TODAY’S column contains a lot of different things. It’s sort of like one of those $10.95 Chinese buffet lunches — so keep going until you think you might puke.
It will also be a headline writer’s nightmare. (No, we don’t write our own.) So forgive them.
I’ll start with the March unemployment numbers that will be released tomorrow morning.
The numbers will be bad. That isn’t surprising since it has been more than a year since we got anything good from the monthly Labor Department report.
Wall Street expects a loss of 656,000 jobs, compared with a decline of 651,000 last month.
The unemployment rate is seen jumping to 8.5 percent from February’s 8.1 percent.
But this is one of those periods where the government adds a lot of phantom jobs it thinks are
being created by newly formed companies. (Yeah, right!)
So over the next few months the job loss figures being reported might start being not as awful.
Springtime brings out the optimism in the keepers of Washington’s economic data.
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A Web site called Zero Hedge is spreading an interesting story about how AIG in January and February unwound huge amounts of credit-default swaps at tremendous losses to itself but at big gains for its counterparties, which were mainly banks.
Quoting an e-mail from a trader only described as “Lou,” the site said these unwinds may have been the reason some banks were able to hint that they were profitable for the first two months of the year.
So, if this is really true, AIG took the bullet. But since AIG is among the walking dead anyway, it really doesn’t matter. But the banks — probably with Washington’s blessing — were able to get a large one-time profit boost.
These banks may be too big to fail, but nobody’s too big to cheat.
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Alright, I guessed way back that the Chinese would get nervous buying (and keeping) US government bonds if we didn’t get our country’s finances in order.
And Washington’s announcement a couple weeks ago that it will print money to purchase US bonds apparently sent China, our largest creditor, into convulsions.
But I never thought about Beijing proposing a new international currency to replace the dollar, an idea that will undoubtedly be discussed (and rejected) at the G20 meeting this week.
Still, it’s a good time to play Name That Currency!
The names “dollar,” “yen,” “euro dollar,” and “baht” (Thailand) are already taken.
How about this?
China already has the yuan. So let’s make the new currency the Yuan Ton. No MSG, please.
My buddy, Bill King, likes Bongo Bucks. But we can’t decide which cartoon that comes from.
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Movies aren’t the only thing thriving during this recession. College basketball is pulling in healthy crowds for its tournament season.
But the fear is that as the recession goes on, a real bite will be taken out of next year’s tournaments.
In fact, college basketball fans may already be cutting back.
I ran into retiring Big East Conference Commissioner Mike Tranghese recently and he said the fear is that fans will become reluctant to travel to the regional tournaments in 2010 if business conditions don’t improve.
Tickets for the entire Big East tournament this year cost less than $400.
And because they were sold months ago through the 16 schools that make up the conference, there was no shortage of takers.
Scalpers and StubHub were also thriving this year.
“We think next year will be the test,” Tranghese told me. “It’s not just the price of the ticket.
It’s the whole week, coming to New York.”
If you look at all the empty seats at the NCAA tournaments you might already be seeing the bite of the recession.
Fans buy the inexpensive tickets but don’t show up because of plane, hotel and food costs.
Hopefully, the bad economy will be easing by then because I think Rutgers has a shot next year of actually winning a tourney game.
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By now you probably realize that everything is being affected by the deep recession.
Let me add to the list.
On a public golf course the other day I heard talk that private clubs had a waiting list — to get out.
The story is that members of the less prestigious clubs are finding it hard to quit because they can’t sell the bonds they bought to get in.
And the International Bottled Water Association said sales of their beverage declined 1 percent in 2008 to 8.7 billion gallons.
Only flavored and vitamin water saw decent growth.
Hey, water also comes out of the tap for those of you who have forgotten.
