In a week when the Greek leadership declares it a historic moment for the European Union that the ailing country has agreed to swallow an additional austerity plan which, so far, seems to have calmed markets it would almost be too much to continue picking on the Eurozone. Yet pick I am going to nonetheless [...]

Rebuilding of depleted inventories was behind an improvement in 4Q economic growth estimates above what was previously estimated. The estimate brought estimates up to 5.9% from earlier estimate of 5.7%. Last quarter’s growth was likely the strongest since 3Q 2003.
Inventory accumulation was estimated to have added 3.9% to economic growth last quarter. The accumulation of [...]

It is a well known dictum in the context of economic analysis that you have to distinguish between stocks and flows and how focus on one instead of the other lead to misguided analysis. It is the same with growth and levels with the former defined as the growth from one period to another in [...]

This Valentine’s Day is not only the most romantic day of the year, it also hints at budding life for the recovering economy.
For many in the east, life remains buried under several feet of snow, but florists across the country say that this Valentine’s Day may be one of their best ever.
Mary Reynolds, of Frederic’s [...]

Though I have written extensively about the Recession of 1920, it is worth revisiting it per Glenn Beck’s show last night.  Beck rightly pointed out that the policies of decreased taxes and decreased government spending implemented by both Harding and Coolidge paved the way for the dramatic economic growth of the roaring 20s. What Beck [...]

This piece was written before Christmas and will appear in the first 2010 edition of the Forex Journal. The data covers the market up until mid December.
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Old Maid is a card game where the simple task is to avoid holding a given card (often the queen of spades) at the end. Even in the company [...]

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Churchill 1942
Summary

The extent, so far, of the internal devaluation process depends on the time period used for analysis. Using Q3-2007 as the beginning of the economic crisis suggest that Greece and [...]

Martin Feldstein offers some interesting thoughts on whether the Eurozone will survive the economic recovery (link).

I reckon it must be quite tough at the moment to be an analyst or a money mover/manager. This is not only because of difficult markets and a very opaque economic outlook, but more so because as we move into year’s end we are flooded by a veritable tsunami of sell and buy side research  [...]

On Wednesday the Fed released its summary of comments received from its 12 regional districts in the November time-frame. The notes represent a collection of comments from businesses and other contacts outside the Federal Reserve and does not necessarily represent the views of Federal Reserve officials.
The regional reports indicate that economic conditions continue to improve [...]