State Budget Deficits

On Monday The Wall Street Journal had an Op-ed by Steve Malanga titled “How States Hide Their Budget Deficits.” Of particular interest is this excerpt: “Last week, however, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed fraud charges against New Jersey for misrepresenting its financial obligations, particularly its pension obligations, and misleading investors in its bonds. …

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Updates On Economic Indicators August 2010

Here is an update on various indicators that are supposed to predict and/or depict economic activity.  These indicators have been discussed in previous blog posts: The August Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of August 23, 2010: The Consumer Metrics Institute Contraction Watch: The USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index: An excerpt …

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Consumer Metrics Institute Data: Red Alert?

This post highlights current readings from the Consumer Metrics Institute.  Previous posts solely concerning the Consumer Metrics Institute (CMI) can be found on July 27 and March 31;  as well CMI data is included in the monthly “Updates On Economic Indicators.” Here is a chart of CMI’s Daily Growth Index: (click on chart images to …

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Food Stamps As Of August 2010

This post is an update to a post of April 12 concerning food stamps.  The program is officially called “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” or SNAP.  As stated on the SNAP website, “As of Oct. 1, 2008, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the new name for the federal Food Stamp Program.” The data was last …

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Identifying The Housing Bubble

The Boston Federal Reserve recently came out with a report dated August 12 titled “Reasonable People Did Disagree:  Optimism and Pessimism About the U.S. Housing Market Before the Crash.” (pdf) A sentence from the abstract is particularly interesting: “We conclude by arguing that economic theory provides little guidance as to what should be the “correct” …

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The Corporate Bond Bubble

On August 13 The Wall Street Journal had an article titled “J&J Sets a Yield Low.” From the story: “The health-care products firm sold 10-year bonds with an interest rate of 2.95%, or a risk premium of 0.43 percentage point over comparable Treasurys.” The story provides an overview of the strong market environment for both …

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S&P500 Stock Market Forecasts

The August 16-August 29 2010 Bloomberg BusinessWeek had an article on stock forecasts titled “The Market’s Economic Disconnect.” Here is an excerpt: “The fastest annual earnings increase in 22 years will push the S&P index up 20 percent in the last six months of 2010 to 1,242, according to the average projection of 12 firms …

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The August 2010 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey

I found a few items of interest in the August Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey. Perhaps the most interesting (and perhaps provocative item) was the following: “”It is irresponsible nonsense to claim that tax cuts ‘pay for themselves,’ ” said Nicholas Perna of Perna Associates.” As well, there a variety of interesting questions asked …

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