Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsThe American public’s support for an increase in the minimum wage has grown. The support is badly fractured, which may make federal action on the wage more difficult. The strong…
ThinkstockThe school of thought that the economy will add 150,000 to 200,00 jobs a month for the balance of the year has to have its base in the idea that federal budget cuts will…
ThinkstockThe stock and bond market just got two new economic readings to digest, and they are both indicating more strength than the economists were expecting. The first reading is the ISM Manufacturing Index for…
thinkstockThe stock market is supposed to fall after reaching nearly all-time highs, because $85 billion in budget cuts have begun. But these will not move the stock market down, at least not for months. Too…
ThinkstockThe first revision to the first-quarter gross domestic product is out. The revision put fourth-quarter GDP up in positive territory, but only at 0.1%. The prior look was in the red at -0.1%. While this…
courtesy Boeing Co.The monthly report on durable goods is one of the most volatile reports you can get. The reason is that it involves the big-ticket items that are deemed to be long-lived rather…
ThinkstockBy many estimates, New Jersey’s new law that allows online gambling will help troubled Atlantic City. It also will bring the state as much as $30 million a year. That does not seem like…
ThinkstockThe Conference Board has released its monthly report on consumer confidence for the month of February. This represents a major recovery to 69.6%. This is not only way above estimates, but it erases what…
ThinkstockAmericans do not have enough for retirement. They do not save enough money for retirement. Their houses, a primary source of retirement funds, have lost value. Real wages barely have risen in the past decade,…
Courtesy Maersk LineThe world’s largest container shipping group, Denmark’s A.P. Moeller-Maersk, expects shipping demand on routes between Europe and Asia to be “bleak” in 2013, leading to a very small increase in overall shipping…
ThinkstockLast year, the number of union members in the U.S. fell by more than 400,000, or 2.7%. This decline was just a drop in the bucket compared to the long-term collapse of organized labor…
ThinkstockThis morning brought the weekly jobless claims and the Consumer Price Index from the Labor Department. Now we have two more key bits of data hitting the tape. The Conference Board’s report on leading…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsThe Labor Department has two key reports out this Thursday. We have seen a rise in the weekly jobless claims. Consumer prices also ticked higher. Weekly jobless claims rose by…
ThinkstockThe U.S. markets had three economic reports to digest this Friday. However, the reports have so far not been enough to sway investors significantly one way or the other as the market continues to…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsThe U.S. Labor Department may have given a disappointing uptick in the unemployment rate two weeks ago, but the weekly jobless claims picture is coming out in a different light…