MacroScope

As men bear the brunt of the economic downturn, could the so-called “he-cession” hold a silver lining for the opposite sex?

Men make up 82 percent of all recessionary job losses in the United States, according to a recent New York Times article, mostly due to declines in traditionally male fields like construction, where the unemployment rate skyrocketed from to 21 percent in March, from 12 percent a year earlier.

The unemployment rate for adult men was 8.8 percent in March compared to 7 percent for adult women.

Male-dominated Wall Street lost 3,100 workers in March 2009 alone, depleting New York City’s most important employer to just 169,200 workers, the state’s Labor Department records show.

Women are picking up the slack, with many finding themselves as the sole breadwinners for their families — although the jobs held by women are often lower-paying with fewer benefits.

If you were wondering what two years of wealth destruction have done to the American psyche, the Employee Benefit Research Institute has your answer.

They have conducted surveys asking (among other things) when people expect to retire. Back in 1991, a full 19 percent thought they’d be in full-time relaxation mode before age 60. The latest survey? Only 9 percent think they’ll be that lucky.

Just 17 percent now say they expect to retire at age 60 to 64, down from 31 percent in the 1991 poll. Nearly a third think they’ll be older than 66 before they stop working, up from 11 percent in 1991.

OK, so a nearly 10 percent drop in U.S. sales is nothing to crow about, but it sure beats a 19.6 percent fall. Harley-Davidson’s stock is jumping today — and has more than doubled since March — because of stronger-than-expected earnings and a much smaller sales decline in its biggest market.

Sure, some may disagree, but a new Harley isn’t exactly a necessity. If Americans are a little more willing to buy one, that does lend support to the idea that the recession is at least loosening its grip on the world’s biggest economy.

So tell us, how are things looking where you live? A little spring green popping up or are those green shoots about to get trampled?

Ben Bernanke has taken some flack for his argument that “green shoots” of economic activity might lurk around the corner. In one such swipe, Justin Fox of Time Magazine argued that the metaphor is flawed because what we’re really talking about is a moderation of contraction, not growth.

Today’s Beige Book, a collection of anecdotal economic evidence compiled by the Fed, showed only a few very faint positive signs. On housing, the report said the “number of potential buyers” was rising — not exactly a sure sign of a bottom.

But at least the New York Fed’s regional factory data suggested that the Fed chief’s green shoots might just see the light of day. Again, it was mostly a story about lesser deterioration, but an improvement nonetheless. Apart from a much better than expected reading on the overall index (which is still, it must be noted, at -14.65), there was a huge rise in the new orders index (Also still negative, but now at -3.88, from -44.76).

Check out this deeper look at March's same-store sales results.

Last week, retailers reported monthly sales that declined less than expected, a possible sign that shoppers may be regaining confidence to open their wallets after more than a year of recession.

On Monday, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Todd Slater offered his detailed take on the numbers, which he labeled as "bipolar"  -- with comp store sales more negative than expected, but earnings more positive.

"Many retailers raised guidance despite worse-than-expected March comps, an indication that analysts are now too negative and consensus estimates are low enough," he wrote. 

For all the designer drinks and gourmet foods – from raw oysters to sushi, and the sea of men in expensive suits and bejeweled women in elegant gowns, the setting seemed fit only for celebration.

But dressed as they were to the nines, investors attending “A Night with the Bears” at Toronto’s upscale Elgin Theatre, were eager to hear the worst, on the edges of plush seats amid predictions of market doom from some of the continent’s savviest
financial minds.

“I only wish we’d sold tickets,” said a smiling Eric Sprott, arguably Canada’s best known hedge fund manager and chairman at Sprott Asset Management Inc, as he looked out at the 1,500 or so crowd.

Stopping off in New York during a marathon, 18,000-mile diplomatic offensive before next week’s G20 summit in London next week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recalled a conference held in eerily similar circumstances in London 76 years ago.

Sixty-six nations gathered for the June 1933 London Monetary and Economic Conference which was aimed at lifting the world’s economy out of the Depression.

But amid American opposition to European plans to return to a system of fixed exchange rates, the conference collapsed and the world put up trade barriers, jobless ranks swelled and the rise of Fascism took the world into war.

"I think, Watson," Sherlock Holmes tells Watson in "The Five Orange Pips,"  "that of all our cases we have had none more fantastic than this."

The famous fictitious sleuth referred not to a world-wide financial crisis, but a multi-continental saga of murderous revenge, and it also centered on the British hamlet of Horsham, where the Group of 20 rich and emerging nations are meeting to solve their own baffling case, the Global Economic Collapse of 2008-?. 

Readers who not like the endings of stories given away should read no futher. Readers hoping for a hopeful analogy to a story about brains and pluck overcoming adversity should also click away from this post immediately.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a name. We are living through “The Great Recession”. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, used the term to describe our current angst on a trip to Africa this week. He may not have been the first to use it — we have found other citations, including JPMorgan — but the guessing here is that it may  stick with him because of his role.

It’s a pretty neat moniker, actually. It resonates, of course, with “Great Depression” but without the soup lines and Hoovervilles. At the same time, it differentiates between the severe contraction now under way and run-of-the-mill economic misery. It also has the snappiness that media folks like — hence this post.

The Bretton Woods duo of IMF and World Bank have been underlining how bad things are. Strauss-Kahn, for example, tells Reuters that delays in bank restructuring could mean economic recovery is not on the cards even in 2010 (which sounds a long way off, but is only next year). Then comes Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, who opines to Britain’s Daily Mail that global growth will probably fall about 1 to 2 percent this year.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan isn't getting the respect he used to.

Greenspan's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal drew withering criticism from High Frequency Economics' Ian Shepherdson, who was unimpressed with the Maestro's denial of any Fed contribution to the country' worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Greenspan: "Given the decoupling of monetary policy from long-term mortgage rates, accelerating the path of monetary tightening that the Fed pursued in 2004-2005 could not have 'prevented' the housing bubble."

Shepherdson: "We were appalled and outraged by Alan Greenspan's self-serving it-wasn't-my-fault op-ed... If Mr. Greenspan can say with a straight face that this was not a consequence of the Fed's excessively easy stance then either he is delusional or a very talented poker player."