The Institute for Supply Management has released its January non-manufacturing data. The services economy isn’t pretty. But it also isn’t as bad as many expected. The ISM showed that the non-manufacturing index was 42.9…
Covering U.S. and global economic data is not exactly the most optimistic of topics today. The good news is that some of the bad news is not as bad it could be. Today’s additional…
As you would imagine, personal income and spending are coming into negative territory. Incomes are still holding up relatively well, assuming you didn’t get laid off, and spending is continuing to soften. The good…
Some communicable diseases can be traced back to what medical researchers call "patient zero", the first carrier of an illness and often someone who has no symptoms. One of the most notorious examples of…
The government reported that fourth quarter GDP contracted at an annual rate of 3.8%.That does not approach the 7.8% in the second quarter of 1980 or the 10.4% post-war record set in the first…
Bloomberg’s poll of economists shows that the experts think US GDP contracted 5.5% in the fourth quarter. A drop of that magnitude would be the greatest since 1982, a year when the recession took…
Arnold Schwarzenegger may believe that he would be sitting in Barak Obama’s chair in the Oval Office if only he had been born a US citizen. Instead he runs California, which may be the…
Mark Twain and Will Rogers shared a sentiment. As Twain said, “Buy land, they’re not making it anymore”. It would have been interesting to ask each man what he thought about the value of…
Consumer confidence hit an all-time low this month. The Conference Board announced that The Index now stands at 37.7, down from 38.6 in December. Says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research…
It seems impossible that a handful of companies could put nearly 80,000 people out of work in a day. Caterpillar (CAT), Pfizer (PFE), Texas Instruments (TXN), Sprint (S), and Home Depot (HD) did most…
There is a growing body of opinion that $825 billion plus the $350 billion left in TARP funds will not be enough to pull the economy out of what has become a flat spin.…
The Treasury has provided loan facilities of up to $100 billion for both Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). Freddie Mac is preparing to ask for $35 billion from its pool. It has…
Data released from the U.K. shows the economy there has not been in as bad shape since Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister showing the recession is biting there harder than expected. GDP fell 1.5…
“Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively”–Voltaire The American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 should be required reading for every citizen from…
The EU finally owned up to what everyone already knew. It will face its first recession since it was formed over ten years ago. It was nothing more than a fantasy that it could…