Miercoles 30/03/11 ADP reporte del empleo privado

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Eventos economicos

Miercoles

Solicitudes de hipotecas
Reporte del empleo privado de acuerdo a ADP
Reporte del petroleo
Subasta de bonos
Precios de los agricultores

MBA Purchase Applications
7:00 AM ET


Challenger Job-Cut Report
7:30 AM ET


ADP Employment Report
8:15 AM ET


EIA Petroleum Status Report
10:30 AM ET


7-Yr Note Auction
1:00 PM ET


Farm Prices
3:00

[admin]

Copper March 29,20:18
Bid/Ask 4.3202 - 4.3218
Change +0.0075 +0.17%
Low/High 4.3129 - 4.3259
Charts

Nickel March 29,13:57
Bid/Ask 12.0303 - 12.0621
Change +0.0227 +0.19%
Low/High 11.9850 - 12.0748
Charts

Aluminum March 29,20:17
Bid/Ask 1.1754 - 1.1767
Change -0.0017 -0.14%
Low/High 1.1747 - 1.1787
Charts

Zinc March 29,20:18
Bid/Ask 1.0678 - 1.0720
Change -0.0043 -0.40%
Low/High 1.0676 - 1.0743
Charts

Lead March 29,20:15
Bid/Ask 1.2328 - 1.2350
Change -0.0022 -0.17%
Low/High 1.2314 - 1.2395
Charts

[admin]

El Nikkei + 0.38%, Korea + 0.33%, Australia +0.71%

Yen down 82.48, euro up 1.4122

Los futures del Dow Jones 5 puntos al alza.

Yields up 3.49%

[admin]

5:05 p.m. EDT 03/29/11Treasurys Price Chg Yield %
2-Year Note* -3/32 0.825
10-Year Note* -13/32 3.487
* at close

8:10 p.m. EDT 03/29/11Futures Last Change Settle
Crude Oil 104.50 -0.29 104.79
Gold 1419.7 2.2 1417.5
DJ Industrials 12230 5 12225
S&P 500 1316.00 -0.50 1316.50

8:21 p.m. EDT 03/29/11Currencies Last (bid) Prior Day †
Japanese Yen (USD/JPY) 82.42 82.43
Euro (EUR/USD) 1.4123 1.4103
† Late Tuesday in New York.

[admin]

Muy educativo, que pasa cuando un estado, o varios (la mayoria democratas) vive de los impuestos que les cobra a los ricos? Cuando los ricos caen, el estado quiebra.

Los impuestos pagados por el 1% de los habitantes de California y New York (los mas ricos) son aproximadamente el 50% de todos los impuestos que se recolectan en total. El problema, uno de ellos es que los ingresos de los ricos son volatiles y dificiles de predecir.

Entre el 2007 y el 2008 los ingresos de los ricos bajo 16% mientras los de los demas cayo solo 4%.

Despues de la burbuja tecnologica los impuestos recolectados a las ganancias de capital cayeron dos terceras partes, a $5 billones en el 2003 de $17 billones en el 2001, mientras los impuestos provenientes de los sueldos cayo 15% en el mismo periodo. Para el 2002 California tenia un deficit en su presupuesto de $20 billones.

El problema de los estados es que no pueden predecir el ingreso de los ricos por que esta ligado al stock market y este es impredecible, mientras tanto los gastos de los estados siguen subiendo especialmente durante los anio en que los ingresos por impuestos son altos.


The Price of Taxing the Rich
The top 1% of earners fill the coffers of states like California and New York during a boom—and leave them starved for revenue in a bust.

By ROBERT FRANK

Max Whittaker for The Wall Street Journal

Brad Williams, above, a former economic forecaster for California, warned that the state was overdependent on the rich.
.As Brad Williams walked the halls of the California state capitol in Sacramento on a recent afternoon, he spotted a small crowd of protesters battling state spending cuts. They wore shiny white buttons that said "We Love Jobs!" and argued that looming budget reductions will hurt the Golden State's working class.

Mr. Williams shook his head. "They're missing the real problem," he said.

The working class may be taking a beating from spending cuts used to close a cavernous deficit, Mr. Williams said, but the root of California's woes is its reliance on taxing the wealthy.

Nearly half of California's income taxes before the recession came from the top 1% of earners: households that took in more than $490,000 a year. High earners, it turns out, have especially volatile incomes—their earnings fell by more than twice as much as the rest of the population's during the recession. When they crashed, they took California's finances down with them.

