Consumer credit., unemployment

Weak, and note the activity by money center banks and institutions.

Full release here.

Today's unemployment will provide further guidance on Fed policy.

ADDENDUM: Unemployment comes in at 9.9%, with only 44k or so jobs added (after some statistical revision), with ghastly hourly numbers. A positive number for private employment is the silver lining.

Meanwhile, it looks as if the financial media is keeping up with the themes I have been speaking about time and time again. Rate compression,Fisherian Debt Deflation, flight to safety, similarities with Japan and the fallacy of deficit spending of SCIs being inflationary by definition, etc. Full Article here.

The combination of low inflation and high unemployment makes this economic cycle different from any since the 1940s, Kasman said. In the recoveries from the recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s, the annual rate of inflation peaked at 10.2 percent and 9.7 percent, as measured by the core personal- consumption index.

During the recoveries in the early 1960s and in 2001, inflation slowed to a pace as low as 1.1 percent and unemployment never rose above 7.1 percent.

Fed officials last week restated their intention to keep their benchmark rate low for an “extended period,” noting that consumer spending continues to be restrained by weak income growth and tight credit. The target for overnight loans among banks has been in a range of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008.

Minutes of the Fed’s March meeting show policy makers were surprised by the pace at which price growth slowed in the first quarter.