The Labor Department just posted a pretty ugly jobs number. Normally we do not pay quite as much attention to the weekly numbers, but they are getting worse and worse. This last week’s report…
The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target for the federal funds rate at 2%. What is more important than the decision is that this puts the chances of a rate…
Ninety-nine out of one hundred economists say that the Fed will not raise rates this time around. The agency will express its concern about inflation and leave it there. The agnosticism about about the…
Many Americans have taken the $168 billion in government largesse that the government granted them to spend on stimulating the economy on stimulating themselves. According to The New York Times of all places, a…
In the event that investors do not understand that banks are in trouble and that the global economy faces a deep recession, Alan Greenspan has written it all out. The former Fed boss is…
Today’s inflation and employment numbers had the putrid scent of the recent past on them along with a whiff of a decaying future. Prices rose .8%, which takes the economy back to inflation rates…
Orchard Lake, Michigan, August 3rd, 2008. A modest-sized office building with room for twenty tenants just north of this town of well-to-do homeowners does not have a single tenant. It is not unusual for…
The employment data for June was far from good, but also was not as bad as many estimates. You can gleam some good news if you want but the "less bad" stance sure seems…
Today’s "OFFICIAL" Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or GNP for those of us old school guys, is somehow managing to hang in there. Today’s official Q2 preliminary GDP from the Commerce Department came in at…
There are a host of reasons why small business employment numbers should have been anemic in July. But, they weren’t. As a matter of fact, small business kept overall job growth from moving into…
Today’s economic news is downright depressing. The federal budget deficit is expected to rise to $482 billion, or 3.3 percent of GDP, up from $389 billion, or 2.7 percent of GDP, this year, according…
In a turn that no one could have expected, the banking community is in such a tight credit fix that even companies with near-perfect credit cannot get loans. As one small company borrower told…
The Federal Reserve’s most recent "beige book" is enough to frighten even the hearty and the brave. It may be one of the most pessimistic assessments of the economy to come out since the…
Small businesses think they are being abandoned by the federal government just when they really need something in exchange for their tax dollars. A new poll from American Management Services reveals that almost no…
The old saw is that the Federal Reserve cannot battle inflation and recession at the same time. If true, it would appear that more agency governors are opting for letting an economic downturn run…