Mr. Williams, a former economic forecaster for the state, spent more than a decade warning state leaders about California's over-dependence on the rich. "We created a revenue cliff," he said. "We built a large part of our government on the state's most unstable income group."

.New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois—states that are the most heavily reliant on the taxes of the wealthy—are now among those with the biggest budget holes. A large population of rich residents was a blessing during the boom, showering states with billions in tax revenue. But it became a curse as their incomes collapsed with financial markets.

Arriving at a time of greatly increased public spending, this reversal highlights the dependence of the states on the outsize incomes of the wealthy. The result for state finances and budgets has been extreme volatility.

.Many states are drawing in less money, partly due to lower incomes among high earners. Compare income tax receipts state by state and see the change from 2007 to 2009.
.In New York before the recession, the top 1% of earners, who made more than $580,000 a year, paid 41% of the state's income taxes in 2007, up from 25% in 1994, according to state tax data. The top 1% of taxpayers paid 40% or more of state income taxes in New Jersey and Connecticut. In Illinois, which has a flat income-tax rate of 5%, the top 15% paid more than half the state's income taxes.

This growing dependence on wealthy taxpayers is being driven by soaring salaries at the top of the income ladder and by the nation's progressive income taxes, which levy the highest rates on the highest taxable incomes. The top federal income-tax rate has fallen dramatically over the past century, from more than 90% during World War II to 35% today. But the top tax rate—which applies to joint filers reporting $379,000 in taxable income—is still twice as high as the rate for joint filers reporting income of $69,000 or less.

The future of federal income taxes on the wealthy remains in flux. The top tax rate is 35%, following the Congressional tax battle last year. But in 2013, the rate is scheduled to go back to 39.6% unless Congress takes further action.

State income taxes are generally less progressive than federal income taxes, and more than a half-dozen states have no income tax. Yet a number of states have recently hiked taxes on the top earners to raise revenue during the recession. New York, for instance, imposed a "millionaire's tax" in 2009 on those earning $500,000 or more, although the tax is expected to expire at the end of 2011. Connecticut's top income-tax rate has crept up to 6.5% from 4.5% in 2002, while Oregon raised the top tax rate to 11% from 9% for filers with income of more than $500,000.

As they've grown, the incomes of the wealthy have become more unstable. Between 2007 and 2008, the incomes of the top-earning 1% fell 16%, compared to a decline of 4% for U.S. earners as a whole, according to the IRS. Because today's highest salaries are usually linked to financial markets—through stock-based pay or investments—they are more prone to sudden shocks.

The income swings have created more extreme booms and busts for state governments. In New York, the top 1% of taxpayers contribute more to the state's year-to-year tax swings than all the other taxpayers combined, according to a study by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. In its January report downgrading New Jersey's credit rating, Standard & Poor's stated that New Jersey's wealth "translates into a high ability to pay taxes but might also contribute to potential revenue volatility."

State budget shortfalls have other causes, of course, from high unemployment and weak retail sales to falling real-estate values and the rising costs of health-care and pensions. State spending has expanded rapidly over the past decade. California's total spending grew from $99.2 billion in 2000-01 to a projected $136 billion in 2010-11, not including federal funds, according to the state Department of Finance. Though California's spending slipped by 15% during the recession, it has since returned to near prerecession levels.

Some states may get a lifeline this year from the financial markets. Starting late last year, California, New Jersey and others began seeing higher-than-expected income-tax revenues and capital-gains revenues, suggesting the start of the next boom cycle. Still, because many states based their spending plans on the assumption that the windfalls from the wealthy would return every year, they are now grappling with multibillion-dollar shortfalls.

A recent study by the Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Institute found that in 2009, states overestimated their revenues by more than $50 billion, due largely to the unexpected fall-off in personal-income taxes. Sales and corporate taxes have also fallen, but they account for a much smaller share of tax revenue in many states.

Tax experts say the problems at the state level could spread to Washington, as the highest earners gain a larger share of both national income and the tax burden. The top 1% paid 38% of federal income taxes in 2008, up from 25% in 1991, and they earned 20% of all national income in 2008, up from 13% in 1991, according to the Tax Foundation.

"These revenues have a narcotic effect on legislatures," said Greg Torres, president of MassINC, a nonpartisan think tank. "They become numb to the trend and think the revenue picture is improving, but they don't realize the money is ephemeral."

