Traders see cosmetic surgery as sign of U.S. recovery

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Cosmetic surgeries in the United States last year rose to their highest level since the start of the fiscal crisis, providing traders with another measure to gauge the economic convalescence.

While nose jobs and breast augmentations may never replace U.S. unemployment given conditions or retail sales as economic indicators, investors pay attention.

“Traders resoluteness look at all kinds of things. Handbag sales, how things are going at Tiffany’s, to what people are going on vacation. This is another anecdote for them that helps sanction things are slowly picking up,” said Dennis Gartman, publisher of The Gartman Letter investing. commentary.

Cosmetic surgeries rose 5 percent last year to 13.1 the great body of the people procedures after falling in 2008 and 2009, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reported in its annual report this week.

Breast augmentation (296,000) and nose reshaping (252,000) were the greatest in quantity popular, followed by eyelid surgery (209,000), liposuction (203,000) and the tummy horizontal fold (116,000).

Some Wall Street traders said the report was a sign that consumer dependence and spending on “big ticket” items was on the habit back even though U.S. unemployment remained above 9 percent.

Phil Haeck, a sanatory doctor and president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, afore~ there was pent-up demand for cosmetic procedures now that the dispensation is improving and credit is easier to acquire.

“The pre-turning point trend of paying for a ,000 to ,000 breast augmentation manipulation on your credit card definitely changed in 2008 and 2009,” Haeck afore~. “Now many people have paid down their debts and accept enough confidence in the economy to pay for operations again.”

Spending in c~tinuance plastic surgery in the United States fell 3 percent from 2008 to 2009 end still exceeded billion. Haeck said that number will have grown in 2010, yet the total number of operations is still below the peak in 2007.

Carl Larry, president of Oil Outlooks & Opinions LLC, declared traders will use any piece of data that can give them each edge.

“I like the thinking,” Larry said. “It could same well be that we’re seeing more ‘off-highway’ spending like this. Anything that is a big ticket particular that has little to do with homes or retail is in which place the money seems to be going.”

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Mohammad Zargham)

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Lawmakers pound public pensions, fear bailouts

http://www.nathanhamm.snare/news/lawmakers-pound-public-pensions-fear-bailouts/ http://www.nathanhamm.pure/news/lawmakers-pound-public-pensions-fear-bailouts/#comments Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:01:02 +0000 Nathan Hamm News bailouts dread Lawmakers pensions pound Public http://www.nathanhamm.net/news/lawmakers-enclose-public-pensions-fear-bailouts/ WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican lawmakers swore opposite to any bailout of state and city governments on Wednesday, turning the screws adhering states and floating bankruptcy as a radical fix for underfunded pensions and packet problems. “Reckless spending fueled by bottomless borrowing … Continue reading →

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican lawmakers swore off any bailout of grandeur and city governments on Wednesday, turning the screws on states and floating insolvency as a radical fix for underfunded pensions and budget problems.

“Reckless expenditure fueled by bottomless borrowing and guaranteed by endless bailouts is each unsustainable course,” said Representative Patrick McHenry, chairman of a House of Representatives subcommittee put ~ bailout oversight.

“The era of the bailout is over,” he afore~ at a hearing about states’ fiscal distress.

Despite a chaste recovery in the national economy since the recession officially ended in 2009, states endure to struggle with low revenues, which are creating multibillion-dollar pack gaps. Altogether, they project budget deficits of at least 0 billion despite the next fiscal year, which for most begins this summer.

Those store woes have prompted investors in the .8 trillion municipal bond market to dump their bonds, economists to warn of a drag without ceasing the national recovery, and U.S. lawmakers to consider allowing states to declare insolvency.

Just the possibility that Congress would allow states to declare bankruptcy has spooked investors, helping fuel the exodus from the municipal enslaved market and making it even harder for strapped states to elevate money to cover revenue gaps.

Members of Congress — both Democrats and Republicans — worry states resolution turn to the U.S. government for assistance.

In fact, President Barack Obama in his stock blueprint on Monday will propose giving some relief to states up~ unemployment insurance debt, the White House said on Tuesday, hoping to eschew a bailout.

Republicans, however, say there is no political appetite to echo the kind of extraordinary aid to states that was in the 4 billion housekeeping stimulus plan approved by a Democratic-run Congress in 2009. The design included the largest transfer of federal funds to states in U.S. annals.

“No way is the federal government going to bail ~right our state,” said Representative Joe Walsh, an Illinois Republican associated through the anti-spending Tea Party movement, which helped Republicans win sway of the House in November elections.

The Tea Party is pitted to counter-poise government worker unions in a battle over public pensions. Underfunded pensions denounce to throttle budgets across the United States, particularly in Illinois and California to what union votes can swing an election.

On Wednesday, some of the greatest part conservative lawmakers, such as Republican Representative Paul Ryan, threatened states by a steep penalty for under-reporting pension liabilities: eliminating federal assessment exemptions for municipal bonds.

BANKRUPTCY AND BAILOUTS: WHO WANTS THEM?

Legislation that would grant U.S. states to file for bankruptcy could be introduced not more than the next month. The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Monday on public pensions, state insolvency and “the chance” of allowing states to file for bankruptcy.

States currently cannot declare bankruptcy because the U.S. Constitution recognizes them as sovereign entities.