NY Empire, CPI, Industrial Production, Consumer Sentiment

In our top story tonight, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is STILL dead and someone else has taken his place.

Ford cutting 1/3 of salaried workforce 14K jobs, offering buyout to ALL 75K HOURLY UNION employees.

August UMich Sentiment 84.4 vs prior 82

Inside the number: expectations index UP 77.1 from 68.0. Current conditions index DOWN 95.7 from 103.8.

September NY Empire Index UP 13.8 vs prior 11

Inside the number: new orders index DOWN to 14.0 from 19.8. However, capital spending plans UP to 36.0 from 26.2. Lets wait and see...

August CPI +0.2% vs prior +0.4%

Inside the number: Core CPI +0.2%, +2.8% in the past year, the biggest gain since December 2001. Even with housing and energy moderating, stagflation is still raging witnessed by real weekly earnings -0.5%, Inflation adjusted weekly earnings +0.3% in the past 12 months.

August Industrial Production -0.1% vs prior +0.4%

Inside the number: Capacity utilization DOWN to 82.4% from 82.7%. Production of business equipment fell for the first time since May, -0.2%. Manufacturing production was flat despite a 1% rise in auto output.

Summary: The more things change the more they stay the same...

We are losing what little manufacturing and automotive sector jobs we have left. Domestic corporate capital investment is down and stagflation is prevalent.

We are also in an unwelcome war for big oil and energy price shocks abound, like I have said before this is nothing more than a redux of the 70's.

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