Economic Data

This article speaks for itself.Bill for taxpayers swells by trillionsDeficit far bigger than government estimateBy Dennis CauchonUSA TODAYThe federal government's long-term financial obligations grew by $2.5 trillion last year, a reflection…

Here's a long-term view of the US Federal government deficit.

I started tracking an odd statistic that I made up in the aftermath of the last recession called the 'Mortgage to Growth Gap' (MGG). At the time, a lot of pundits I respected where saying that American consumers were spending right through…

A great article on the website Safe Haven asks the important question: Can you trust the government's data. I had the same question in a post called "Last week's GDP numbers." Here's what Michael Pento has to say in his article:The…

This chart speaks for itself.See also:Unemployment Report: biggest rise in rate in two decadesChart of the day: Change in jobless claims

The U.S. has been spending more than it earns for years. This deficit spending is measured as the current account deficit. The graph here is a depiction of where we were and what we have come to. We had a slight surplus in after the last…

As with the GDP numbers last week, the employment numbers were very dubious indeed. The headline number was still a loss of 20,000 jobs. However, the detail point to likely revisions much beyond that number when more exact data have been…

This weekend I received a disturbing newsletter from John Mauldin, provacatively entitled " Lies and Other Statistics," that dissected the GDP numbers where the headline number was +0.6%. Digging into the detail reveals a completely…

When you hear about inflation on TV, don't you often wonder why the official number seems lower than inflation feels to you when you go shopping? It's an open secret in Washington, but the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the common measure of…