That there was no change to QE was not really unexpected in October, though consensus about this kind of policymaking theater has become somewhat of a crapshoot. The reason is, contrary to pre-crisis experience, a growing and more obvious schism in the FOMC façade. There have been disagreements in the past, uncovered by the delayed release of full meeting transcripts, [...]
On March 28, 1997, the Bureau of Economic Research downgraded economic growth estimates for the fourth quarter of 1996. Over the course of the two months between the advance estimate, preliminary estimate and final estimate, the BEA reduced GDP by a rather large 0.9%. The reduction in GDP then was similar in absolute size to the current revisions to Q1 [...]
Consumer confidence is at multi-year highs while personal income and wage levels for April were declining on a nominal basis. Without the boost of 0.2% “deflation”, disposable personal income actually declined 0.1% on a nominal basis. Personal spending fell 0.2% on a nominal basis. The internals of the nominal decline related to three separate items – farm proprietor’s income fell [...]
Government spending and inventory builds were good in Q3, according to economists, when they pushed GDP accounting above expectations. Those same two economic accounts dramatically reduced economic activity in Q4, so economists are now intimating that the resulting contraction is something other than real. On the part of government spending, it probably should be ignored and certainly GDP is a [...]
My theme for 2012 has been that something is different this year than the past two years of even substandard recovery. Recession looms and recent data has done nothing to make me think that trend is anything but hardening. While there was some celebration over the first revision to Q3 GDP, as headline growth was revised up to 2.7% from [...]
Stay In Touch