CERF Blog

In November of 2008, we substantially revised our forecast of mid-year 2009 United States year-on-year job growth rate from 0.3 to a fall of about four percent. At the time, we felt like we were in the midst of a regime-shift to a different state of economic affairs. This new state was one characterized by… Read more

Today’s news will be dominated by the BLS’s unemployment data release. I’m sure we’ll have more to say on that. Right now, I’d like to discuss a less-publicized data release, one that probably has more information than the unemployment data. Yesterday, the FDIC released bank charge-off data, and it was disappointing and scary. I’ve posted… Read more

Mark Zandi declared “the recession is over” on Tuesday September 1, 2009. All of the economists at CERF would like this to be true. However, we suspect that this is not true. Mark’s declaration was based in part on the ISM manufacturing activity index data release. The economy has benefited from expenditures on vehicles in… Read more

Over the weekend I read this article. It seems that Barney Frank and Ron Paul, normally not allies, have gotten together and proposed a law requiring an audit of the Federal Reserve System and limiting the Fed’s lending options. I tweeted on it, calling it a really really bad idea. I was tempted to say… Read more

Most data releases are of seasonally adjusted data, and that is a problem. No one knows what the exact seasonal patterns in the economy are. We estimate them. The new jobs data release is an example of the problem. Today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics release of the July employment situation report shows 247 thousand seasonally-… Read more