CERF Blog

The January 4 Federal Reserve Chairs Joint Interview panel at the largest and most prestigious economics conference in the country was a standing room only affair with a massive media presence.  I got there fifteen minutes early and almost did not get a seat.  New York Times senior economics correspondent Neil Irwin provided an early… Read more

In late 2008, U.S. banks accelerated consolidation driven by intense Federal government pressure (many failing banks were “saved” by being acquired by a larger bank). This yielded a banking structure where today the largest five U.S. banks control over 44 percent of the nation’s banking assets. The five largest U.S. banks held assets of $6.7… Read more

Here’s what the OECD has to say about the global economy: But the global economy can be characterised (sic) as only achieving a muddling-through “B-minus ” grade. Global growth in the first quarter of 2015 was weaker than in any quarter since the crisis. And although this softness is seen as transitory, productivity growth continues… Read more

It’s generally agreed that excessively lax lending standards were major contributors to the financial crisis that precipitated the Great Recession.  So, Washington wants to do it again, only more.  Here’s part of what Investors.com has to say: In a just-released federal report, the administration portrays these “credit invisibles” as victims of a traditional credit-scoring system.… Read more

Two new reports came out today indicating that the U.S. economy is weaker and more fragile than we thought. Productivity dropped for the second consecutive quarter, and hiring slowed. It appears that a weak global economy and the United States increasingly onerous regulatory environment is more than offsetting and stimulus from lower oil prices.

The preliminary estimate of United States third quarter economic growth was released today. The growth number is 2.8 percent, stronger than any of the three quarters prior. The quarter 2 growth rate was 2.5 percent, and the quarter 3 result beat our forecast of 1.3 percent. This was despite slowdowns in the growth of consumption… Read more

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released their annual comprehensive revision of the national income and product accounts on Wednesday, July 31. Most of the Financial news websites focused primarily on the first estimate of the second quarter of 2013, which was that economic growth was 1.7 percent. The analysis that was presented was… Read more

U.S. economic growth accelerated from 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 to 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013. This acceleration was driven mainly by increases in consumption growth and inventory investment. Another factor was that government expenditure was less of a negative contribution to growth in first quarter by about half… Read more

Fourth quarter United States GDP contracted by about $5 billion dollars, which is 0.1 percent negative growth annualized. This is after 3.1 percent growth in the third quarter which was the strongest quarter in 2013. The largest drivers of the fourth quarter decline were a contraction in government spending of 6.6 percent and a change… Read more

This is a comment on the national November Employment Situation report released last Friday, and I use numbers from the report to calculate when the United States might reach the Federal Reserve unemployment rate goal of 6.5 percent. The unemployment rate fell from 7.9 percent in October to 7.7 percent in November which might appear… Read more