This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Quick Associated Press Math Lesson: + Is Not The Same As -
An AP article which has been syndicated throughout the web, making such reputable outlets as CNBC, reports this interesting tidbit:
Japan also reduced its holdings of U.S. Treasuries, cutting them by
$11.5 billion to $768.8 billion in December, but that amount was still
more than China's December total of $755.4 billion.
That's interesting, since the AP must know something that the US Treasury does not. Because you see "reducing" and "cutting" seems to imply the official November number of $757.3 billion was higher than the December number of $768.8 billion. Yes the difference was $11.5 billion... But in the wrong direction. We share the sentiment though - what's a couple dozen billion between market manipulating central banks.
We surely hope the AP will note this minor $23 billion delta...And the difference between a + and a - sign.
Class dismissed.
»
- 2887 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
the AP clearly will not be allowed to comment here.
for sure - they'll have the same trouble with the +/- Captcha problems as I do.
Pete
Makes perfect sense to Dennis Kneale! Lol
The radio shows this morning, echoed the AP wires.
The manipulation is getting more brazen by the day.
Time man of theyear..go figure
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
- 007
The AP makes CNBS and Bloomberg look like ZeroHedge. Their "news" reports are nothing more than government press releases.
Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see.
"Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"
trtuh you wont find on CNBC: http://greenusert.blogspot.com/
Spam...
Japan and the UK stepped up. That's the end of the story. China's selling did not have a catastrophic effect because the UK and Japan replaced them. Done. Simple. Everything doesn't have to be a big conspiracy.
I was under the impression that the AP was owned by the Fed/Central Bankers???
Ya that's the "ass" in "ass"ociated.
i before e except after c
I'm wondering why ZH is refering to CNBC as "reputable."
Purely for the sake of irony, to be sure.
Math is hard.
The AP folks are getting into that whole educational paradigm of "creativity is more important than knowledge" that smartknowledgeu has been rambling on about.
After all, it takes "creativity" to subtract the vertical bar from a '+' sign to make a '-', or to add a vertical bar to a '-' to get a '+'.
Such very special students! Hooray for imagination!
The trickle down of insider knowledge will soon reach you ...so stay with it. nope
Thankfully, I don't watch CNBC.
I believe you subtracted China from Japan
**** JAPAN *** also reduced its holdings of U.S. Treasuries, cutting them by $11.5 billion to $768.8 billion in December, but that amount was still more than **** CHINA'S *** December total of $755.4
Mish
That doesn't leave $11.5b either.
What's with the UK's holding? It's up nearly 9% in Dec '09 and up 131% over a year.
As stupid as our 535 leaders and 4 moronic economic advisors.
Japan <> China
The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia!
Aren't you in with the newspeak? Gains are now losses and losses are now gains.
AP is desperately trying to positively spin Chinese dumping of treasuries like diarrhea in a toilet bowl. They are saying, "Yeah, the Chinese sold treasuries, but the Japanese still have a lot!"
Who needs this thing called "the twelfth grade" anyways?
Apparently not the Mormons.
The AP like other media outlets such as NBC are extensions of the Obama Administration's media apparatus. They have no credibility whatsoever.
This deserves a repost: PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS: AMERICA—A COUNTRY OF SERFS RULED BY OLIGARCHS
The media has headlined good economic news: fourth quarter GDP growth of 5.7 percent ("the recession is over"), Jan. retail sales up, productivity up in 4th quarter, the dollar is gaining strength. Is any of it true? What does it mean? Or is it all a lie
The 5.7 percent growth figure is a guesstimate made in advance of the release of the U.S. trade deficit statistic. It assumed that the U.S. trade deficit would show an improvement. When the trade deficit was released a few days later, it showed a deterioration, knocking the 5.7 percent growth figure down to 4.6 percent. Much of the remaining GDP growth consists of inventory accumulation.
More than a fourth of the reported gain in Jan. retail sales is due to higher gasoline and food prices. Questionable seasonal adjustments account for the rest.
Productivity was up, because labor costs fell 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter, the fourth successive decline. Initial claims for jobless benefits rose. Productivity increases that do not translate into wage gains Cannot Drive the consumer economy.
Housing is still under pressure, and commercial real estate is about to become a big problem.
The dollar’s gains are not due to inherent strengths. The dollar is gaining because government deficits in Greece and other EU countries are causing the dollar carry trade to unwind. America’s low interest rates made it profitable for investors and speculators to borrow dollars and use them to buy overseas bonds paying higher interest, such as Greek, Spanish and Portuguese bonds denominated in euros. The deficit troubles in these countries have caused investors and speculators to sell the bonds and convert the euros back into dollars in order to pay off their dollar loans. This unwinding temporarily raises the demand for dollars and boosts the dollar’s exchange value.
The problems of the American economy are too great to be reached by traditional policies. Large numbers of middle class American jobs have been moved offshore: manufacturing, industrial and professional service jobs. When the jobs are moved offshore, consumer incomes and U.S. GDP go with them. So many jobs have been moved abroad that there has been no growth in U.S. real incomes in the 21st century, except for the incomes of the super rich who collect multi-million dollar bonuses for moving U.S. jobs offshore.
Without growth in consumer incomes, the economy can go nowhere. Washington policymakers substituted debt growth for income growth. Instead of growing richer, consumers grew more indebted. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan accomplished this with his low interest rate policy, which drove up housing prices, producing home equity that consumers could tap and spend by refinancing their homes.
Unable to maintain their accustomed living standards with income alone, Americans spent their equity in their homes and ran up credit card debts, maxing out credit cards in anticipation that rising asset prices would cover the debts. When the bubble burst, the debts strangled consumer demand, and the economy died.
