozone requirements for debt levels and its credit rating is the lowest in the eurozone.

Greece's new prime minister has been forced to abandon campaign promises and impose an austerity program for the nation ... new taxes on fuel, tobacco and alcohol, pay cuts for public workers, and crackdowns on tax cheats. Well ... it's not going over too well with the citizenry, as you might guess. In fact, they're rioting in the streets, and the only amusement anybody's getting out of it is that the Legendary Athens Greece Riot Dog (see video below) is still on the case.






So anyway ... the rest of Europe and the US are coming to Greece's rescue. Let's just hope it's not too little, too late. This crisis is definitely impacting world financial markets, so you, too, are paying for it if you have a 401K and/or personal investments which are now in depreciation mode. 


Meanwhile, buy yourself some Greek yogurt and watch the video. You won't regret either.



 

Hugh Heffner Economic Recovery

On February 4, 2010, the stock market experienced a mini crash when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 2.6% and the NASDAQ and S&P fell by about 3% each. Ouch.

One financial news reporter on television theorized that people don't believe the recovery is real.

"We're experiencing a Hugh Heffner recovery," he said. A Hugh Heffner recovery is an economic recovery in need of constant stimulation, the reporter explained later.

We live in interesting times indeed.