Personal saving rate in US  has risen from a negative 3% in late 2005 to a positive 6.9%  beginning of 2009.

That is the highest rate since 1993. The savings rate was less than 1% last August. And totals savings (on an annualized basis) was $608 billion in April, rising to $768 billion in May. That is a 30% month-over-month increase!

Maybe the American consumer has changed for a LONG NEW NORMAL….

But, there is more than just a new savings fervor at work. Spending rose more than disposable income, so without that increased level of government transfer payments, it is unlikely that savings would have risen as much. Before we get too giddy about savings going through the roof, we need to wait a few months to see if this was the result of new savings religion or government transfer payments (stimulus), which will soon wind down.

Given the sharp increase in savings, it’s no wonder shipping is down 20% and global trade in the exporting economies by 30%. No wonder retail sales are down, except for Wal-Mart and other lower-price venues.

Let´s remember that Consumer spending in US is 70 % of GDP aprox…

Great white sharks do not aimlessly wander the ocean waiting to stumble upon their next meal.

Instead, the biggest sharks identify a location from which to strike, and then search the surrounding killing zone for their next victim.

That suggests that the sharks use a premeditated hunting strategy akin to that used by some human serial killers.

Scientists made the discovery while observing hundreds of great white attacks on fur seals off South Africa.

So shark experts Neil Hammerschlag of the University of Miami in Florida, US, and Aiden Martin of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, decided to study the predatory habits of great white sharks hunting off Seal Island, in False Bay, South Africa.

To help analyse the attack pattern of the sharks, Hammerschlag and Martin then teamed up with Kim Rossmo, a criminal justice expert based at Texas State University’s Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation in San Marcos, US.

“White sharks, like other predators, may refine their search patterns with experience,” the researchers write in the Journal of Zoology, published by the Zoological Society of London.

Social media networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are playing a key role in the political scene especially in countries with limited political rights where more traditional media and other forms of communication can be blocked. Twitter, which could be updated via various channels, has been particularly instrumental in circulating images and information about the post-election protests in Iran. Such networking tools reportedly helped organize protests in Moldova and the Ukraine and by activists in China.

Despite govt efforts to block social networking sites like Twitter and Youtube content is still being released via proxy servers. Information directly from citizen journalists are becoming critical as traditional reporters are barred from covering protests and their visas are expiring. (FT, NYT, CNN)  The US State Department requested that Twitter postpone its scheduled maintenance so that Iranians could maximize its services, however pro-government groups are also online. (NYT)

There is a kind of positive feedback loop here, in which confidence about the economy boosts the stockmarket and a rising market helps restore economic sentiment . As strategists at Citigroup remark, the world seems to have moved from worrying about the Great Depression to talking about the Great Escape.

But how real is this shift? Not all the recent economic data have been positive. The June Empire State survey of manufacturing activity in New York showed a retreat. German export figures for April showed a 4.8% month-on-month fall. The latest figures for American and euro-zone industrial production showed similar dips. American raw domestic steel production is down 47% year on year; railway traffic in May was almost a quarter below its level of a year earlier. Bankers say that chief executives seem a lot less confident about the existence of “green shoots” than markets are.

The danger is that policymakers have done more to revive the financial markets than they have to shore up the real economy. Tim Lee of pi Economics thinks the authorities are simply inflating another bubble. The carry trade (borrowing in low-yielding currencies to invest in higher-yielding ones) has returned, as shown by the strength of the Australian dollar.

This bubble may start to deflate. Investors are already rediscovering their appetite for government bonds: the yield on ten-year Treasuries had drifted back from a peak of 3.93% on June 10th to 3.67% a week later. Investors may be starting to realise that, even if the biggest falls in output have passed, the outlook for 2010 is still likely to be sluggish.

