This morning the BEA released its second estimate of fourth quarter GDP. The estimate for GDP growth was revised up substantially, but the level was still very low, and the upward revision was no more than most observers had hoped for. Comparing to the BEA’s first estimate: The preliminary estimate of the fourth-quarter increase in […]
The Census Bureau report released this morning showed January New Home Sale were still strong. In fact, on a Not Seasonally Adjusted basis, January 2006 was the strongest January on record. Following is a graph of NSA January New Home Sales showing 2006 is a new record. Click on graph for larger image. The strong […]
There is wee bit in Michael Darda’s latest that I might agree with – but given the following, I have two questions for him and the rest of NRO Financial: If Congress doesn’t act to extend the 2003 tax cuts, tax rates on capital will rise, which would depress after-tax rates of return to capital […]
Yesterday’s CPI release showed that inflation continues to gallop ahead at a rather high rate, though once again, most of the rise was attributable to higher energy prices. Marketwatch offers this assessment: WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. consumer prices increased a larger-than-expected 0.7% in January, led by higher energy, food and housing costs, the Labor Department […]
Jerry Bowyer has finally written something that makes a little sense: This debate has been going on for more than a year between supply-siders — the gold-first crowd on one side, the bond-market/interest-rate/gold-also crowd on the other. Meanwhile, each month the consumer price index comes out with a relatively low reading. If the accuracy of […]
Michael Mandel and I agree on at least one thing – R&D is an investment: The factory is a long-lived investment which provides returns not just this year, but years into the future. That’s why Intel’s investment gets added into GDP, separate from the value of today’s production of microprocessors. Similarly, R&D is a long-lived […]
Jonah Goldberg over at The Corner opens with: Warrantless searches, Katrina fingerpointing, $7.8 trillion budget, Abramoff spin: these were the stories buffetting the White House last week. Table 3.2 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports the Federal spending for 2005 was less than $2.55 trillion. Does Jonah expect this Republican government to triple Federal […]
AB reader Fred C. Dobbs directs us to the Economic Assumptions chapter for the President’s budget. Starting on page 171, we see: When the economy is operating below potential, the unemployment rate exceeds the long-run sustainable average consistent with price stability. As a result, receipts are lower than they would be if resources were more […]
Kash noted the endorsement of the Division of Dynamic Analysis from Bruce Bartlett which had me dusting off my copy of the General Theory as I read this from Bruce: The great recession of 1973-75 was a severe blow to Keynesian economics because inflation was high while at the same time there was significant unused […]
Ben Bernanke has testified before Congress numerous times in the past, but today was the first time that he spoke as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Overall, Bernanke’s testimony struck me as quite optimistic. He mentioned the potential hazards for the economy in 2006 of growing inflation and a […]