Weekly info 1/11/2013

Markets barely moved this week, and there was no new data of note except the NFIB survey of small business. Its economist, Bill Dunkelberg: "The current Index value of 88 is a recession level reading." The index has had some better days recently, but is in the same basic place it has been since early 2008. The NFIB work is so sound, so long-running (same format since 1973), that those claiming a stronger national recovery underway have some explaining to do. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by the Dodd-Frank spasm released its long-awaited Thou Shalt Not to the mortgage industry. After more than a year of probing, at who knows what taxpayer cost, the CFPB report and new rules found not one single mortgage practice underway today which should be stopped. A witch hunt worthy of Massachusetts in 1692 could not find a solitary agent of Satan.