The Bureau of Economic Analysis released its first estimate of the United States 2010 second quarter Gross Domestic product growth rate today. Their estimated 2.4 percent growth rate was below most economists’ expectations, ours included. […]
Read moreBloomberg has a report on an IMF study. Here is the key sentence: “The U.S. financial system remains fragile and banks subjected to additional economic stress might need as much as $76 billion in capital, […]
Read moreI just read paper The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks by Christina Romer and David Romer. It’s in the June 2010 issue of The American Economic […]
Read moreI discussed three stylized possible equilibria for the United States economy in a July 18 blog. The best equilibrium, one with rapid job and GDP growth and low inflation was relegated to an unlikely possibility […]
Read moreBloomberg has the following headline and article: “Home Vacancies Rise as U.S. Ownership Falls to Lowest in Decade.” Most will take this as bad news, and it is, but not for the reasons many will […]
Read moreI hope we’re a bit farther along than this, but maybe not: “epidemiology in the nineteenth century was much like economics in the twentieth century: a subject of intense public interest and concern, in which […]
Read moreI was listening to Bloomberg radio this morning on the way to work. They were a bunch of happy folks there. The markets are up, and some earning reports are up. Then, they came to […]
Read morePreviously published on NewGeography.com on 6/19/2010 The most fanatical Keynesians are losing their composure. Brad DeLong, a prominent Berkeley economist and Keynesian, is virtually yelling that “We Need Bigger Deficits Now!”, emphasis his. Paul Krugman […]
Read morePreviously published on NewGeography.com on 7/11/2010 A year ago we were hearing all about green shoots. Analysts claimed to find them everywhere. Today, we never see the term. In fact, there seems to be a […]
Read moreThe California Builders Association announced today that California’s new home sales fell 46 percent in May over the previous year. This is a big decline from an already weak market. The question, of course, is […]
Read moreDJ is one of my dearest friends. He was one of the first people to befriend me when I moved to a new city as a high-school junior. He was there for the debriefs after […]
Read moreProducer price growth has been declining for six months. It reached negative territory, deflation territory, three months ago, in April. This is extraordinarily unusual for the United States. What does it mean? Most of the […]
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