Recession continues to deepen

Weekly unemployment insurance initial claims today showed that the economic recession continues to deepen. Initial claims were above the half-million level.

That said, it is worth noting that employment continued to decline for quite a number of months beyond the end of the last recession.

On the bright side, there was a modest up-tick in mortgage applications.

Overall, the economy still has a lot of latent strength, with plenty of consumers having plenty of cash, but unfortunately there is a large enough pool of consumers with lost jobs and heavy debt burdens so as to leave the net balance pointing downwards.

Congress and the incoming administration are clearly chomping at the bit to get some industrial strenth stimulus flowing, but there simply is not very much incentive for them to do very much at all over the next two months to "save" the remains of the Bush administration. But come February, stand clear and watch the money flow.

-- Jack Krupansky