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Strategies & Market Trends : John Pitera's Market Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patrick Slevin who wrote (7302)	2/12/2006 6:07:19 PM
From: robert b furman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 33421

Hi John and Patrick, Easy answer, Rates are about to go down. After all we've had fourteen 1/4 point rate increases at a measured rate. Pretty hard to say perfect when you are measuring something that has a 12 -18 month lag! The Treasury just sold 14 billion in 30 year bonds and the rate was fully inverted as they started with a yield of 4.53 an closed at 4.50. Yesterdays trading did pop back up to 4.55 on the 30. Over the long cycle I believe it is true that the fed follows the bond market and yet they've been leading it for over a year. Globalization has killed wage price inflation and product inflation. Global demand growth has pushed up commodity/resource inflation. Meanwhile the fed has just insited on pushing up rates ,albeit measured. Could it be he's set up Brnanke to ease rates as the lag gives us a noninflationary soft landing? The bond market says so - I like watching the markets better than politicians or the fed. So all those bonds might just give 4.50 coupon and a capital gains combo? Bob

To: Patrick Slevin who wrote (7302)	4/13/2006 9:17:50 PM
From: Patrick Slevin	Respond to of 33421

Seizing Intangibles for the G.D.P. By LOUIS UCHITELLE Published: April 9, 2006 THE plain fact is that when it comes to measuring how much the American economy produces and who gets what share of the pie, the federal government's most celebrated statistic — the gross domestic product — leaves something to be desired. The G.D.P. is useful, as far as it goes. It tells us how much value — often called national income — is generated each year from the production of goods and services in the United States. The G.D.P. also breaks out how much of that income goes into profits and how much into wages and salaries. This is where the trouble is. The numbers show that the profit portion of the gross domestic product has risen mildly in recent years, while the wage-and-salary share has shrunk slightly. There is evidence, however, that because of the way the G.D.P. is calculated, the actual shift is much more pronounced. "We know that income inequality is quite substantial," said Harry J. Holzer, a labor economist at Georgetown University, "and this new evidence suggests that it is worse than we thought." The Bureau of Economic Analysis, which issues the G.D.P. reports each quarter, is on the case. So are two prominent economists at the Federal Reserve. They all seem to be finding that the current methods for calculating G.D.P. undercount the dollar returns from research and development. What's more, this payoff is not showing up in workers' paychecks. nytimes.com