Will 2011 Bring Economic Recovery or More of the Same?

Economy grew modestly in July-September quarter
(12-22) 07:28 PST WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Economy grew at a moderate pace last summer, reflecting stronger spending by businesses to replenish stockpiles. More recent barometers suggest the economy is gaining momentum in the final months of the year. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. That's up from the 2.5 percent pace estimated a month ago. While businesses spent more to build inventories, co...

Economy grew modestly in July-September quarter
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Economy grew at a moderate pace last summer, reflecting stronger spending by businesses to replenish stockpiles. More recent barometers suggest the economy is gaining momentum in the final months of the year. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. That’s up from the 2.5 percent pace estimated a month ago. While businesses spent more to build inventories, consumers e...

Economy grew modestly in July-September quarter
The economy grew at a moderate pace last summer, reflecting stronger spending by businesses to replenish stockpiles. More recent barometers suggest The Economy is gaining momentum in the final months of the year. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. That's up from the 2.5 percent pace estimated a month ago. While businesses spent more to build inventories, consumers ended up spending a bit less. M...

Economy Grew Modestly In Third Quarter
The economy grew at a moderate pace last summer, reflecting stronger spending by businesses to replenish stockpiles. More recent barometers suggest The Economy is gaining momentum in the final months of the year. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. That's up from the 2.5 percent pace estimated a month ago. While businesses spent more to build inventories, consumers ended up spending a bit less. M...

Third-quarter growth revised up to 2.6 percent
WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:38am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Economic growth was a touch higher than previously estimated in the Third Quarter, but below expectations as a rise in the pace of inventory accumulation was offset by downward revisions to Consumer Spending, a government report showed on Wednesday. Gross domestic product growth was revised up to an annualized rate of 2.6 percent from 2.5 percent, the Commerce Department said. Economists had expected GDP growth, which measures to...

Third-quarter growth revised up to 2.6 percent
WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 22, 2010 9:12am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Economic growth was a touch higher than previously estimated in the Third Quarter, but below expectations as a rise in the pace of inventory accumulation was offset by downward revisions to Consumer Spending, a government report showed on Wednesday. Gross domestic product growth was revised up to an annualized rate of 2.6 percent from 2.5 percent, the Commerce Department said. Economists had expected GDP growth, which measures to...

Four Reasons Rising Oil Prices Won't Derail the Economic Recovery
Analysts raised their oil-price forecasts this week to a consensus of $86 per barrel by 2011, according to a Reuters poll. That's an increase of $3 per barrel from the November forecast. But if the analysts are right, oil at $86 per barrel will likely have a trivial economic impact: After all, the crude-oil price closed above $89 per barrel Monday. On Monday evening, I appeared by phone (thanks to a sudden snowstorm) on CNBC's The Kudlow Report to debate whether rising Oil Prices will derail ...

Cause for Canadians to worry? You betcha
Canada’s economic rebound out of Recession has run out of steam. Canadian real GDP posted a meagre 1 per cent annualized rate of growth in the Third Quarter, The Economy recorded a record high trade and current account Deficit of 4.2 per cent of GDP, and Job Creation virtually ground to a halt in the last quarter. And this despite government efforts to stimulate The Economy through infrastructure spending – which is scheduled to soon end. For a change, the U.S. economy outpaced Canad...

Reserve Currency Roulette
Following up on our post from Friday, in which we illustrated the currency reserve and GDP market share of a number of different countries, a kind reader asked a question: “I wonder what percentage of the world’s foreign exchange reserves The Dollar had when it was redeemable among central banks in gold?” Our source for the graph, the IMF, only showed data going back to 1995, so we dug a little more and found the answer in a paper written by Barry Eichengreen of the University ...

For Discovery Channel, Recession Miseries May Have Golden Lining
In early December, the Discovery Channel debuted a new program, Gold Rush: Alaska, which documents the prospecting efforts of Todd Hoffman, an Oregon landing-strip owner. In its three weeks on the air, the show's Ratings have steadily risen, and it's currently the top-rated Primetime series in several key demographics. At the same time, it has also offered an interesting glimpse into the history -- and future -- of gold prospecting in America. It's not hard to see why the show has hit pay dirt...

Gross domestic product grows, but below expectations
The U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.6 percent from July through September, higher than a previous government estimate, but still below the expectations of Economists. The government had estimated last month that the third-quarter growth would be 2.5 percent, while economists had pegged it at 2.9 percent. The new data is yet another indication that the Economic Recovery continues to occur, but at a sluggish pace. Meanwhile, new data indicated that Inflation was even lower than previously tho...

Christopher Lydon: Economist Mark Blyth: 2011 Will Be Worse... and Life Will Go On (AUDIO)
Mark Blyth is in the pub tonight, played by Sean Connery, as usual, and demonstrating again how far a man can go in political economy just by talking fast and infallibly with a strong Scots' accent. The Democrats in Washington have taken up again their modern mission: cleaning up a Republican mess in America, for which they will get no thanks in 2011 or 2012, says our corridor mate at the Watson Institute. The Tea Party rebellion demonstrates anew that American voters are crazy but not necess...

Dean Baker takes a look at the stimulus that isn't there
In the Guardian, Dean Baker warns that the US business press is engaging in some irrational exuberance over the Obama/GOP tax deal, seeing it as a massive stimulus that will make for a strong recovery next year. There seems to be little doubt that Obama sees it that way, too. Or at least he seems to be confidently talking that way--though Baker doesn't talk about him specifically. What he does talk about is that the vast majority of the tax deal merely continues existing law, and such doesn't ...