Kicking the addiction has proven difficult, since it's so fraught with partisan politics. Republicans advocate lowering taxes on the wealthy to broaden state tax bases and reduce volatility. Democrats oppose the move, saying a less progressive tax system would only add to growing income inequality.

College students and faculty protest budget cuts in Sacramento on March 14. Income taxes account for more than half of California's general revenue.
.In a blog post called "The Volatility Monster," California Democratic State Sen. Noreen Evans wrote that "the true response to solving the volatility problem is to make sure Californians are fully employed and decently paid. Preserving the state's progressive tax system is fundamental to combating the rising riches at the top and rising poverty at the bottom. Flattening our tax system would simply increase this already historic income inequality," she wrote.

U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock (R., Calif.) has for years advocated a flat tax in California to reduce volatility and keep high-earners from leaving the state. "California has one of the most steeply disproportionate income taxes in the nation," he said. "A flatter, broader tax rate would help stabilize the most volatile of California's revenues."

Rainy-day funds, which can help bail out governments during recessions, have also run into political opposition or proven too small to save state budgets. A study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that effective rainy day funds should be 15% of state operating expenditures—more than three times the state average before the crisis. Massachusetts, which saw a 75% drop in capital-gains collections during the recession, won plaudits from ratings firms and economists for creating a rainy-day fund in 2010 using future capital-gains revenues.

Economists and state budget chiefs say the best hedge is better planning. Budget staffers in New York, for instance, now spend more time studying Wall Street pay and bonuses to more accurately predict state revenues. The state's budget director avoids overly optimistic forecasts based on a previous year's strong growth.

"We're glad we have the revenue from the wealthy, and we want to encourage these people to stay and prosper," said Robert L. Megna, budget director for New York state. "But we have to recognize that because you have them, you'll have this big volatility."

The story of Mr. Williams, the former chief economist and forecaster for the California Legislative Analyst's Office, shows just how vulnerable states have become to the income shocks among the rich, and why reform has proven difficult.

In the mid-1990s, shortly after taking the job, Mr. Williams discovered he had a problem. Part of his job was to help state politicians plan their budgets and tax projections.

A lanky, 6-foot-4-inch 58-year-old, with piercing blue eyes and a fondness for cycling, Mr. Williams prided himself on his deep data dives. The Wall Street Journal named him California's most accurate forecaster in 1998 for his work the prior decade. He and his team placed a special focus on employment and age data and developed their own econometric models to make improvements.

Historically, California's tax revenues tracked the broader state economy. Yet in the mid-1990s, Mr. Williams noticed that they had started to diverge. Employment was barely growing while income-tax revenue was soaring.

"It was like we suddenly had two different economies," Mr. Williams said. "There was the California economy and then there were personal income taxes."

In all his years of forecasting, he had rarely encountered such a puzzle. He did some economic sleuthing and discovered that most of the growth was coming from a small group of high earners. The average incomes of the top 20% of Californian earners (households making $95,000 in 1998) jumped by an inflation-adjusted 75% between 1980 and 1998, while incomes for the rest of the state grew by less than 3% over the same period. Capital-gains realizations—largely stock sales—quadrupled between 1994 and 1999, to nearly $80 billion.

Mr. Williams reported his findings in early 2000, in a report called "California's Changing Income Distribution," which was widely circulated in the state capital. He wrote that state tax collections would be "subject to more volatility than in the past."

Mr. Williams wasn't the only one noticing the state's dependence on the wealthy. Economists and governors had for years lamented the state's high tax rates on the rich, and in 2009 a bipartisan commission set up by then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recommended an across-the-board reduction in income-tax rates and a broader sales tax to reduce the state's dependence on the wealthy. The income-tax rate on Californians making more than $1 million a year is 10.3%, compared to less than 6% for those making under $26,600. Combined with the rising share of income going to the top, the state's progressive rates amplify the impact of the income gains or losses of the wealthy.

California's dependence on income taxes has also grown because of its shifting economy. Income taxes now account for more than half of its general revenue, up from about a third in 1981. Because the state's sales and use tax applies mainly to goods, rather than faster-growing services, it has declined in importance. The state's corporate tax has also shrunk relative to income taxes because of tax credits and other changes.

By the late 1990s, Mr. Williams realized that his job had changed. California's future was no longer tied to the broader economy, but to a small group of ultra-earners. To predict the state's revenue, he had to start forecasting the fortunes of the rich. That meant forecasting the performance of stocks—specifically, a handful of high-tech stocks.