From : http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/

“I share the confidence. I wrote a couple weeks back that something is happening in Iran. But it is not the only place where something is happening. The rejection of al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan; the ground-up election of Obama in America; and now the rising up of Iranians for freedom and civility with their neighbors: these are the green shoots of recovery from 9/11 and its wake. Empowered by new information technology, chastened by the apocalyptic conflicts of the last few years, determined to shift course away from civilizational warfare, the people of many countries are grasping for a new order and a new peace. It will not be easy; and it will not be short. But it is the only path worth taking.

And these Iranians are now leading the rest of us.”

Tens of thousands of supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated main challenger in the disputed Iranian presidential election, rallied in central Tehran, video on Iranian state television showed, after the biggest protest in 30 years led to as many as 15 deaths.

Since the election, reformist Web sites, as well as Twitter and Facebook, have been cut off in Iran, although Iranians are evading the controls via proxy servers, which can disguise a user’s location to be able to organize themselves and send information.

“We realize Twitter is playing an important role in the events taking place in Iran,” San Francisco-based company spokeswoman Jenna Sampson said in an e-mailed statement. “We’ve seen many instances of people using Twitter to communicate when there was no other way.”

Iran has one of the world’s youngest populations, with as many as 70 percent under the age of 30, born after the Islamic Revolution.

The ability to communicate translates into a desire for political freedom, said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of democracy-promotion group Freedom House in Washington.

China has introduced an explicit “Buy Chinese” policy as part of its economic stimulus programme in a move that will amplify tensions with trade partners and increase the likelihood of protectionism around the world.

In an edict released jointly by nine government departments, Beijing said government procurement must use only Chinese products or services unless they were not available within the country or could not be bought on reasonable commercial or legal terms.

Most economists agree China’s economy is starting to recover as a result of its aggressive stimulus package but the country is still struggling with unemployment and fears widespread layoffs could lead to serious social unrest.

“The whole world is dying to see China spread its orders around and save their economies,” said Dong Tao, chief China economist for Credit Suisse. “But what this policy reflects is heightened anxiety about these job pressures and the potential for social unrest.”

We do not need more Protectionism in today´s crisis…

 U.S. housing prices are in the midst of a decline that may last for years, according to Robert J. Shiller, a finance professor at Yale University.

Shiller, who helped create home-price indexes bearing his name, wrote in a New York Times story yesterday that declines in real estate tend to be relatively long-lasting. As an example, he mentioned land prices in Japan’s major cities, which fell for 15 straight years after a 1980s housing bubble burst.

Less than three years have passed since the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller indexes of U.S. home prices peaked. The S&P/ Case-Shiller national index has fallen 32 percent from a high in the second quarter of 2006.

“Prices may continue to fall, or stagnate, in 2010 and 2011,” Shiller.

Shiller’s article followed an estimate by T2 Partners LLC, a hedge fund, that the national index will hit bottom in mid- 2010 after dropping 40 percent to 50 percent from its high.

For the first time since another Democrat occupied the White House, investors from Beijing to Zurich are challenging a president’s attempts to revive the economy with record deficit spending. Fifteen years after forcing Bill Clinton to abandon his own stimulus plans, the so-called bond vigilantes are punishing Barack Obama for quadrupling the budget shortfall to $1.85 trillion. By driving up yields on U.S. debt, they are also threatening to derail Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s efforts to cut borrowing costs for businesses and consumers.

The 1.4-percentage-point rise in 10-year Treasury yields this year pushed interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages to above 5 percent for the first time since before Bernanke announced on March 18 that the central bank would start printing money to buy financial assets.

“The bond-market vigilantes are up in arms over the outlook for the federal deficit,” said Edward Yardeni, who coined the term in 1984 to describe investors who protest monetary or fiscal policies they consider inflationary by selling bonds. “Ten trillion dollars over the next 10 years is just an indication that Washington is really out of control and that there is no fiscal discipline whatsoever.”

The bond vigilantes are being led by international investors, who own about 51 percent of the $6.36 trillion in marketable Treasuries outstanding, up from 35 percent in 2000, according to data compiled by the Treasury.