United States

GDP stats came out for Q2. I'll get to that in a later post. We had 1.9% growth on the quarter, which was a decent lift from the stimulus package. But, what is really interesting is that the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which…

Jobless claims hit a 5-year high of 448K last week, leaving everyone under the impression that the employment numbers are deteriorating rapidly. However, the massive increase in jobless claims for the past week is very misleading because…

Robert Samuelson has written an excellent piece describing how the U.S. has become obsessed with residential property to its detriment. The result has been over- and malinvestment in homes that will take years, if not decades to…

After the credit and housing bubble created by Greenspan's Fed caused people to turn away from fixed rate mortgages, a return to sanity has heralded its return to prominence. A full 70% of mortgages taken out in the first half of 2008 were…

The Case Shiller Index is out again and a number of areas are looking a bit better including Denver, Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Portland, and Dallas. Overall, it seems the acceleration in house price falls has come to an end.…

Given my recent prediction for a positive GDP number in Q2 for the U.S. and after another positive number from Q1, how could I maintain that the U.S. is in recession?It's simple. The commonly-held version of recession is misguided. Most…

In reading about profit increases of some U.S. multinationals due to robust overseas business and the weak dollar, while the U.S. economy faces a protracted downturn, it has occurred to me that the divergence between U.S. worker and…

After the United States started its 'Guns and Butter' exercise under President Johnson and eventually de-linked from gold in 1971, its economy has become ever more leverage- and debt-propelled. Interestingly, the result has been a…

U.S. jobless claims were 406,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, up 34,000 on the week prior and surpassing 400,000 for only the 3rd time this business cycle. While the numbers were large, they are very distorted by seasonal adjustment…

America's security concerns due to terrorism are having unwanted side effects in relations with the EU. Handelsblatt, the German newspaper is reporting that visa requirements for some EU citizens is causing the EU to retaliate with visa…