.He pored over SEC filings for Apple, Oracle and other California tech giants. He met with the financial advisers to the rich, asking them about the investment plans of their clients. He watched daily stock movements and stock sales reported by the state's tax collectors.

Working with the state's tax collectors, he did a geographic breakdown of capital gains. The vast majority were in Silicon Valley.

"We knew there was a bubble," he said, "We just didn't know when it would fall, or by how much."

After the dot-com bust, the state's revenues from capital gains fell by more than two-thirds, to $5 billion in 2003 from $17 billion in 2001, while personal-income taxes fell 15% over the same period. The recession created a mirror image of the boom, with the wealthy leading the crash and dragging tax revenues down with them. By 2002, California had a budget shortfall of more than $20 billion.

The deficit lingered for years, but its lessons seemed to be quickly forgotten in the state capital. By 2005, California was enjoying another surge in spending fed by the incomes of the wealthy.

Mr. Williams started warning of another government crisis. In 2005, he released a report stating that the state's tax revenues could vary by as much as $6 billion in a single year, and that such swings were "more likely than not." He recommended several potential reforms, including flatter income-tax rates, "income averaging," which allows the wealthy to spread their tax payments for unusual windfalls over a longer period of time, and a rainy-day fund.

His proposals failed to gain any traction with the legislature. Many Democrats refused to consider tax hikes on the middle class and lower rates for the rich. In 2009, voters rejected a proposed spending cap, which among other things, would have helped to create a rainy-day fund.

One of the leading advocates for such a fund is Roger Niello, a former Republican assemblyman who has long been among the top 1% of state earners. He and his family own a chain of luxury car dealerships, and during the recession, his income fell by more than half because of the decline of auto sales. Though he's still "fine financially," he said, his personal experience taught him that "people in this income group have the most variable incomes."

Darrell Steinberg, the Democratic leader of the state senate, agrees that the dependence on the wealthy is "one of our most fundamental problems." Yet he concedes that his own spending priorities—including a large expansion of mental-health programs funded by a millionaire's tax—have added to the current mismatch between revenues and spending.

"I have no regrets given the number of people we've helped," he said. "But I guess you could say I did my part with spending."

As time went by, Mr. Williams became increasingly frustrated. To do his job properly, he had to predict the stock market. "And that's impossible," he said. He also felt that all of his research and warnings fell on deaf ears. In 2007, he decided to retire, and he now he works for a consulting firm.

"I was a broken record," he said. "I just kept saying the same thing over and over. And with my job, there was no real pleasure in being right."

—Vauhini Vara contributed to this article.

[admin]

El articulo anterior muestra una vez mas la irresponsabilidad de los estados democratas que quieren cobrarle mas impuestos a los ricos.

La izquierda piensa que el gobierno debe hacer algo para evitar que lso ricos se hagan mas ricos mientras los pobres se quedan pobres. Los izquierdistas no entienden la magia del stock market.

La mayoria de la riqueza creada en las ultimas decadas han sido generadas por el stock market. Obviamente el que tiene capital para invertir, asi no trabaje se va a hacer mas rico de anio en anio, mientras que el que vive de su sueldo y no ahorra jamas podra acumular capital y hacerse rico.

La izquierda sigue hablando de los sistemas injustos que no ayudan a los pobres a salir de la pobreza. El gobierno no es el mecanismo que saca a la gente de la pobreza, solo el individuo y su ambicion puede hacerlo en el sector privado.

Algo que la izquierda no entiende. El rico siempre seguira haciendose mas rico y en el proceso creara empleos.

[admin]

El alza del 30% en el petroleo no matara la recuperacion la economia es menos vulnerable que en el 2008.
Oil Prices Won't Kill the Recovery
The 30% price spike to date isn't big enough to be a major shock, and the economy is less vulnerable today than it was in the expansion's late stages in 2008

By DONALD L. LUSKIN
Will the spike in oil prices emanating from instability in the Middle East be enough to derail the U.S. economic recovery, just when it's finally building up a head of steam? Surely it's not helpful. But while our collective memory and intuition about oil shocks may cause us to fear the worst, a clear-eyed look at the data suggests that oil prices may have to rise considerably higher to trigger a U.S. recession.

