The Lost Decade Ahead

“The worst is behind for the economy, and we’re on the mend,” was the quote of the week, and it came from David Katz, chief investment officer of Matrix Asset Advisors. (Katz was interviewed for a piece on Bloomberg.com this morning.) This wonderful summation regarding the state of the economy came on the heels of [...]

Spike in Unemployment

11.07.08- From the NY Times: “The unemployment rate spiked to 6.5 percent from 6.1 percent, the highest level since 1994. Many analysts now expect unemployment will reach 8 percent by the middle of next year.” Looks like the frantic action of crusty central bankers and panic-stricken politicians isn’t doing anything too stop the economy from [...]

Hello, Cliff!

It seems as if America’s fiscal situation is rolling quickly toward
the edge of a big scary cliff. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) warned earlier this week that the combined forces of
a weakening economy and high maintenance costs associated with
fighting two wars is causing the federal budget outlook to darken
significantly over the next few years.
The CBO [...]

The Economy: Not Dead Yet!

The economy is not dead yet! The Commerce Department reported that the U.S. glowed under the warm light created by 3.3 percent real economic growth in the second quarter. This new reading almost doubles the original tally of 1.9 percent- which provided barely enough wattage to read the fine print on mortgage, credit card and [...]

The Economy: Just Limping Along

Less than swell news came from the bowels of government bureaucracy this morning. The Commerce Department reported that the US economy grew at an annual rate of 1.9 percent in the second quarter, which was less than predicted by economists, and it actually contracted by 0.2 percent in the final three months of 2007.
It appears [...]

Banks Bounce Back from the Dead

Bank shares are back in style. Even after staggering losses were announced by the likes of Wachovia, which registered a $8.9 billion loss in the second quarter, and Washington Mutual, which posted a $3.3 billion stain of red ink in the same period, their shares traded up by 27 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
The share [...]

Six Months of Job Losses and the Credit Bubble

Poof! That was the sound of approximately 62,000 jobs vanishing from the U.S. economy last month. June marks the sixth straight month of job losses. As for the month of May’s half percentage point spike in the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent – it stayed the same for June as well. Whaddya know? That huge [...]

Inflation is on the Prowl

The worst possible employment numbers were revealed before the stock market’s opening bell this morning. The U.S. economy managed to create a paltry 18,000 new jobs in the last month of 2007. The unemployment rate jumped from 4.7 to 5 percent, although average hourly wages expanded by 0.4 percent- which is a good deal more [...]

Bears take cash…

Debt leads to families living in boxes