America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On Wednesday, December 12, 2012 Ben Bernanke gave his scheduled press conference. Below are Ben Bernanke’s comments I found most notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – in the order they appear in the transcript. These comments are excerpted from the “Transcript of Chairman Bernanke’s Press Conference“(preliminary)(pdf) of December 12, 2012, with …
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 December 13, incorporating data from December 31,1993 to December 7, …
The December NFIB Small Business Optimism report was released yesterday, December 11. The headline of the Press Release is “Small Business Owner Confidence Plunges More than 5 Points.” The subtitle is “One of the lowest optimism readings in survey history.” The Index of Small Business Optimism fell by 5.6 point in November to 87.5. Here …
I find the following charts to be disturbing. These charts would be disturbing at any point in the economic cycle; that they depict such a tenuous situation now – 41 months after the official (as per the 9-20-10 NBER announcement) June 2009 end of the recession – is especially notable. These charts raise a lot …
I have written many blog posts concerning the worrisome trends in income and earnings. Along these lines, one of the measures showing disconcerting trends is that of hourly earnings. While the concept of hourly earnings can be defined and measured in a variety of ways, below are a few charts that I believe broadly illustrate problematic …
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 …
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, …
In the last post (“Total Household Net Worth As A Percent Of GDP 3Q 2012“) I displayed a long-term chart depicting Total Household Net Worth as a percentage of GDP. For reference purposes, here is Total Household Net Worth from a long-term perspective (from 1949:Q4 to 2012:Q3). The last value (as of December 6, 2012) …