The oil shocks of the 1970s and early '80s, which caused deep recessions, were so epochal that we're conditioned to assume that any rise in oil prices is bad for growth and any fall is good. Yet historical data tells us that most oil-price changes are not correlated with future changes in real output growth. For example, oil prices rose steadily throughout the mid-2000s while growth remained strong.

Where oil prices do matter to growth is in extremis, in those rare cases when an extraordinary and rapid oil-price change creates an economic shock. But it's difficult to come up with a simple rule that tells us when an oil shock is enough to cause a recession—or not. Crude oil prices as high as $147 a barrel in the summer of 2008, for instance, aren't seen as the cause of the Great Recession. Most observers would cite instead the fall of Lehman Brothers and the banking crisis that immediately followed, events that occurred at roughly the same time.

Let's just accept that oil shocks matter. Is today's oil price of about $104 a barrel in the U.S. (and $115 globally) a shock? To be a shock, it has to be big. And "big" is a matter of context. Yes, today's oil prices are more than 30% higher than they were a year ago. That sounds big. But at the same time, they are more than 30% lower than they were less than three years ago. That's big, too, but in the opposite direction. Which context counts?

Research by economist James Hamilton of the University of California, San Diego suggests that oil prices imperil the economy when they reach a new three-year high. Steven Kopits, managing director of the energy consulting firm Douglas-Westwood, says the overall economy is threatened when the 12-month average oil price exceeds the year-ago 12-month average price by more than half. Below those levels consumer and investor expectations aren't sufficiently disrupted to make a difference. Both conditions are very far from being triggered at today's prices.

To be a shock, it has to be a surprise, and in one sense the current situation is: Despite all the pessimistic narratives that have overhung the economy during the last six quarters of recovery—housing double-dip, insolvent states and municipalities, collapse of the euro zone, real estate bubble in China, and so on—virtually nobody was predicting that the Middle East would be swept with contagious regime change spread via Facebook and Twitter.

That said, should anyone really be surprised to learn that the Middle East is politically volatile? No, and things there might get crazier. But if the history of the region has taught us anything, it is that whoever controls the oil always eventually ends up selling it to the developed world, often despite their ravings about the developed world's imperialist evils.

In the meantime, Saudi Arabia has committed to make up for any transitory shortfalls. Pumping an additional one million barrels a day would not be a stretch for the Saudis—doing so would merely bring the Kingdom's production levels back up to mid-2008 levels. So even if we now face a shock, it will be transitory, and it will be buffered. That's why, for all the uncertainty, oil is now $104 a barrel, not $1,000 a barrel.

More importantly, the U.S. economy is today well-positioned to absorb an oil spike without experiencing it as an oil shock. First, we're nowhere near peak oil consumption, which we hit in August 2005 at 21.7 million barrels per day. We're now 9% below that, even though consumption has recovered substantially since its worst levels of the Great Recession in September 2008. The last three recessions—those that started in 1990, 2001 and 2008—began only after oil consumption reached new peak levels.

Economies in the early stages of recovery, like ours today, are less vulnerable to oil shocks than those in the late stages of expansion. As a business cycle matures, the economy experiences diminishing returns from any given factor of production—labor, credit, oil or anything else. When a recovery is still new, large gains can be levered from relatively modest increases in inputs, so the economy can afford to pay more for those inputs.

We've also grown much more efficient when it comes to energy consumption. It may come as a surprise to many, but today in the U.S. we're consuming the same amount of crude oil that we did 12 years ago and real output is more than 25% higher. For all the talk of our being the planet's most villainous energy hog, we've become remarkably oil efficient.

Finally, this oil spike is coming at a fortuitous moment in American politics. President Obama, tacking to the political center after his party's self-described "shellacking" in last year's midterm elections, said earlier this month that he wants to "increase domestic oil production in the short and medium term." That may be the most shocking thing about this oil spike.

Mr. Luskin is chief investment officer at Trend Macrolytics LLC and the co-author with Andrew Greta of "I Am John Galt," out in May by Wiley & Sons.

[admin]

El alza del 30% en el petroleo no matara la recuperacion la economia es menos vulnerable que en el 2008.
Oil Prices Won't Kill the Recovery
The 30% price spike to date isn't big enough to be a major shock, and the economy is less vulnerable today than it was in the expansion's late stages in 2008

By DONALD L. LUSKIN
Will the spike in oil prices emanating from instability in the Middle East be enough to derail the U.S. economic recovery, just when it's finally building up a head of steam? Surely it's not helpful. But while our collective memory and intuition about oil shocks may cause us to fear the worst, a clear-eyed look at the data suggests that oil prices may have to rise considerably higher to trigger a U.S. recession.

