Thinkstock A $24 Billion Standoff — October 17, 2013 Wednesday night, Congress approved and the president signed a bill that reopens the federal government and extends the U.S. borrowing authority. As we noted in yesterday’s…
ThinkstockThe Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is the federal agency responsible both for regulating the commodities markets and publishing weekly data on the state of those markets. The weekly Commitment of Traders report which…
ThinkstockThe impacts of the federal government are spread unevenly throughout the 50 states and the District of Columbia. States like Virginia with a lot of federal employees are among the hardest hit on that…
ThinkstockWith the federal government shutdown in the United States, there is much more focus on international monetary agencies and non-governmental economic reports. The calls from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) often may fall on…
Americans’ confidence in the economy last week fell the most since the week of September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed and set off the global economic crisis. The Gallup economic confidence index plunged…
ThinkstockThe National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Tuesday morning reported that its small business optimism index for September came in at 93.9, down slightly from August’s revised reading of 94.1. In May the index…
ThinkstockThe world’s older population is growing. According to a report released last week, 11% of the current world population is 60 and older. By 2050, more than one in five will be at least…
ThinkstockAfter posting a five-year high in July, consumer spending pulled back in September, according to the latest Gallup self-reporting survey on Americans’ spending habits. The August daily average of $95 fell to $84 in…
ThinkstockU.S. Appellate Court Judge Richard Posner weighs in Monday morning with a blog post on the approaching crisis over raising the federal debt ceiling. Posner, long associated with conservative and neo-conservative economic positions, has…
ThinkstockIt likely was inevitable that the white-hot growth of Asian economies would slow, if only because of the recession-like conditions around the rest of the world. Now, that is happening, and these nations are…
The stock and bond markets in the United States and internationally had to trade through a very unusual first Friday or the month because there was no Labor Department report on Unemployment and on…
ThinkstockU.S. economic confidence had been declining throughout the month of September as a federal government shutdown loomed. From a reading of -13 at the end of August the index fell to -24 on September…
ThinkstockYou might think that going to California, Texas or New York exposes you to a lot of crime. But in fact it was Tennessee that had the nation’s highest violent crime rate last year.…
ThinkstockThe federal government shutdown for lack of congressional action either on a new fiscal year budget or an extension of the fiscal 2013 spending levels has a relatively modest impact on the larger economy.…
ThinkstockWomen made up almost half of the workforce last year, and yet were paid only 77 cents for every dollar men made. This wage gap varies considerably among states. Women in Maryland and Vermont,…