Juggling Dynamite

Danielle was a guest today with Phil Mackesy on Talk Digital Network discussing recent developments in the world economy and markets. You can listen to an audio clip of the interview here.

“Wall Street is fattening its paychecks even as it slashes jobs.

The New York financial sector has been cutting employees in recent years. But those who have held on to their jobs brought home more money than they did two years ago. Their pay was close to pre-recession highs in 2007, according to a report from the New York State comptroller.

The average salary of financial industry employees in New York City rose to $362,950 in 2011. That’s a 16.6% increase from two years ago.

In the same period, the industry’s revenue fell by 22% as a result of weaker trading and investment banking activity.”

See: Wall Street pay back near pre-recession highs

Aaron Task and Henry Blodget discuss recent trends in this clip. Here is a direct link.

Risk markets jumped out of the gate this morning, supposedly in response to a report suggesting US jobless claims last week fell to 339,000 (seasonally adjusted) the lowest since January 2008. Non Seasonally Adjusted, initial claims actually jumped by 26K to 327K. The fact is that these initial estimates have been repeatedly under-stated over the past year, only to be heavily revised up once real numbers are tallied. The following chart captures the divergence of the initially reported numbers in blue versus the later revised numbers year to date in 2012. So while the Vice President may pump today’s headline in tonight’s debate, today’s initial number likely bears no resemblance to the reality of US jobless claims.

Source:www.zerohedge.com

Stories that are more revealing of present world trends in my view include the following:

• Economic Fears deepen as Japan’s machinery orders fall more than expected in August
• Group of 11 countries agree to impose financial transaction levy
• Emails back lawsuit that equity firms KKR and Blackstone colluded on big deals
• Financial advisers not attracting new clients, but have increased revenues by charging existing clients 18% more
• Global PC sales fall 8.3% in Q3 yoy, as back-to-school promos fall flat
• Tapes support criminal prosecution expected over JP Morgan $6B loss