Last week I spent a day at the Port of Tacoma watching a bunch of longshoremen unload a ship full of 700 Kias. These guys race the cars off the boat one by one. Then they drive them to an enormous parking lot about a half a mile away, where the cars sit and wait for their next stop. These days that wait is much longer than usual.
Continue reading "The Cars Are Still Coming" »
-- Chana Joffe-Walt
4:11 PM ET
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I put the exclamation points there because, OK, it sounds dull. Bonds, you think, are dull. International Monetary Funds, probably more so.
But this is one of those stories that brushes up against the profound.
The news: The International Monetary Fund has decided to issue what could be $70 billion dollars worth of bonds. It's the first time the IMF has raised money through bonds. The fund has been short of cash to lend out because of the financial crisis.
The interesting bit: The bonds are denominated in a kind of synthetic currency called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). SDRs are used internally at the IMF as units of account. But China has proposed turning them into a new kind of global currency that could one day replace the dollar's central role.
Continue reading "IMF Bonds (!!!!)" »
-- David Kestenbaum
2:27 PM ET
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I got this email yesterday and worried I might be being set-up for some Borat movie.
Dear Editor in Chief
As an actor who has played the role of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 6 Films in Turkey, I would like to make an interview with your newspaper by e-mail
Information about myself is given below.
Sincerely yours
Yavuz HEKYM
President
GROUP OF EGEKONS
Egekons Prefabricated-Metal Building Industry & Trade Ltd.Co.
actory & Main Office
Ankara Asfalty 40.Km Armutlu Kavpaoy 35170 Kemalpapa Yzmir
www.egekons.com
Our email exchange follows:
Continue reading "An Unusual Request" »
-- David Kestenbaum
11:13 AM ET
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All quiet in downtown Portland. Andy Davenport
Andy writes:
This is the Park Avenue West building in Downtown Portland, whose construction was halted around two months ago. My office overlooks this site on two sides of the building, According to this article in the Oregonian, this building was originally scheduled to be 32 stories of mixed business and condos. Construction is halted until next year, and the plans are to cut the building to 22 stories. Equally amazing is the location - this site is located just two blocks from Pioneer Square, the heart and likely most-traveled area in downtown Portland.
Continue reading "A Startling Stop In Portland " »
-- Caitlin Kenney
11:00 AM ET
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Ireland just had its government bond rating lowered one level by Moody's Investors Services -- to Aa1 from Aaa. The company also gave Ireland a "negative" outlook, meaning it's likely to decrease even more within in the coming months. Standard & Poor's has already downgraded its rating of Ireland twice this year, and Fitch knocked it down one level in April.
Ireland's suffered one of the worst crashes since the recession began. After riding a huge boom for over a decade, empty houses litter the countryside and the country's deficit is set to rise to 10.8 percent of GDP -- three times the European Union limit.
-- Mathew Katz
10:33 AM ET
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Several of you have asked whether today's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is good news or bad news.
First, the good news, such as it is: The jobless rate for June ticked up by just .1 percent, to 9.5. The last report, for May, showed a jump of .5 percent.
You can also consider the overall number of jobs lost last month.
Continue reading "Four Ways Of Looking At The New Job Loss Numbers" »
-- Laura Conaway
9:36 AM ET
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Unemployment hit 9.5 percent in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. That's compared to 9.4 percent in May and a tick less than the 9.6 percent some economists expected. The broadest measure of unemployment -- U-6, which includes people who'd like a job but have given up looking -- reached 16.5 percent, compared to 16.4 percent in May. All told, employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, or 100,000 more than economists expected. The job market hasn't been this bad since August 1983.
As of June, the average job search was clocking in at 24.5 weeks. That's compared to 22.5 in May.
So we have almost the same rate of joblessness, but it's taking longer to replace a job that's been lost. From the BLS:
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 433,000 over the month to 4.4 million. In June, 3 in 10 unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.
After the jump, woe to bankers, car dealers and journalists.
Continue reading "Jobless Rate Nearly Steady, But Finding New Work Takes Longer" »
-- Laura Conaway
1:21 AM ET
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