Archive for September, 2009

This morning’s news about the second quarter GDP decline was actually good: the drop from the first to second quarters has been revised to only 0.7%, which compares with the original estimate of 1.0%.
So the second quarter contraction in the economy was less than originally thought, and less than most forecasters dared hope. Clearly the… »

We have two pieces of news today that need to be mentioned: the Case Schiller home price index and the Conference Board’s index of consumer sentiment.
The Case Schiller index shows that home prices are rising very slightly from the lows reached earlier this year. The increase was 1.6% in July compared with June. This is… »

I can hear you all saying: ‘Huh?’
Well there’s no economic news today so I thought I would attempt to tie together a few of the broader themes that seem, to me at least, to be crucial as we get the economy going again.
That’s where what I call social value comes in.
The purpose of regulation should… »

As if right on cue today’s news encapsulates everything we’ve been talking about all week: despite all the brouhaha about recovery our progress is precarious.
First: durable goods orders.
Today’s report is bad news. Durable goods orders fell at a 2.4% rate in August. That’s the second drop in the last three months, but follows what we… »

Not only is the housing market a mess to interpret, so too is the job market. Today’s weekly report on initial unemployment insurance claims showed a good drop: the week ended September 19th had 21,000 fewer such claims than the week before. The problem is that the overall figure is stuck above half a million… »

I commented just two days ago about the state of the housing market. The data that prompted me then was the release of home price trends by the Federal Housing Finance Authority – prices have risen very slightly over a period of a few months which suggests that the market has hit bottom.
But today we… »

We have now entered the critical phase of the debate over health care reform. I have deliberately ignored this issue for weeks because I didn’t see anything constructive going on: the entire month of August was spent in an orgy of extremism and name calling that served only to raise blood pressure and muddy waters…. »