Unemployment claims came in with a strong showing today. Seasonally adjusted claims were 364,000, below the magic number of 375,000 that is associated with strong employment growth. More importantly, the 4-week average continues to show a year-over-year improvement of 30,000+. If that trends continues we should see a good first quarter of 2012--look for significant employment increases then. But don't expect a paved road: the Fed is still not allowing money supply (M3) to grow, and the economy will be muted until the Fed gets its act together.