Lehman

While everyone is focusing on tomorrow's Nonfarm Payrolls number, the far more important number is today's Factory Orders data (because it is far less fuged, adjusted and generally doctored to preserve faith in a contracting economy). Because according to America's manufacturing output, not only is the country already in a recession but it is getting worse with every passing day.

Anyone scratching their head how it is possible that in an environment of a soaring dollar the US trade balance just tumbled, and printed its smallest monthly deficit since 2009, here is the answer: in January, US imports (with the delta entirely in the goods, not services, column) plunged from $232 billion to $222 billion, a whopping $10.2 billion or 4.4% drop, and the biggest monthly decline in US imports since the peak of the financial crisis in the aftermath of the Lehman collapse.

It's the debt-saturated "worst since Lehman" economy!

US Manufacturing PMI beat expectations, printing 55.7 up from 55.3 prior to its highest since Oct 2014, once again flying in the face of the collapse in US hard-data-base macro. More in line with the underlying reality, Feb Construction Spending dropped for the 3rd month of the last 4 and March ISM Manufacturing tumbled to 51.5, missing expectations of 52.5, to its lowest since May 2013. Under the covers, it is even uglier with the lowest New Orders since Jan 2014 as US Manufacturing data has missed 5 of the last 7 months and dropped for 5 months in a row - which hasn't happened since 2008.

The Cop Is On the Take

Despite the hockey-stick-like expectations of all the clever economists, Chicago PMI failed to bounce back from its total carnage in February. Printing 46.3 against expectations of 51.4, the index remains at near six-year lows. Must be the weather... oh apart from the massive surge in Midwest pending home sales...?

"Now a legal quirk could bring a surreal ending to... foreclosure cases around the country: [borrowers] may get to keep their homes without ever having to pay another dime."

Dallas Fed's Richard Fisher had his credibility (whatever is left) crushed for the 4th month in a row. After explaining carefully to no lessor status quo glad hand than Steve Liesman that the Texas economy will see a net positive from low oil prices, Dallas Fed data has utterly collapsed - at its fastest pace since Lehman. Printing a stunning -17.5 (over twice as bad as expected -8.5), this is the 4th miss in a row (and increasingly worse misses). The Dallas Fed was last lower than this in Jun 2011. Across the board, the components were an utter disaster... employees contracted, prices paid and recoeved tumbled, production plunged, and new orders collapsed. More worryingly, furture capex tumbled once again.

"When I was chairman, more than one legislator accused me and my colleagues on the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee of “throwing seniors under the bus” (to use the words of one senator) by keeping interest rates low. The legislators were concerned about retirees living off their savings and able to obtain only very low rates of return on those savings. I was concerned about those seniors as well."

- Ben Bernanke first blog post

The black line's trend is nobody's friend.

Bloomberg estimates industrial output may have to be slashed by a fifth in order for Beijing to hit its own pollution targets and by up to 40% if China wants its citizens to be able to breathe the same air as the rest of the world.

We're just a little over two weeks into PSPP and signs are already beginning to show that the ECB is effectively breaking the market. "The soaring cost of borrowing government bonds in secured lending markets highlights the distortions caused by the ECB's asset-purchase scheme, which analysts say could clog up Europe's financial system," Reuters notes.

Much of the commentary from the more liberal leaning media has continued to tout that the rise in asset markets over the last few years are clear evidence of economic prosperity in this country. However, is that really the case? In order for rising asset prices to be reflective of overall economic prosperity, the "wealth" generated by those rising asset prices should impact a broad swath of the American populous. Let's take a look to see if that is the case.

The market economy is good...