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Top ten economic wishes for 2009
Happy New Year. As the new year begins, I find myself in a fairly optimistic frame of mind. Perhaps, we can wipe the slate clean and start anew this year. In that vein, let me share with you what I think needs to be done in order to right a…
Jobless claims end year nicely under 500,000
It was nice to see a sub 500,000 jobless claims number to end the year after an ugly November and December. However, should note that the fine print is not as good because this number was completely dominated by seasonal adjustments. The…
Is this Austrian real estate company a canary in the coalmine?
Trolling the web today as is my wont, I happened across an interesting article about the Austrian finance company Immofinanz. It seems that Immofinanz got caught up in the Eastern European property market. Unfortunately, its investments…
GMAC: Loosening credit standards in the teeth of recession
It may sound counter-intuitive to loosen credit standards when we are on the cusp of major job losses and bankruptcies. But, this is exactly what the newly minted bank GMAC is going to do with its free money from the TARP (Troubled Asset…
When will Sterling hit Euro parity?
I caught a good article in today's Guardian about the British Pound. The question is: how weak will Sterling get? My answer is below 1-to-1 with the Euro. But before I tell you why, let me interject a blurb from the article.
Case-Shiller index: Across the board declines in U.S. housing
The S&P/Case-Shiller Index for U.S. housing came out today. It was a pretty nasty little report. It showed a clear acceleration in home price declines for the month of October, the latest month for which data is available. In the…
Top ten predictions for the 2009 global economy
In my most recent post, I gave a fairly comprehensive retrospective of the year that was. Near the end of that post, I listed a number of posts I wrote in Octobr and November which point to how I see 2009 shaping up. Let me give you a…
My best and worst calls of 2008: a credit crisis retrospective
This is the time of year when everyone tends to look back and sum up the year in one way or another. I have been doing much of the same.
In keeping with that theme, I have taken a good look through my nearly 1400 posts to get a better…
Global instability must be contained in 2009
I want to make a brief statement about analysis, prognostications and this global recession. When I began this site nine months ago, my focus was clearly on the downside scenario. Now, while I did believe policy makers were underestimating…
U.S. unemployment claims rise sharply
On Wednesday morning the U.S. Department of Labor released the latest report on claims for unemployment insurance. The week to December 20th saw 586,000 new claims for unemployment insurance on a seasonally-adjusted basis, which is a…