I am leery of featuring one writer too often in succession (Martin Wolf is a notworthy exception). However, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard presents a thesis that I thought would lead to some informative reader comments. In “The crisis rotates from America to Europe, and Asia,” Evans-Prichard argues that many of the world’s other large economies will start […]
Read more...A disheartening post from the Economic Policy Institute on the employment outlook for the class of 2008. This weak market, which appears unlikely to improve much for the 2009 cohort, raises troubling issues. Much of the sense of disillusionment in America is coming from the fact that elements of our collective social beliefs are being […]
Read more...It’s one thing when journalists and analysts offer worrisome forecasts about the markets, quite another when someone with good inside knowledge sounds an alarm. Satyajit Das, an expert in derivatives and risk management, best known as the author of Traders, Guns & Money, looks over the financial landscape and does not like what he sees. […]
Read more...A very good (as usual) post by Jeff Frankel takes issue with Council of Economic Advisers chair Ed Lazear’s assertion that the economy is not in recession: It is true that the Commerce Department BEA’s advanced estimate of first-quarter GDP growth was still above zero (+0.6%). But there are three reasons not to take this […]
Read more...Uber-bear Ambrose Evans-Pritchard waxes apocalyptic this week, after finding that Standard & Poors issued a report that was even more pessimistic than he is. From the Telegraph: The avalanche of bankruptcies has begun. Six US companies of substance have defaulted on bonds over the past fortnight, against 17 for the whole of last year. As […]
Read more...What would we do without Brad Setser to give us a hard, analytical look at trade and international funds flows? Setser tells us that the headline news on the trade deficit, namely, that it shrank in March, is misleading. When you dig deeper, and in particular pull out petroleum-related flows, it reveals that real export […]
Read more...In Project Syndicate (hat tip Mark Thoma), Joseph Stiglitz takes on an increasingly common approach among central banks, namely, to announce a formal target for inflation and use interest rate policy to attempt to achieve it. Note the US does not use this approach, although one of the Fed’s responsibilities is to maintain price stability. […]
Read more...A Wall Street Journal survey of 53 economists found the great majority said that the spike in food and energy prices is the result of supply and demand, not speculation. At the same time, the average forecast among this group is that oil will be at $93 a barrel by year end. While the article […]
Read more...Martin Feldstein, who as a Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Reagan and an advocate of Social Security reform, has been a surprisingly open critic of the Fed’s and Bush Administration’s responses to our current economic woes. Feldstein has been regularly writing op eds opposed to some of the viewpoints and actions of […]
Read more...While George Soros today said that he believed the worst consequences to the financial system are past, he was far from bullish about the economy. The veteran investor believes that the real world impact is only beginning to be felt. Given that the last housing recession of the late 1980s-early 1990s took 15 quarters to […]
Read more...The strength of activity at the major spring art auctions reflects several factors: the falling dollar, the search for a store of value of inflation, and if you are of the bearish persuasion, the fact that art is a lagging indicator. From the Financial Times: Art records fell on Tuesday for works by Claude Monet, […]
Read more...What’s good for GM is not longer what’s good for America. The supposedly good news that productivity is up, reducing inflationary pressures, is due to the fact that businesses cut their workforces and had those who remained do more. This has been a long standing practice in large corporations; a lot of staffers are doing […]
Read more...A sharp increase in business bankruptcy filings is not only a tangible sign of business distress, but bodes ill for employment. Although the Bloomberg report does not break out Chapter 11 filings by size of entity, it’s a no-brainer than they would be concentrated in smaller companies, and it is those smaller entities that have […]
Read more...The rebate checks haven’t yet arrived, and they are already being deemed likely to have little impact on the economy. That isn’t surprising. What is perplexing it that they were successfully portrayed for a short while as likely to do anything other than increase the Federal deficit. Readers may recall at the time the idea […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal so often presents the optimistic case that it’s important to reinforce those occasions when it provides a less than cheery view. Of course, a journalist is only as good as his sources, and the bullish bias is in large measure due to the insistent upbeat posture of CEOs and sell-side analysts […]
Read more...