The oil shocks of the 1970s and early '80s, which caused deep recessions, were so epochal that we're conditioned to assume that any rise in oil prices is bad for growth and any fall is good. Yet historical data tells us that most oil-price changes are not correlated with future changes in real output growth. For example, oil prices rose steadily throughout the mid-2000s while growth remained strong.

Where oil prices do matter to growth is in extremis, in those rare cases when an extraordinary and rapid oil-price change creates an economic shock. But it's difficult to come up with a simple rule that tells us when an oil shock is enough to cause a recession—or not. Crude oil prices as high as $147 a barrel in the summer of 2008, for instance, aren't seen as the cause of the Great Recession. Most observers would cite instead the fall of Lehman Brothers and the banking crisis that immediately followed, events that occurred at roughly the same time.

Let's just accept that oil shocks matter. Is today's oil price of about $104 a barrel in the U.S. (and $115 globally) a shock? To be a shock, it has to be big. And "big" is a matter of context. Yes, today's oil prices are more than 30% higher than they were a year ago. That sounds big. But at the same time, they are more than 30% lower than they were less than three years ago. That's big, too, but in the opposite direction. Which context counts?

Research by economist James Hamilton of the University of California, San Diego suggests that oil prices imperil the economy when they reach a new three-year high. Steven Kopits, managing director of the energy consulting firm Douglas-Westwood, says the overall economy is threatened when the 12-month average oil price exceeds the year-ago 12-month average price by more than half. Below those levels consumer and investor expectations aren't sufficiently disrupted to make a difference. Both conditions are very far from being triggered at today's prices.

To be a shock, it has to be a surprise, and in one sense the current situation is: Despite all the pessimistic narratives that have overhung the economy during the last six quarters of recovery—housing double-dip, insolvent states and municipalities, collapse of the euro zone, real estate bubble in China, and so on—virtually nobody was predicting that the Middle East would be swept with contagious regime change spread via Facebook and Twitter.

That said, should anyone really be surprised to learn that the Middle East is politically volatile? No, and things there might get crazier. But if the history of the region has taught us anything, it is that whoever controls the oil always eventually ends up selling it to the developed world, often despite their ravings about the developed world's imperialist evils.

In the meantime, Saudi Arabia has committed to make up for any transitory shortfalls. Pumping an additional one million barrels a day would not be a stretch for the Saudis—doing so would merely bring the Kingdom's production levels back up to mid-2008 levels. So even if we now face a shock, it will be transitory, and it will be buffered. That's why, for all the uncertainty, oil is now $104 a barrel, not $1,000 a barrel.

More importantly, the U.S. economy is today well-positioned to absorb an oil spike without experiencing it as an oil shock. First, we're nowhere near peak oil consumption, which we hit in August 2005 at 21.7 million barrels per day. We're now 9% below that, even though consumption has recovered substantially since its worst levels of the Great Recession in September 2008. The last three recessions—those that started in 1990, 2001 and 2008—began only after oil consumption reached new peak levels.

Economies in the early stages of recovery, like ours today, are less vulnerable to oil shocks than those in the late stages of expansion. As a business cycle matures, the economy experiences diminishing returns from any given factor of production—labor, credit, oil or anything else. When a recovery is still new, large gains can be levered from relatively modest increases in inputs, so the economy can afford to pay more for those inputs.

We've also grown much more efficient when it comes to energy consumption. It may come as a surprise to many, but today in the U.S. we're consuming the same amount of crude oil that we did 12 years ago and real output is more than 25% higher. For all the talk of our being the planet's most villainous energy hog, we've become remarkably oil efficient.

Finally, this oil spike is coming at a fortuitous moment in American politics. President Obama, tacking to the political center after his party's self-described "shellacking" in last year's midterm elections, said earlier this month that he wants to "increase domestic oil production in the short and medium term." That may be the most shocking thing about this oil spike.

Mr. Luskin is chief investment officer at Trend Macrolytics LLC and the co-author with Andrew Greta of "I Am John Galt," out in May by Wiley & Sons.

[admin]

El Hang Seng +1.23%, el Shanghai C -0.10%, Australia +0.95%, el Nikkei + 1.22
El yen a la baja ayudando al Nikkei.

