America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On September 1, Christina Romer gave a speech titled “Not My Father’s Recession: The Extraordinary Challenges and Policy Responses of the First Twenty Months of the Obama Administration.” (pdf) The main reason I highlight this report is for reference purposes, as I may comment upon it in the future. As those familiar with this blog …
(This is my second blog post that solely discusses pricing issues. My first was on April 23, 2010) Firms in general have enjoyed the economic “tailwind” of rising sales for decades. While this can be seen in a variety of measures, one of particular note is that of Retail Sales. As seen in the following …
The next new blog post will be on Tuesday, September 7…
In the August 16-August 29 Bloomberg BusinessWeek, there is a quote from Jeremy Siegel in which he says, “The stock market’s telling us there’s some good things happening. And I don’t think it’s only what they think Bernanke is going to say. There is now a very broad consensus that this…is not going to develop …
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. …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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” …
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 …