- ‹ previous
- 1190 of 2798
- next ›
Economic Update
So how's the economy doing? Let's take a look!
New York Times: U.S. GDP shrank by 6.1% in the first quarter, far worse than the "consensus" prediction of 4.7%.
Bloomberg: A full third of the country's biggest banks need additional capital, according to leaked preliminary results of the Treasury's stress tests.
RGE Monitor: According to a government report leaked to Sueddeutsche Zeitung, bad assets in the German banking system total slightly over a trillion dollars. Over half of bad assets worldwide are in the European banking system, which has done much less to recognize them than we have in the U.S.
Wall Street Journal: Business fixed investment in the U.S. was down a whopping 37.8% last quarter.
Want some good news to go with that? Sorry! Apparently personal consumption was up 2.2%, which is probably a mixed blessing, and home prices were down 18% compared to last year, but didn't quite fall at a record rate. That's the best I can do. Ed Yardeni tries to do better, but one of the green shoots on his list of reasons to feel optimistic is the fact that Portfolio magazine has shut down. Put me down as unconvinced.
Hey man!
DJIA's up. It amazes me that this could be uses a evidence of good news rather than evidence that these indices are meaningless barometers of near term economic health.
The good news is we're in a
The good news is we're in a plane hurtling to earth at 150 MPH instead of 200MPH. But the bad news is we're still going to die.
Seriously though, the 'positive second derivative' crowd is so optimistic they should join Toastmasters or work as a greeter at WalMart.
Wall St. bonuses are up!
Goldman and even Citi are looking to make some big bonuses payments to some "key" employees. So if our financial overlords are doing well, I figure we must be at a turning point.
Happy Days Are Here Again!
What means "business fixed investment?"
Does that mean things like the purchase of capital goods.
If so that does not bode well in the short run for the computer industry. Bummer.
Tripp
We're going down.
Man the lifeboats! Women and children first.
What's going on
The economy was weak, gasoline went up and pushed it further down. Toxic assets crashed with housing prices and really pushed the economy over the cliff. Yes we have been diving, er declining rather quickly. That's obvious. Of course, the Obama administration got their stimulus bill passed and we're just now seeing it going into effect. That ought to slow the fall a bit. We've also seen a lot of efforts to fix AIG and the banks. That will slow the fall some. We've also seen housing prices returning to normal values, whether you think of that as good or not it's important. It has of course, had an effect on banks...many of which have simply disappeared.
Where does all this leave us?
Consumer spending is up. They see Obama's efforts and know there will be a recovery. But, business investments are down because they are either uncertain of how soon a recovery will occur or they're having trouble getting credit. I suspect both are true.
How much are banks lending? Has it leveled-off or risen any?
If the public feels we're on the right track and some banks can show profits and some firms which have laid off workers can show more profits, then it means there's leeway to rehire some workers. It means there's probably bank lending occurring. It means real economy companies shouldn't have to wait long before seeing that they can return to investment spending and rehiring.
I'm hoping the stimulus spending will help push things back up a bit and combined with greater bank lending and consumer confidence this will convince many firms to return to greater, if not normal, business activities.
Key is bank lending, as it has been key throughout this recession. How's lending going?