It cannot be good news that the warnings from credit agencies about the US debt and deficit come almost monthly now. Moody’s, in its latest quarterly AAA Sovereign Monitor, examined the financial health of…
The unemployment rate is slightly below the 10% mark, which seems terribly important psychologically. It seems that the economy is fine if the jobless rate is 9.7% but is in horrible shape if the…
Results from the poll used to create the Blue Chip Economic Indicator show that economists believe that US GDP will grow at a slower rate than they had previously forecast for next year. According…
The statisticians who occasionally cough up data on employment posted two new sets of numbers today. The first was the traditional monthly report from the BLS called “The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary”. …
Seventy-three percent of companies polled in a new Manpower survey said their will not hire employees in the second quarter. The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey covers 18,000 companies across all major industry sectors. The…
The Federal Reserve has issued its most recent Beige Book, which does not really sound that much different from from many of the notes from the latest FOMC minutes. The Fed noted slight improvement…
It has been two days since the United States Department of Labor announced that if Emergency Unemployment Compensation and full federal funding for the Extended Benefit program are not extended, 400,000 Americans will lose…
Iowa opened its “cash for appliances” program yesterday and the $2.8 million that the state had set aside to fund it was gone by mid-afternoon. All on the first day. The state announced “…all…
Chile was hit with an 8.8-magnitude quake devastating some parts of the South American country today. Officials say it is the worst earthquake to hit the country in a quarter of a century. The event occurs…
The number of “snow hurricanes” that have hit the mid-Atlantic states and Northeastern US must be a National Weather Service record. Much of the East Coast is under assault again and will be for most…
The US economy may have grown at a 5.7% pace in the fourth quarter of 2009, but according to a survey of experts by Thomson Reuters a figure of closer to 3% is more likely…
Consumer confidence as measured by the Conference Board fell sharply this month. The “Present Situation” index fell to a 27-year low at 19.4 points because of the troubled job market and general business conditions.…
In another blow to the notion that unemployment will improve, those with their feet on the streets looking for jobs are remarkably pessimistic about their prospects. A new Gallup poll shows that 61% of…
It is possible to see both clear gains in economic statistics and very clear destruction in the economic statistics. Today’s consumer confidence reading was a major erosion and far worse than expectations. The reading…
US states face a $1 trillion shortfall in the funding of their pensions, and the figure could grow substantially in the near future. The Pew Center On The States reports that “the gap at the…