The +Labor Department reported today that applications for jobless benefits increased by 34,000 to 386,000 in the week ended July 14th. Economists had forecast 365,000, so this was a big swing and a miss (in baseball parlance).
On a non seasonally adjusted (NSA) basis, you can seen a troubling trend:
Continuing jobless claims rose to 3,314,000 which is higher than the forecast of 3,300,000. Another big swing and a miss.
Bloomberg’s Consumer Comfort Index fell t0 -37.9. Consumer Comfort has not been a winner for The President.
And the Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook Survey for General Conditions fell to -12.9 and expectations of -8.0. Another big SWOOSH.
Am I surprised? Not in the least. We are now so over-regulated and are about to be so massively over taxed that businesses are scared. Take Dodd-Frank for example. is only 30% complete and already 8,843 pages of rules and regulations have been written. At this pace, Dodd-Frank will weigh in at about 30,000 pages when complete!
Throw in EPA regulations and the murder of the coal fired power plants (and coal industry) and you can see why American businesses are outsourcing to other countries. It is TOO EXPENSIVE TO DO BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES.
A report released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) reveals that the cost of government regulation is $1.75 TRILLION. Bear in mind that the regulatory cost is 48 percent of the budget of the Federal government. Furthermore, regulatory costs are almost ten times the total of all corporate taxes collected and almost double the total collected from individual income taxes. Wayne Crews – 10,000 Commandments 2012_0
Let’s see how the Dodd-Frank final list of banking commandments increases the Federal register.
How about a change in game plan?
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