The SBA and captious

captious

KAP-shuhs

Having an inclination to find faults, especially of a trivial nature.

Via French from Latin capere (to seize).

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TIP OF THE WEEK 

SBA has decided to not be so captious towards borrowers.

SBA form 912, Statement of Personal History, has been revised.  The most notable revision is question 8. 

It used to ask: Have you EVER been charged with, and/or arrested for, any criminal offense other than a minor motor vehicle violation?

It now asks: Have you BEEN arrested in the past six months for any criminal offense?

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Indices:

PRIME RATE= 3.25%

SBA LIBOR Base Rate April 2013 = 3.20%

SBA Fixed Base Rate April 2013 = 4.67%
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Debenture Rate for April  

The debenture rate is 2.08% but note rate is 2.117% and effective yield is only 4.162%.

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AHEAD OF THE YIELD CURVE 

To put this any other way would be captious.

Economic growth in the first quarter of this year soared to a 2.5% annual pace, compared to the anemic 0.4% pace in the last quarter of last year.

That might be overstating it a bit. 

In March, employers added just 88,000 jobs vs. an average 208,000 the previous two months.

Keep your eyes and ears open for Friday’s report on jobs for April.  

Here is a summary of net monthly payroll employment and this week’s interesting little table of data:

February 268,000

January 148,000

2012

December 155,000

November 161,000

October 137,000

September 114,000

August 142,000

July 181,000

June 45,000

May 77,000

April 68,000

March 143,000

February 240,000

January 243,000

2011

December 203,000

November 157,000

October 112,000

September 158,000

August 104,000

July 127,000

June 20,000

May 25,000

April 232,000

March 194,000

February 235,000

January 68,000

2010

December 121,000

November 93,000

October 210,000

September (41,000)

August (1,000)

July (66,000)

June (175,000)

May 431,000

April 218,000

March 230,000

February (36,000)

January (26,000)

2009

December (150,000)

November (11,000)

October (111,000)

September (215,000)

August (201,000)

July (304,000)

June (443,000)

May (322,000)

April (504,000)

March (699,000)

February (651,000)

January (655,000)

2008

December (681,000)

November (597,000)

October (423,000)

September (403,000)

August (127,000)

July (67,000)

June (100,000)

May (47,000)

April (67,000)

March (88,000)

February- (83,000)

January- (76,000)

What does all this mean?

I don’t know.

Just before April’s job report comes out, the Federal Reserve meets on monetary policy.

Federal Reserve policy makers have said they will keep interest rates low until the labor market improves “significantly.” 

It would appear that interest rates are never ever going up.

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OFF BASE

Captious critics of Juan Pierre like to point out that he has been caught stealing more times than anyone else playing baseball right now.

Having been thrown out 198 times, Juan is now number seven on the all time caught stealing list.  He is now number eighteen on the all-time stolen base list with 596 steals.

Doing the math for stolen base percentage (SB% = Stolen Bases/(Stolen Bases + Caught Stealing), Juan comes out to just over 75%.

There is a statistic related to stolen base percentage called "Stolen Base Runs" or SBR ((.3 x Stolen Bases) - (.6 x Caught Stealing)).  The break even success rate for steals (the rate at which an attempt to steal is neither helping nor hurting the team in terms of total runs scored) is about 67%. Each successful steal adds approximately .3 runs to a team's total runs scored.

So Juan is doing just fine.

Juan now needs another 20 stolen bases to pass George Davis who has 616 stolen bases.  George began playing for the Cleveland Spiders in 1890.  Fortunately he was traded away after a few years as the 1899 Spiders became the worst team ever wining only 20 games while losing 134.  The Spiders lost 40 of their last 41 games, and finished 84 games behind the 1899 National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers.  The Spiders were so bad that the National League forced them to quit playing.  While they were at it, they forced three other lousy teams to also fold.  The American League soon arose to fill the void.