Euro down 1.4083

+5

[admin]

Los futures del Dow Jones 21 puntos al alza.

El Hang Seng +1.71%, el Shanghai C. -0.48%, Australia +1.36%

Yen down 82.91, el Nikkei 2% al alza.

Korea +1.10%

Todo bullish en el Asia.

[admin]

Euro down 1.4086

[admin]

Treasurys Price Chg Yield %
2-Year Note* -3/32 0.825
10-Year Note* -13/32 3.487
* at close

12:17 a.m. EDT 03/30/11Futures Last Change Settle
Crude Oil 104.34 -0.45 104.79
Gold 1419.2 1.7 1417.5
DJ Industrials 12246 21 12225
S&P 500 1319.20 2.70 1316.50

12:28 a.m. EDT 03/30/11Currencies Last (bid) Prior Day †
Japanese Yen (USD/JPY) 82.93 82.43
Euro (EUR/USD) 1.4085 1.4103
† Late Tuesday

[admin]

Se espera que ADP diga que se crearon 205,000 empleos en el sector privado.

Reporta Mosaic., la gigante de fertilizantes.

Tomorrow’s Tape: ADP Jobs Data, Family Dollar Earnings

By Matt Phillips

EverettEconomics:

8:15 a.m. — The drum beat to jobs Friday grows tomorrow, with the release of ADP’s read on private sector job growth. The expectation is for 205,000 private sector jobs. Those in the markets look skeptically on ADP’s ability to predict the actual private sector additions during a given month. But last time ADP said 217,000 private sector jobs were added in February. And two days later the official number in the big government jobs report came in pretty close, at 222,000.
Earnings:

Before the open — Family Dollar reports. The consensus calls for EPS of 97 cents on sales of $2.26 billion. All eyes will be on the forecast. Last time, the company narrowed its yearly earnings forecast to $3.08 to $3.23 a share from $3.04 to $3.24, helping to drive the shares lower.
After the close — DryShips Inc. reports. The consensus calls for EPS of 26 cents on sales of $221 million.
After the close — Fertilizer giant Mosaic reports. Consensus calls for 1.07 in EPS on sales of $2.35 billion. Last time, Mosaic’s shares jumped after fiscal second-quarter earnings soared on sharply higher sales and a $570 million gain on the sale of its stake in a company to Vale.

[admin]

Pese al crecimiento, aumentan las dudas sobre el milagro indio

Una mujer india trabaja en un proyecto de construcción en Nueva Delhi, India.
.Por Paul Beckett

Nueva Delhi, India—La economía de India está en auge; su crecimiento sólo es superado por el de China entre las principales economías del mundo. Sin embargo, en los últimos meses, el ánimo del país se ha agriado drásticamente y los líderes empresariales han comenzado a quejarse de que algo anda mal.

Nadie pone en duda que el boom ha creado una enorme riqueza para la élite ejecutiva y ha contribuido a mejorar las vidas de cientos de millones de personas. Pero los beneficios de este crecimiento no se han extendido a la gran mayoría. Además, una serie de escándalos de corrupción ha expuesto la falta de un gobierno eficaz en India.

En una aparición en televisión, Azim Premji, el presidente del gigante de servicios informáticos Wipro Ltd., describió la situación como una "calamidad nacional".

En enero, Premji y otros 13 líderes de empresas, jueces jubilados de la Corte Suprema y ex gobernadores del banco central, expusieron sus quejas en una carta abierta a "nuestros líderes". "Es un hecho ampliamente reconocido que los beneficios del crecimiento no están llegando a los sectores pobres y marginados de forma adecuada debido a los impedimentos al desarrollo económico", escribieron.

No se suponía que esta fuera la imagen de India 20 años después de abandonar un modelo económico centralizado, abrazar el capitalismo e iniciar el despegue económico. Las reformas históricas de 1991 partieron de la promesa de transformar el país de una economía agraria a una industrial, lo que se tradujo en una mejor calidad de vida para todos sus habitantes. Otros países asiáticos, incluyendo China y Corea del Sur, recorrieron este camino con éxito.

India disfrutó de unos años de crecimiento asombroso, pese a tener problemas que sus vecinos no compartían, como un complejo sistema de castas que imponían inquebrantables diferencias sociales. Estos problemas han estancado su transformación. La educación pública está en ruinas. Ninguna empresa estatal de peso se ha privatizado en años. La prometida modernización del sistema financiero ha avanzado a duras penas y la reforma agraria necesaria para estimular la industrialización ha sido imposible desde el punto de vista político. La desnutrición sigue siendo generalizada.

