United States

Challenger Gray & Christmas said announced layoffs were 81,755 last month, up 47% compared to a year ago. For the entire second quarter, layoffs rose to 275,292, the most since late 2005. So far this year,…

I ran a short poll over the last week and the results are in. Readers at Credit Writedowns expect house prices in the U.S. to fall well in excess of 30%. From where I sit, this makes a lot of sense (I voted too: for a 30-50% fall). If…

Perot Charts is Ross Perot's attempt to reintroduce himself into politics in the US. From his standpoint, the U.S. is running an irresponsible fiscal policy that will only lead to ruin. His chart on the U.S. national debt, now over $9…

The news that income and spending in the U.S. economy has been resilient must be cheered as good (see news release here). It may result in our seeing a W-shaped recession as opposed to a U- or L-shaped one. The U.S. consumer is much more…

At 8:30 EDT this morning, the Labor department released its jobless claims numbers. The numbers are not appreciably different than a week ago. But they are largely consistent with recession: 384,000 jobless claims and 3,139,000 continuing…

This is yet another chart from Perot Charts. I intend to highlight a number of these charts in my coming 'chart of the day' series because they present a comprehensive picture of the challenges the U.S. Federal Government faces. Also,…

This comes from the AP via the Globe & Mail.U.S. is in recession, and getting worse: BuffettAlso, note that Buffett in this blurb suggests he buys into the peak oil supply and demand argument for oil prices.Related articlesPerceptions…

Today's economic data releases were for durable goods and new home salesDurable GoodsStrong export growth has been keeping U.S. factories busier than they would normally be during a period of falling domestic demand. Orders had fallen for…

Ross Perot is making a comeback! The Texas billionaire has come back into the political fray with his website Perot Charts. I recommend taking a stroll through it. You will definitely be a wiser person for it. Today's chart comes from…

Last month I looked at the twenty cities in the Case-Shiller composite index to see how far back in time we had to travel to see equivalent prices in all of the twenty cities covered. Some markets saw slight upticks in prices in April,…