Economic Reports 08/07/07

Summary: The bleed continues as several large lenders cutting out Alt A & struggling with margin calls.

The Fed holding at 5.25% for the 9th straight time, but acknowledging the growth of downside risk and tighter credit.

Q2 Productivity Report shows that debt slavery AKA sharecropping is alive and well.

HomeBanc said it is selling assets to Countrywide after bankers cut off credit and left the Atlanta-based company unable to fund loans.

Impac, based in Irvine, California, halted ``Alt- A'' loans and fired some of its staff.

Impac said today it will suspend making Alt-A loans. So far, Impac has met all margin calls and a sale of $1 billion of loans is scheduled to close in the next 30 days, said a company statement.

CIT, the biggest independent U.S. commercial finance company, said its liquidity was bolstered by a sale in July of securities backed by student loans that raised $3 billion.

New York-based CIT said last month it will quit the home-loan business after bigger-than-expected losses.

FOMC policy statement
Full Statement

"Financial markets have been volatile in recent weeks, credit conditions have become tighter for some households and businesses, and the housing correction is ongoing. The downside risks to growth have increased somewhat."

Productivity-Prel Q2 +1.8% vs prior 1.0%
Full Report

Inside the number: unit labor costs +2.1%, but adjusted for inflation hourly compensation -2%. Productivity non durable goods manufacturing -1.9%.

Proving beyond a doubt that we have hit a Malthusian Impasse, (where no further meaningful gains in productivity can be had from technological advances or labor at the margin)...

Q1 non financial productivity revised down to 0.2% vs 0.6% and labor costs revised up from 1.8% to 3%.

2006 non financial productivity growth adjusted down to 1.3% vs 2.5%; 2005 down to 1.1% vs 2.3% In the past 4 quarters productivity +0.6%, with unit labor costs +4.1%.

Robert Brusca, chief economist at FAO Economics: "The revisions are unambiguously bad. The Fed will not like them."

And look at what your hard earned dollar gets you...

YOY Real Compensation adjusted for price changes Business -0.7%; Non Farm -2%; Manufacturing -3%; Durable -4.2%; Non Durable -0.5%

Bad enough with the insult in low McPay for the McJobs...

but the stick in the eye from debauch & stagflation is just over the top as your real compensation has gone NEGATIVE.

In other words, working for free might be better considering the after tax pay.

He who says slavery is a thing of the past is a fool as this modern day debt slavery is very insidious.

As we have Nattered before... here and here...

here's to the great ownership society, er' I mean the sharecropper society...

as we fully expect the sub prime crisis fallout will further yoke the middle class debtor to quasi indentured status.

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