Los funcionarios del gobierno reconocen que el proceso de reforma necesita ser revitalizado. "Debemos redescubrir rápidamente el viejo sentido de la audacia y tomar decisiones osadas, que estoy seguro que tomaremos", dijo el ministro del Interior, Palaniappan Chidambaram, quien jugó un importante rol en las reformas de 1991. El gobierno, dice, ha tomado varias medidas hace poco para ayudar a los pobres, estableciendo un programa de almuerzos en las escuelas y proponiendo una ley para hacer que el acceso a los alimentos sea un derecho fundamental.

Ravi Venkatesan, quien hasta el martes dirigía la filial de Microsoft Corp. en India, advierte que hay mucho en juego. "Podríamos terminar con una sociedad inestable, a medida que las aspiraciones van en aumento y aquellos que quedan rezagados ya no se conforman con vivir sus vidas. Ya se pueden ver muestras de ira", asegura.

El destino de India es vital para las economías desarrolladas, para las que el país de 1.200 millones habitantes es un mercado de exportación cada vez más importante, una fuerza estabilizadora en una región peligrosa y un contrapeso al auge de China.

El proceso de liberalización económica de India arrancó a partir de una crisis financiera en 1991, cuando estuvo a punto de declararse en cesación de pagos. Manmohan Singh, el actual primer ministro era entonces el ministro de Hacienda, y las iniciativas que implementó evitaron el colapso financiero.

En muchos aspectos importantes, los cambios transformaron el país en una historia de éxito. La esperanza de vida aumentó a 64 años en 2008,, frente a los 58 de 1991. La alfabetización se ha propagado. Centenares de millones de personas empezaron a recibir mayores ingresos. El Producto Interno Bruto per cápita subió a US$3,270 en 2009, en comparación con US$925 en 1991, según el Banco Mundial.

Industrias otrora estatales, como las aerolíneas y las telecomunicaciones, ahora están en manos privadas. El sector de la tercerización es un modelo global por su calidad y bajos costos.

Sin embargo, otros indicadores del bienestar nacional pintan un cuadro más sombrío. "¿Qué es lo que han hecho la globalización y la industrialización por India?", se pregunta Venkatesan, el ex ejecutivo de Microsoft. "En torno a 400 millones de personas han visto los beneficios, pero unos 800 millones no".

El consumo de calorías por el 50% que constituye la base de la pirámide de la población india está en declive desde 1987, según la encuesta para 2009-2010 del Ministerio de Finanzas, si bien aquellos en la cúspide social luchan contra mayores tasas de obesidad. En parte esto se debe a la desnutrición: 46% de los niños de menos de 3 años son demasiado pequeños para su edad, según UNICEF.

La infraestructura en las ciudades y regiones agrícolas no ha progresado mucho y se encuentra en un estado deplorable. En los últimos años, China ha sumado cada año, en promedio, más de 10 veces la electricidad a su red que India.

El actual gobierno ha estado distraído por las revelaciones acerca de la corrupción. Las reformas debían reducir la corrupción poniendo fin a la "Licencia Raj," un sistema de permisos del gobierno que determinaban la actividad económica, y que era muy corrupto. Además, el gobierno redujo la carga impositiva a particulares y empresas para fomentar un mayor cumplimiento.

Pero la cantidad de negocios que evaden impuestos directos, de hecho, se disparó, dice Arun Kumar, presidente del Centro de Estudios Económicos y de Planificación de la Universidad Jawaharlal Nehru en Nueva Delhi, y un experto en el "mercado negro".

Un estudio a mediados de la década de los 50 estimó que el mercado negro representaba de 4% a 5% del PIB de India. En lugar de disminuir, la economía ilegal se ha convertido en sistémica. Kumar estima que alcanzó 40% del PIB en 1996 y 50% en 2006. "La razón de que haya crecido es que la ilegalidad en la sociedad se ha vuelto más y más tolerable", dice.

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Victor, ese articulo sobre la India dice que su educacion publica esta en ruinas. El mercado negro o la informalidad es el 4% o 5% del PBI de la India. Si no me equivoco nuestro economista Hernando de Soto dio un diagnostico sobre la economia informal en ese pais.