America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
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 July Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of July 26, 2010: The Consumer Metrics Institute Contraction Watch: The USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index: An excerpt …
I have been following The Consumer Metrics Institute’s work since March. I have previously written two posts focusing on their work (both found on March 31), as well as included it in the monthly “Updates On Economic Indicators.” To briefly summarize, I find their work and methodologies very interesting, especially given that they appear quite …
As I commented in the July 12 post: “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.” Along those lines, I would like to make comments on the ECRI WLI …
I found a few items of interest in The July Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey. The economists surveyed continue to place a relatively low probability on a “double-dip” recession. As stated in the article, “Economists, on average, now see the odds of double-dip recession at 20%.” As well, there a variety of interesting questions …
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. Toward that end, I recently came about a July 5 article, found here, from Doug Short that provides a good (and …
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 June Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of June 28, 2010: The Consumer Metrics Institute Contraction Watch: The USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index: An excerpt …
I found this June 10 blog post, titled “The Chances of a ‘Double-Dip’ are Essentially Nil” by Macroeconomic Advisers to be notable. Of course, I am not in agreement with those that believe any material further economic weakness will be avoided. However, many economists feel differently; as I have noted in the post of June …
I recently came across a notable excerpt in ECRI’s “U.S. Cyclical Outlook” of December 2009 (pdf): “The bottom line is that long expansions are needed after severe recessions to undo the damage. After the 1932-33 depression, not even four years of expansion were quite enough, despite 10% annual GNP growth. This time trend growth is …
Saturday’s (June 19) Boston Globe contained an interview with Larry Summers on the state of the economy. I found the phrasing in a couple of his statements, as seen below, notable: “Summers, the former Harvard University president and Treasury secretary under President Clinton, presented a cautious, measured view of economic conditions. For example, after expressing …
The recent steep fall in the ECRI WLI has been widely commented upon. I’ve recently run across two items, an article and an interview, that I think are very notable with regard to interpreting the WLI. The first is an article ( “Is ECRI Growth Rate Index Signaling A Double Dip?”) that discusses the predictive …