ThinkstockAdd another ominous sign to the current and probably near-term future of the U.S. economy. A string of data about the level of confidence among companies in the private sector, which appeared strong from the early part…
The Joint G20 Finance and Labour Ministers’ Meeting gathered in Russia recently. The most important statement by the group indicated that first among the priorities of the G20 is new stimulus programs aimed at taming…
ThinkstockOn Thursday, the city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. The total value of the city’s outstanding obligations are estimated at more than $18 billion. This makes the filing easily the largest…
ThinkstockThe Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has crafted a proposal to develop new rules over the next two years that would put an end to many of the tax avoidance gambits used…
ThinkstockRetail spending is often used as a barometer of the general economy. If consumer spending is two-thirds of gross domestic product (GDP), retail spending is one of its primary engines. And the news about…
ThinkstockWith an improving economy, an unexpected but welcome increase in tax revenue and federal spending down, largely because of budget battles, the U.S. financial situation has improved, not by design so much as by…
ThinkstockFollowing last month’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the euro-U.S. dollar exchange rate (EURUSD) fell to just over 80. Less than a month later the EURUSD came within a few ticks of 85, and…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsWeekly jobless claims data have been released by the U.S. Labor Department. Last week was a very big surprise as the preliminary figure rose to 360,000 when it was expected…
ThinkstockThe austerity versus stimulus battle flamed up again as the Greek parliament approved massive layoffs of public workers. Now, the proponents of cost cuts in financially weakened nations will get up-close evidence about whether…
ThinkstockThe U.S. economy continued to increase at a “modest to moderate pace” according to today’s release of the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book. Employment, one of the key drivers of the Fed’s monetary policy…
courtesy U.S. Federal ReserveFederal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is testifying in his semiannual report to the Congress on Wednesday. The stock, bond, commodity and currency markets are trying to find anything new or any…
ThinkstockFinance Minister Lou Jiwei seemed coy in his recent comments about a Chinese GDP stimulus package. There probably will not be a big one this year, but the central government plans to help employment and…
ThinkstockIt is appalling to believe that many Americans cannot afford healthy food. But the number of people who can’t is terribly high, which says that whatever effort has been made by the government to pull…
ThinkstockTuesday morning’s economic releases included a gain in industrial production for the month of June. Production rose by 0.3%, rather than the 0.2% consensus expected by Bloomberg. Capacity utilization also managed to come in…
ThinkstockUnemployment in the world’s developed countries is not forecast to improve much — if at all — through the end of 2014. At the end of April, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development…