America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
The July NFIB Small Business Optimism report was released on August 14. The headline of the Press Release is “Small-Business Optimism Continues to Decline in July.” The Index of Small Business Optimism fell by .2 point in July, to 92.2. Here are some excerpts from the report that I find particularly notable: Dipping for a …
The Philadelphia Fed Third Quarter 2012 Survey of Professional Forecasters was released on August 10. This survey is somewhat unique in various regards, such as it incorporates a longer time frame for various measures. The survey shows, among many measures, the following expectations: GDP: (annual average level) full-year 2012 : 2.2% full-year 2013 : 2.1% full-year 2014 : …
The August Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on August 10, 2012. The headline is “‘Fiscal Cliff’ Weighs on Growth.” Much of the commentary discusses the ‘fiscal cliff’ and its ramifications. In the Q&A section (in the spreadsheet), there was this question: “Is the risk to your 2012 growth forecast more to the …
As I stated in my July 12, 2010 post (“ECRI WLI Growth History“): For a variety of reasons, I am not as enamored with ECRI’s WLI and WLI Growth measures as many are. However, I do think the measures are important and deserve close monitoring and scrutiny. The movement of the ECRI WLI and WLI, …
On March 28, 2011 I wrote a post (“The STLFSI“) about the STLFSI (St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index) which is supposed to measure stress in the financial system. For reference purposes, the most recent chart is seen below. This chart was last updated on August 9, incorporating data from December 31,1993 to August 3, …
On August 7, Gallup released the poll results titled “Economic Confidence Slips in July, for Second Month in a Row.” The subtitle is “Economic outlook falls to a new 2012 low.” Two of the most notable excerpts: Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index averaged -26 in July, a decline from -22 in June, and close to the 2012 …
This post is the latest update to a series of blog posts seen on the CalculatedRisk.com blog. The original blog post of April 12, 2010, is titled “Recession Measures.” In it, Bill discussed key measures that the NBER uses to determine recoveries, and posted four charts. Here are those charts, updated in his August 5, 2012 post titled “Update: …
As I stated in my July 12, 2010 post (“ECRI WLI Growth History“): For a variety of reasons, I am not as enamored with ECRI’s WLI and WLI Growth measures as many are. However, I do think the measures are important and deserve close monitoring and scrutiny. The movement of the ECRI WLI and WLI, …
Shortly after each monthly employment report I have been posting a continual series titled “3 Critical Unemployment Charts.” Of course, there are many other employment charts that can be displayed as well. For reference purposes, below are the U-3 and U-6 Unemployment Rate charts from a long-term historical perspective. Both charts are from the St. …
As I have commented previously, as in the October 6, 2009 post (“A Note About Unemployment Statistics”), in my opinion the official methodologies used to measure the various job loss and unemployment statistics do not provide an accurate depiction; they serve to understate the severity of unemployment. However, even if one chooses to look at the …