7/1/08: fiscal 09 state budgets kick off

O

osorico

No surprise=no worries. LOL

http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=319231
http://www.cbpp.org/1-15-08sfp.htm
http://www.cbpp.org/3-13-08sfp.htm

Personally, my thesis for the last few months has been that State Governments are keeping the national economic reports from turning. Hire em now, spend it now. That's about to come to an end for a good chunk of the country. A few more weeks will tell if my thesis is correct.

On a side note, there has been much hubbub (in my eyes and ears anyway) regarding retail this past week. Here's an (unverified) list of announced store closings thus far this year... http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977364401
and the hits just keep on on coming. Here's JCP from last week... http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...etail/stories/062608dnbuspenney.3a331c88.html
And a generalized article...
http://stormexchange.com/Journals/JournalPage.aspx?poID=154

Could the retail sector be the heart of "commercial property" problems??

No surprise=no worries. LOL
Osorico
 
Starbucks store closings news prompted me to remember that Federal minimum wage hike is just a few weeks away. (merely a mental connection, not a slam or misunderstanding of hourly wage positions at Starbucks.)

Federal minimum wage hike (11.9%) from $5.85 to $6.55 goes into affect July 24, 2008.
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/minimumwage.htm
 
Back on topic...
From the June 08 Jobs report.

"Government employment continued to trend up in June and has grown by 257,000 over the past 12
months. Local government has accounted for about two-thirds of the growth since June 2007. "

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Thesis remains intact... Local government has prevented national economic reports from turning. That local government game IS over! But since it's no surprise, no worries. LOL
 
Quote from osorico:

Starbucks store closings news prompted me to remember that Federal minimum wage hike is just a few weeks away. (merely a mental connection, not a slam or misunderstanding of hourly wage positions at Starbucks.)

Federal minimum wage hike (11.9%) from $5.85 to $6.55 goes into affect July 24, 2008.
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/minimumwage.htm
More...

I've also noticed that fed min wage hike to $6.55. While in my area, most min wage jobs have paid higher due to a higher cost of living, there are probably plenty of places in the middle states where that is going to represent the first real raise people have had in a long time.

In the back of my mind, I consider this almost a form of structural wage inflation. While I don't know if it really is so, will be interested to see what this does if anything to inflation stats. If all of a sudden, we get 'wage inflation', that requires rate hikes, there
s your cause.
 
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