Jeebus! The Bank of England cut it’s benchmark interest rate 150 basis points (1.5%)…To 3%.

That’s not strong action, that is TEOTWAWKI panic.

The ECB and the Swiss central bank also cut rates, by 50 basis points…The central banks think that we are in end of the world territory.

As further evidence, we have the ECB’s president saying that there may be more rate cuts.

This from an institution that’s only charter is to fight inflation.

Not surprisingly, all these rate cuts had the effect of sending the Dollar and Yen skyrocketing.

Meanwhile, jobless claims dropped a bit, but only through “Jedi Mind Trick” statistics:

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits fell by 4,000 last week to 481,000, ….

The department revised up its estimate for jobless claims in the prior week to 485,000 from a previously reported 479,000.

So comparing initial estimates, it went up by 2,000, but after the “correction”, it was down by 4000.

In any case, the number sucks, and continuing unemployment claims are the highest that they have been since 1983, when unemployment topped 10%.

It won’t help that retail sales fell to their lowest levels in at least 39 years…..It may be longer, but they only started collecting the statistics in 1969!

Interest rates on interbank lending trending down, but considering all the interest rate cuts, that is pretty unavoidable.

I think that it is more significant that credit card companies were unable to sell bonds at all for the first time since 1993, and when you consider that they charge something north of 20% on carried balances, that is ugly.

BTW, y friends the monoliner bond insurers are back again, with Moody’s cutting Ambac to ‘Baa1’.

It should surprise no one that with massive indications of a deep recession, and the dollar up, oil fell again to $60.77/bbl.