Challenger, Gray & Christmas is reporting that planned job cuts were up 26% in July, and the Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index fell to 112.1 in July, leading the board to predict that unemployment could pass 6% in 2009.

Additionally, the board noted that U6 has now topped 10%, which is probably the best metric, and closer to the one used in EU nations, for the first time in 5 years. Quoth the Wiki:

• U1: Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.
• U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
• U3: Official unemployment rate per ILO definition.
• U4: U3 + “discouraged workers”, or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions makes them believe that no work is available for them.
• U5: U4 + other “marginally attached workers”, or those who “would like” and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
• U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but can not due to economic reasons.

In an article with a typically bad headline, we see that personal spending and income fell in July, the headline leads with non-inflation adjusted spending, and we also see that inflation has eaten up most of the tax rebate stimulus package.

So what the taxman giveth, the House of Saud taketh away.

Commodities are showing some moderation now, with copper and aluminum falling because of the economic slowdown, though there is a consensus that latter will rebound.

Energy is down too, both oil and retail gasoline, much for the same reasons.

The dollar is down slightly, but is likely to be a holding pattern until tommorow, when the Fed makes its decision on interest rates, and may not move much until Thursday, when the ECB does the same.

In banking, Citi is now losing money on credit card securitizations, where they take credit card debt and package it into securities (similar to mortgage backed securities).

When you lose money on this, the economy is not in good shape, or you are completely incompetent. In the case of Citi, probably both.

Finally, the finance unit of Chrysler was able to finance only $24 billion of the $30 billion it sought to renew, and it was at a higher cost than anticipated, which will likely make auto loans more expensive.