Payroll Update, Manufacturing And Consumer Credit

I wanted to update readers on 2 posts that I have written recently.

First, January Payrolls Release Signals No Major Change. There was some discussion on the position regarding withholding tax collection for January, so I decided to some more digging. Whilst January was better by almost 11%, Zero Hedge has an article here that highlights the following:

In the fiscal year 2011 and 2012 (starting October 1) and continuing through the date of the most recent BLS update or January 31, there have been 87 official work days. This is the period which we will define as YTD (fiscal year to date period) for 2012, and will use its matched equivalent for 2011 for comparative purposes.
In the 2012 YTD period, the US Treasury recorded personal income withholding tax revenue of $592.676 billion.

In the comparable period for 2011, beginning October 1, 2010 and continuing through January 31, 2011,