ThinkstockIt is that time of the year again when Wall Street starts issuing its forecasts for the coming year. We have seen the 2014 outlook from Merrill Lynch this Monday with new observations on…
ThinkstockAmericans do not age well, at least according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In its “Health at a Glance 2013,” OECD experts report: life expectancy in the United States stood at 78.7…
ThinkstockThe latest Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s October 29 to 30 FOMC meeting are indicating that tapering the $85 billion per month of bond buying could start in the coming months. This sounds significant in…
ThinkstockThe U.S. Labor Department released its reading on inflation on Wednesday morning via the Consumer Price Index. Simply put, inflation is running too low and this is going to give Ben Bernanke and Janet…
ThinkstockHardly encouraging: The global economy is expected to continue expanding at a moderate pace over the coming two years, but policymakers must ensure that instability in financial markets and underlying fragility in some major…
ThinkstockThe World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) “Outlook for the Global Agenda 2014” is based on the opinions of 1,592 important people from 112 nations around the globe. Leaving aside whether that sample number is too small…
ThinkstockLast year consumers spent an average of $786 on holiday gifts, but if the latest poll from Gallup is correct they’ll be sitting on the wallets this year. Americans say they plan to spend…
The deficit is shrinking! Politicians will likely try to spin this as good news, because it sounds better than calling it less-bad. It is not good news when you see just how much money we are talking…
ThinkstockThe collapse in Americans’ confidence in the economy brought on by the shutdown of the federal government is slowly rising again. The Gallup economic confidence index plunged to -39 in the week ending October…
ThinkstockThe National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Tuesday morning reported that its small business optimism index for October dropped 2.3 points to come in at 91.6. As recently as last May the index reached…
By International Monetary Fund , via Wikimedia CommonsA massive typhoon has battered the Philippines. That will set back what has been a promising economy for years and make the nation’s troubling unemployment and poverty rates much…
ThinkstockAfter the Labor Department stunned the market with much stronger payrolls data, the market is going to get to deal with a new reading on consumer sentiment. The Reuters/University of Michigan reading did not…
ThinkstockStandard & Poor’s Ratings Services has downgraded its sovereign credit ratings of France. The move was pushed out in the middle of the night in America, which is the morning hours in Europe. It…
ThinkstockLong live the trends of central bank easing! The European Central Bank (ECB) just delivered on what was being hoped for, and that is a formal interest rate cut. The ECB lowered the refinance…
ThinkstockAhead of a key meeting of the Communist Party, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has stated that the nation’s economy must create 10 million jobs per year, and sustained growth of at least 7.2% will…