The Curious Capitalist - Commentary on the economy, the markets, and business

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The Curious Capitalist

Commentary on the economy, the markets, and business

The jobs report: You have to admit, it's getting better

Posted by Justin Fox

December 4, 2009 at 9:44 am

14 Comments

The unemployment rate is down to 10%. Payroll employment, a more reliable month-to-month indicator, was "essentially unchanged." That's Bureau of Labor Statistics lingo for 11,000 fewer jobs than the month before. So the number is still negative, but after 21 straight months of 100,000+ job losses, it's pretty encouraging news.

Now for the usual caveats. These numbers are subject to revision. Last month's payroll job loss number of -190,000 has been revised down to -111,000. September's nasty -263,000, which had me wondering if the job market had started getting worse again, has been revised down to -139,000. So this month's good news could be revised upward into really good news or downward into disappointment. The trend is looking pretty good but, as Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics writes, "There is no doubt the underlying trend in payrolls is improving, but this looks a bit too fast."

economy, jobs, recession, recovery, employment, unemployment

Comcast goes one direction, Time Warner the opposite

Posted by Justin Fox

December 3, 2009 at 5:14 pm

3 Comments

Back in February, my employer, Time Warner, announced the completion of its spinoff of Time Warner Cable, the country's second-biggest cable system operator. Said Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes at the time:

We're confident that this separation will benefit Time Warner and Time Warner Cable stockholders. Both companies will be better positioned to compete, with capital structures more suited to their respective needs as well as greater operational, financial and strategic flexibility. At the remaining Time Warner businesses, we'll stay focused on what we do best—creating, packaging and distributing our branded, high-quality content.
Read More…

news media technology

The job market: slowly getting less bad

Posted by Barbara Kiviat

December 3, 2009 at 11:25 am

11 Comments

For the fifth week in a row, the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits has dropped, according to the Labor Department. The number of initial claims came in at 457,000 for the week ending Nov. 28. That's the lowest level since September 2008. (The data are seasonally adjusted, which tries to account for differences such as Thanksgiving having been on Thursday.)

The four-week average of new claims—intended to smooth out distortions from one-time events like bad weather—also fell, to 481,250, its lowest point in 13 months.

So that's good news on one front: employers seem to be firing less. Of course, hiring is a different matter.

economy jobs, jobless claims, unemployment

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ON BLOGS

ON TIME.COM

In LA

Posted by Justin Fox

December 3, 2009 at 9:29 am

1 Comment

Sorry for the lack of posting. Been on the move, and been sleepy. I'm currently sitting in a hotel room in downtown LA, getting ready for a Drucker Business Forum chat with Kai Ryssdal and Paul Zak about rational/irrational markets and then a radio interview on KPCC's AirTalk with Larry Mantle. And while we're on the self-aggrandizement front, here's some thrilling video from the discussion I did with Bruce Bartlett, Bob Samuelson and others a few weeks back:

Back in New York, and back to more frequent blogging, tomorrow (or maybe this afternoon, depending how long I'm sitting around at LAX).

books efficient market

Are finance professors to blame for the financial crisis (part 3)?

Posted by Justin Fox

November 30, 2009 at 3:00 pm

8 Comments

Philip Coggan, a.k.a. The Economist's Buttonwood columnist, steers me to

a strange piece in the Financial Times today which attacks (without naming) Justin Fox's book The Myth of the Rational Market.

The column is basically a rehash of a blog post by Gene Fama, which I addressed here a couple of weeks ago. And it doesn't exactly attack my book:

Wall Street, books, efficient market

New column: All that glitters (it's about gold, get it?)

Posted by Justin Fox

November 30, 2009 at 11:28 am

2 Comments

My new column is online and in the issue of TIME with the crying baby on the cover.

While we're on the topic of the cover, I should mention that Andy Serwer's cover story on The Decade From Hell is not purely an exercise in looking through the rearview mirror. Well, actually, it is mostly an exercise in looking through the rearview mirror, but I also have a distinct memory of Andy, at some point in 2001 or 2002 (it couldn't have been 2000, when he was still bullish), going on one of his trademark rants about what a crummy decade the 2000s were going to be. "It's the '70s all over again," he said. Pollyanna that I am, I doubted him. And he was wrong: It wasn't the '70s all over again. It was worse.

So when Andy says the next decade is going to be better, as he does in his essay, I believe him. Although of course Nassim Taleb would say I'm a fool for doing so.

economics, economy, federal reserve, inflation, gold

Marketing without advertising the Ikea way

Posted by Justin Fox

November 30, 2009 at 7:34 am

3 Comments

This is the story, via Chris Matyszczyk, of how Ikea used Facebook to promote a new store in Malmö, Sweden:

news media technology, advertising, ikea, sweden

This year's (gingerbread) model

Posted by Justin Fox

November 29, 2009 at 4:24 pm

2 Comments

It's this year's gingerbread "house," built in the days after Thanksgiving by Curious Capitalist Jr., his maternal grandparents and his mother (I had nothing to do with it). Another view:

miscellany, architecture, gingerbread

Time to panic again! Or, on second thought ...

Posted by Justin Fox

November 27, 2009 at 10:22 am

16 Comments

So I was too busy smashing potatoes (with shallots, butter and cream), falling asleep in front of the TV with the Giants-Broncos game on, and other such important matters Thursday to pay attention to the global market freakout occasioned by Dubai World's announcement that it was going to stop paying its debt bills for six months. (Dubai World is the investment arm of the Dubai government; if you want to catch up on the story, read FT Alphaville).

As of this morning, things are already calming down a bit. Some Asian markets were down sharply overnight, and U.S. stock markets started the day 2% down. But European markets, which took the brunt of the hit yesterday, are up on the day. And while there's certainly been a bit of a rush to safety in debt markets today (with investors buying the likes of U.S. Treasuries and selling emerging market debt), it is so far not indiscriminate and of pretty modest proportions.

Anyway, I was about to write a list of the different spins one could put on the Dubai troubles, then I saw on my RSS reader that Krugman had beaten me to it. His taxonomy sounds about right, so: