by Jason Apollo Voss | 30 04 2010 | Blog
Long time readers of this blog know that I have been highlighting the economic challenges of Europe since the beginning. As I surveyed the worldwide economic landscape I saw that Europe had at least equal problems with its housing bubble and debt loads as the United...
by Jason Apollo Voss | 30 04 2010 | Blog
First quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was up at an annualized rate of 3.2%. This compares to the economists’ consensus of up 3.3%. As a reminder, fourth quarter GDP was up 5.6%. Analysis: Recall that GDP is composed as follows: Consumer spending +...
by Jason Apollo Voss | 23 04 2010 | Blog
I was spending time with a loyal blog reader yesterday and he brought up what he felt was an economic anecdote conundrum. On one hand he was listening to a program that said that the Pittsburgh Pirates were struggling to fill their ballpark right now and that average...
by Jason Apollo Voss | 23 04 2010 | Blog
When economic data are reported in the press there are always experts who provide commentary on the data. One of my favorite ways of evaluating the state of things is to see if the pundits let economic data speak for itself or do they instead rationalize the...
by Jason Apollo Voss | 23 04 2010 | Blog
Yesterday saw the release of the data about the producer price index (PPI), a major gauge of inflation. In March the PPI was up 0.7% once adjusted for seasonality relative to the February figure. It is typical of inflation data to back out the effects of both food...
by Jason Apollo Voss | 23 04 2010 | Blog
Yesterday saw the initial jobless claims report from the Department of Labor. Claims fell by 24,000 to 456,000. More importantly, the four-week moving average of claims rose by 2,750 to 460,250. Analysis: While the corporate profit data and the official gross...