British economy suffers growth downgrades
London's financial district at Canary Wharf pictured in 2008. British econo... British Economic Growth for the first three quarters of 2010 was downgraded Wednesday in a fresh piece of bad news for The Economy, which faces headwinds next year from government Austerity measures. Gross domestic product -- the total value of all the goods and services produced in the economy -- grew by 0.7 percent in the July-September period. "UK gross domestic product (GDP) in volume terms rose by 0.7 percent c...

Q3 GDP Final Revision Of 2.6%, Lower Than 2.8% Consensus, Inventories Climb Again As Personal Consumption Revision Plunges
Other highlights: US Personal Consumption (Q3 T) Q/Q 2.4% vs. Exp. 2.9% (Prev. 2.8%) US Core PCE (Q3 T) Q/Q 0.5% vs. Exp. 0.8% (Prev. 0.8%) US GDP Price Index (Q3 T) Q/Q 2.1% vs. Exp. 2.3% (Prev. 2.3%) The acceleration in real GDP in the Third Quarter primarily reflected a sharp deceleration in imports and an acceleration in private inventory investment that were partly offset by a downturn in residential fixed investment and decelerations in nonresidential fixed investment and in exports. Moto...

Japan forecasts GDP growth to slow in 2011
The pace of Japan's Economic Growth will halve in fiscal 2011 from this year as a stimulus-driven shopping rush eases and exports fall on a strong yen and softer demand, the government said Wednesday. In its outlook report, the Cabinet Office also said consumer prices will stop falling but will not rise, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's stated goal of ending Deflation in the year. Recent year-on-year falls in the Consumer Price Index will halt in the middle of next year, the Cabinet ...

Stimulating the Wallet or Recovering the Economy?
With Deficits surging and Inflation on the rise, we should recall that by 2011, the ARRA was assumed to create over 3.5 million jobs. But with Unemployment up to 9.8 percent, a 21 percent increase from 8.1 percent in February 2009, unemployed workers have become a class of their own -- distressed, demoralized, and destitute.2 Over half of the stimulus money has been exhausted, yet The Economy and Unemployment Rate remain stagnant. The quandary is two-fold. First, government does not allocate fun...

Tension as Italian students protest education law
By Massimiliano Di Giorgio ROME | Wed Dec 22, 2010 10:56am EST ROME (Reuters) - Thousands of Italian Students marched in Protest against a new university reform law on Wednesday as police blocked off large parts of central Rome to stop a repeat of violent clashes at a similar march a week ago. Last week's demonstration saw cars torched, shop windows smashed and dozens injured in street battles between Protesters and Riot Police after the initially peaceful march descended into some of the wor...

La. job growth rises in November
The Louisiana Workforce Commission says employment growth rose a bit last month as the state recorded 22,800 more non-farm jobs than in November 2009. The state's net gain of 22,800 jobs for the year, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, brings the total number of nonfarm jobs in Louisiana to more than 1.9 million. The commission announced Tuesday that last month's jobs total is 3,600 more than the previous month. The seasonally adjusted Unemployment Rate for Louisiana in November was 8.2 percent...

Time to invest in tampons and Chardonnay.
image via Tampon Crafts. Women will recover faster from the Recession than men, which leads Economists to suggest investing in female-centered companies like Ann Taylor and Lululemon. Women will rebound from the U.S. Recession faster than men because females didn’t lose as many jobs as men did during the recession, the report said. Some of the industries most affected by The Economy, such as Manufacturing and construction, had more male than female workers. The Unemployment Rate for wome...

1 in 7 Americans rely on food stamps
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The use of Food Stamps has increased dramatically in the U.S., as the Federal Government ramps up basic assistance to meet the demands of an increasingly desperate population. The number of food stamp recipients increased 16% over last year. This means that 14% of the population is now living on food stamps. That's about 43 million people, or about one out of every seven Americans. Email Print Comment In some states, like Tennessee, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oregon,...

From laughing to judging in fifty years
A new study from NBC reveals how emotions generated from TV shows have mirrored American society. And 'judgment' is the current king of the charts. If you're on TV, whether in a drama or reality show, chances are that Americans are sitting on their couches, silently judging you. Those are the findings from a new study conducted by NBC Universal, which examined the top 20 broadcast programs (via Nielsen Ratings) of each year, over the past 50 years. NBC asked nearly 3,500 heavy TV-watchers, ages...

Economy 2011
After watching Rachel Maddow's show last night (12/20/2010) that was live from the 92nd Street Y, I had a good feeling in regard to The Economy. Her guest towards the end of the show was the famed Professor of Economics at New York University's Stern School of Business, Dr.Nouriel Roubini. When asked about the Economy and where he saw us, Dr.Roubini claimed that the Recession was over and that there is recovery, and over the course of 2011 we could see a 3% growth overall. But that is where the ...

Population slowdown = unemployment slowdown?
Late last year, Goldman Sachs said in a note that "it will probably take at least 100,000 jobs per month just to hold the Unemployment Rate constant." This was largely based on demographic data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and since has become a favorite talking point of pundits like George Will (particularly when monthly jobs reports come in south of 100k). What we learned today, however, is that U.S. Population Growth is slowing. New Census figures show a 9.7% growth rate, co...

Two-year pay freeze for DOE contract workers
The Dept. of Energy announced a two-year pay freeze for contractors that manage the agency facilities, including those in Oak Ridge. The order apparently could affect about 10,000 contractor workers in Oak Ridge -- although it reportedly will not include those covered by union contracts. I'm still waiting for the actual numbers from DOE. Earlier, of course, the Obama Administration ordered a pay freeze for federal civilian workers, and that impacted about 550 DOE workers in Oak Ridge. Nationwide...