L: For reasons unknown, GDP numbers in the first quarter of each of the last eight years have been pitifully low in comparison to the other three quarters. This quarter wasn't great, but it wasn't pitifully low either.
J: In an amazing and surprising development for most economic forecasters (but not me), the US economy has picked up speed in nearly all measures of economic growth. We have not seen such an occurrence since the record expansion of March 1991-March 2001, a full ten-y...
L: Jim wrote this a few days ago, but then our trip to Arkansas intervened (all our trips are business+pleasure) so I'm posting it late. Fortunately, it's still relevant! (Guess he needs to get better staff.) ;-)
J: The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) in Tempe, AZ gave us two phenomenally strong pieces of good news this week. On Monday, October 2, they told us that the PMI (L: formerly the Purchasing Managers' Index but now it only gets referred to as PMI) for...
J: On August 30 the BEA surprised all economic forecaster with their "Second Estimate" for real GDP growth in the second quarter of 2017. The consensus was for a tiny upward revision to 2.7 percent at a seasonally adjusted annual rate from 2.6 percent originally repo...
J: The second bit of good news in the latest BEA release is that real GDP picked up significantly in the second quarter of 2017 to 2.6 percent, to an actual level of $17.0 trillion. Real personal consumption expenditures (PCE) rose 2.8 percent, a nice increase from t...
J: Three years ago, at the Q&A session after a presentation at the NABE policy conference*, former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan (also a former NABE president) was asked for his outlook for the US economy for the next two years. His response was, “sam...
J: We warned you that a lousy GDP report was coming, and sure enough, the BEA gave it to us on April 28. They reported that real GDP in the first quarter of 2017 rose at a puny 0.7 percent at a seasonally adjusted annual rate from the fourth quarter of 2016.
