America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
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 …
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 May 31, incorporating data from 12-31-93 to 5-25-12 on a …
Doug Short had a blog post of May 29 (“May Consumer Confidence: The Third Month of Shrinkage“) in which he presents the Conference Board Consumer Confidence and Thomson/Reuters University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index charts. They are presented below: (click on charts to enlarge images) – – There are a few aspects of the above charts that …
In various posts I have commented about the troubling long- and short-term trends in income growth. (Many of these past posts are seen under the “household income” tag) While there are many ways to measure these income trends, regardless of the measurement or time period used, the trends appear worrisome. As I highlighted in 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 May 24, incorporating data from 12-31-93 to 5-18-12 on a …
Many people place emphasis on Durable Goods New Orders as a prominent economic indicator and/or leading economic indicator. For reference, here are a few charts depicting this measure. First, from the St. Louis Fed site (FRED), a chart through April, last updated on May 24. This value is 215,527 ($ Millions) : (click on charts …
Last Thursday, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve released the May 2012 Business Outlook Survey. One aspect I found particularly notable was a chart indicating responses to “Factors Restraining Hiring.” As indicated, the foremost response was “Expected growth of sales is low.” In various blog posts – including the April 24 post titled “The Unemployment Situation Facing …