Visualizing empires decline from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.
Where is the spinoff of the US from Britain?
Hat tip Paul
Visualizing empires decline from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.
Where is the spinoff of the US from Britain?
Hat tip Paul
The latest Case Shiller Index is out, and it fell 8.9% year over year, but rose a modest 0.3% for the month. The Home Price Index improved in Q3 of 2009 — its 2nd consecutive quarterly increase. Prices declined 8.9% in the quarter versus Q3 2008.
Prior Quarterly falls were worse, [...]
UCSD Ph.D. candidate Sam Dastrup has completed a very interesting study with his advisor Professor Richard Carson of what accounts for differences across U.S. communities in the magnitude of the decline in real estate prices that we've seen over the last several years.
' [...]Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Bob Herbert insists that manufacturing in the U.S. is a mere shadow of its past proud self – and that this alleged decline of America’s “industrial base” is the result of too many Americans concentrating on finance (”An [...]
[...] I've been trying to find out what Obama ate in China and this is the closest I can come:
"We're also hosting a 'Stars and Stripes' week featuring iconic American cuisine," said a hotel spokesperson, who declined to give her name due to company policy.
"The White House guests may want to enjoy [...]
Click on graph for larger image in new window.The headline number for this morning's PPI report was an 0.6% decline in the price of finished goods less food and energy ("core PPI"). In fact, core finished goods PPI has fallen for 4 out of the past 6 months. So if we just look at this number, inflation [...]
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November 13, 2009
Special Update
StocksIn a Special Update after the close on October 14, I made the following assessment. “The overall technical health of the market is in good shape. The advance/decline line is making new recovery highs along with market averages, and the number of stocks [...]
The Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales report from the Census Bureau today showed inventories are still declining.WSJ Developments is live blogging the Toll Brothers conference call.
Here are a few highlights:
• For the year ending Oct. 31, contracts fell 16%, deliveries declined 37% .
• Company has $1.81 billion of cash
• Firm is gaining market share
• 84% of its land is owned (the rest is optioned)
• There [...]
Ezra Klein, on what he considers a vicious cycle in credit cards:
The problem is that the people who migrate toward debit cards are the people who have enough money not to need much credit and are responsible enough to not want it. The good risks, in other words. The [...]
One last pair of charts, showing the impact of recessions on tax data, via the Rockefeller Institute of Government. These two shows the impact of recessions on general tax receipts, and on retail sales.
In both charts, the current contraction is the worst on record for the time periods (1973, [...]
From David Meltzer and Zhuo Chen (HT Greg Mankiw):
Growing consumption of increasingly less expensive food, and especially “fast food”, has been cited as a potential cause of increasing rate of obesity in the United States over the past several decades. Because the real minimum wage in the United States has declined [...]
From my perspective, deciding whether to tighten or ease is easy. It involves asking and answering a few questions:
Q: What is the current forecast for unemployment? A: It is that unemployment will stay around 10% for a year or more, and then slowly decline.
Q: Is that the path that we [...]
Consumer Credit outstanding fell $14.8b in Sept seasonally adjusted, almost $5b more than expected and marks the 11th month in the past 12 of declines. At $2.456T outstanding, it is 4.9% below the record high in July ‘08. After a flat reading in Aug, (didn’t fall b/c of the CARS [...]
From MarketWatch: Consumer debt drops for record 8th straight month Outstanding consumer debt fell at a 7.2% annual rate in September, the eighth consecutive decline, the Federal Reserve reported Friday. Click on graph for larger image in new window.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports:
The unemployment rate rose from 9.8 to 10.2 percent in October, and nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline (-190,000).... Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million, and [...]
Recovery continues, slow and uncertain
THERE are several pieces of economic news out today. Tell me what you see:- The ADP employment report showed an employment decline of 203,000 in October, down from 227,000 in September, but a bit more than the 198,000 that was expected.- But in the [...]