As I write about the economic hardships created for Americans by Wall Street and corporate greed and by indifferent and bribed political representatives, I get many letters from former middle class families who are being driven into penury. Here is one recently arrived:
"Thank you for your continued truthful commentary on the 'New Economy.' My husband and I could be its poster children. Nine years ago when we married, we were both working good paying, secure jobs in the semiconductor manufacturing sector. Our combined income topped $100,000 a year. We were living the dream. Then the nightmare began. I lost my job in the great tech bubble of 2003, and decided to leave the labor force to care for our infant son. Fine, we tightened the belt. Then we started getting squeezed. Expenses rose, we downsized, yet my husband's job stagnated. After several years of no pay raises, he finally lost his job a year and a half ago. But he didn't just lose a job, he lost a career. The semiconductor industry is virtually gone here in Arizona. Three months later, my husband, with a technical degree and 20-plus years of solid work experience, received one job offer for an entry level corrections officer. He had to take it, at an almost 40 percent reduction in pay. Bankruptcy followed when our savings were depleted. We lost our house, a car, and any assets we had left. His salary last year, less than $40,000, to support a family of four. A year and a half later, we are still struggling to get by. I can't find a job that would cover the cost of daycare. We are stuck. Every jump in gas and food prices hits us hard. Without help from my family, we wouldn't have made it. So, I could tell you just how that 'New Economy' has worked for us, but I'd really rather not use that kind of language."
Policymakers who are banking on stimulus programs are thinking in terms of an economy that no longer exists. Post-war U.S. recessions and recoveries followed Federal Reserve policy. When the economy heated up and inflation became a problem, the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates and reduce the growth of money and credit. Sales would fall. Inventories would build up. Companies would lay off workers.
Inflation cooled, and unemployment became the problem. Then the Federal Reserve would reverse course. Interest rates would fall, and money and credit would expand. As the jobs were still there, the work force would be called back, and the process would continue.
It is a different situation today. Layoffs result from the jobs being moved offshore and from corporations replacing their domestic work forces with foreigners brought in on H-1B, L-1 and other work visas. The U.S. labor force is being separated from the incomes associated with the goods and services that it consumes. With the rise of offshoring, layoffs are not only due to restrictive monetary policy and inventory buildup. They are also the result of the substitution of cheaper foreign labor for U.S. labor by American corporations. Americans cannot be called back to work to jobs that have been moved abroad. In the New Economy, layoffs can continue despite low interest rates and government stimulus programs.
To the extent that monetary and fiscal policy can stimulate U.S. consumer demand, much of the demand flows to the goods and services that are produced offshore for U.S. markets. China, for example, benefits from the stimulation of U.S. consumer demand. The rise in China’s GDP is financed by a rise in the U.S. public debt burden.
Another barrier to the success of stimulus programs is the high debt levels of Americans. The banks are being criticized for a failure to lend, but much of the problem is that there are no consumers to whom to lend. Most Americans already have more debt than they can handle.
Hapless Americans, unrepresented and betrayed, are in store for a greater crisis to come. President Bush’s war deficits were financed by America’s trade deficit. China, Japan, and OPEC, with whom the U.S. runs trade deficits, used their trade surpluses to purchase U.S. Treasury debt, thus financing the U.S. government budget deficit.
The problem now is that the U.S. budget deficits have suddenly grown immensely from wars, bankster bailouts, jobs stimulus programs, and lower tax revenues as a result of the serious recession. Budget deficits are now three times the size of the trade deficit. Thus, the surpluses of China, Japan, and OPEC are insufficient to take the newly issued U.S. government debt off the market.
If the Treasury’s bonds can’t be sold to investors, pension funds, banks, and foreign governments, the Federal Reserve will have to purchase them by creating new money. When the rest of the world realizes the inflationary implications, the US dollar will lose its reserve currency role. When that happens Americans will experience a large economic shock as their living standards take another big hit.
Tyler,
Learn how to read, dude...
Japan:
also reduced its holdings of U.S. Treasuries, cutting them by $11.5 billion to $768.8 billion in December,
but that amount was still more than
China's:
December total of $755.4 billion.
In hedgie english: Japan cut almost 12Bil but still had more than China
http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt
It's interesting to see that there is an upwards trend for US Treasury holdings by Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil and UK, and a downwards trend for China.
Basic math is not the forte of most Americans under the age of 25. With 50% being high school dropouts in many areas of America... All they really need to know is:
Would you like to Supersize that?
---- or ----
Shop Smart, Shop S-Mart.
Anonymous,
Get a sing in name so when you botch a burn we know the name of the fool. China's numbers were not part of the screw up. And if your being sarcastic then I guess I'm the fool.
>>#232741: I hope that you are not one of our financial wizards(who usually hold a GMAT as a precondition for entering the worlds of finances). Or may be you are,and that is why we are at where we are. Tyler is rediculing the AP for the following reason:Saying that Japan "also cut" implies that Japan,like China,has reduced its Treasuries holding in DEC relative to Nov.When in fact the opposite is true. From the link provided (by Tyler),it is very clear that Japan did indeed increased its holding by 11.5 bil and not"cut"which means "reduced". So in fact,you are the one who needs to improve your reading skills.
ucvhost is a leading web site hosting service provider that is known to provide reliable and affordable hosting packages to customers. The company believes in providing absolute and superior control to the customer as well as complete security and flexibility through its many packages. cheap vps Moreover, the company provides technical support as well as customer service 24x7, in order to enable its customers to easily upgrade their software, install it or even solve their problems. ucvhost offers the following different packages to its customers