You should focus on news stories that have something to do with the fluctuations in the economy. So search for news about
- average workweek of production workers in manufacturing
- average initial weekly claims for unemployment insurance
- new orders for consumer goods and materials
- new orders for nondefense capital goods
- index of supplier deliveries
- new building permits issued
- index of stock prices
- money supply, adjusted for inflation
- difference between the interest rates on 10-year Treasury Notes and 3-month Treasury bills
- index of consumer expectations
- nonfarm payroll employment,
- the unemployment rate
- real compensation per hour of manufacturing employees
http://www.census.gov/construction/bps/uspermits.html
ReplyDeletePermits, for the construction of buildings, have plummeted from their high in 2005 where an average of 2155.3 permits per month where permitted. This is the second highest amount of permits that have been granted in a single year since 1959. The only year that has been higher was 1972 where the average was 2218.9 permits per month. While over the course of 1959 to 2012 there have been many fluctuations in the housing sector there has never been something so extreme has the recent “housing crisis”. We went from 2155.3 permits a month in 2005 to 1838.9 in 2006 then 1398.4 in ’07 then a huge drop to 905.4 in ’08 finally hitting a historic low of 583.0 in 2009. This is not an exaggeration when I say record low. Since 1959 the average number of permits had never been below 900 and in 2009 in fell into the 500’s. The thing that makes this worse is the rate at which it is increasing while the average fell by the hundreds from 2005 to 2009 it has been only climbing back up by about 20 permits. The average in 2010 was 604.6 and 2011 624.1. At this rate it will take over 77 years to get back to where we were in 2005.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-01/sandy-damage-estimate-raised-to-as-much-as-50-billion
ReplyDeleteThe article I chose to write on this week focuses on the economic fluctuations that have been recently caused by Superstorm Sandy. According to Eqecat Inc., a company that is responsible for making creating catastrophic risk models, Sandy cost the United States government about fifty billion dollars in economic damage. In addition to these numbers, Sandy cost the U.S. roughly somewhere between ten to twenty billion dollars in insurance lost. Both of these figures were double what the initial estimated economic damage would be.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thefamuanonline.com/news/labor-force-and-unemployment-rate-increase-1.2788600#.UJgD4W883CA
According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US unemployment rate increased to 7.9 percent in the month of October. The number of long-term unemployed remained relatively unchanged at 5 million. However, this article states that the total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 171,000 in October and professional/business services added 51,000 jobs. According to the second article, this unemployment increase is due mostly to more people entering the labor force, rather than increased job loss. This accounts for why the employment-population ratio remained steady at 58.7 percent. Additionally, the breakdown of job growth in October shows that the housing market is finally beginning to generate jobs; construction companies added 17,000 jobs—the most since January. Finally, this data released will have a particularly important impact on the US this week, since November 6th is Election Day, and Obama is facing voters with the highest unemployment rate since Franklin Roosevelt.
http://www.lee-county.com/gov/dept/dcd/PressReleases/Pages/BuildingPermitsIssued.aspx
ReplyDeleteAccording to the numbers in Lee County, there are more issued Building Permits this year than last year. Last year in 2011 there was 34 issued single-family homes built in October. This past October, contractors pulled 42 permits to build single-family houses, they valued at more than $11.5 million. The number of multi-family homes tripled since 2011. This October 12 multi-family units were permitted, compared 4 in October 2011. The housing and construction business has been slowly expanding since last year. However, general commercial activity depreciated, it was valued at nearly $1.3 million last month, compared to $1.8 million in October 2011. This may seem like a drop of $.5 million, but in September 2011 there was only $507,375 of general comercial activity. In total, this past October, Lee County Community Development issued 2,943 permits of all kinds.
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=256409
ReplyDeleteInflation has been on a decline in the last fourth months. The inflation rate for October was at 7.22 percent which was 0.17 percent lower than September’s inflation rates, according to the Bureau of Statistics yesterday. This is due to the drop in food prices which accounts for the decline in overall inflation. Non-food inflation, however, after dropping to single digit in August, started to go back up in September, to cross double digits 10.46 percent in October. Although overall inflation is down to the tagged rates, the non-food inflation is too high and needs to be taken care of.
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ReplyDeletehttp://news.asiaone.com/A1Business/General%2BNews/Story/A1Story20121016-377927.html
ReplyDeleteProductivity Figures Fluctuate over Short Term
This article, published in Business Times magazine, states that productivity measurement in the country of Singapore largely has to do with short term economic cycles. Within these cycles, there are large fluctuations of productivity values. Because of this, it's very important that the country looks over the big short term fluctuations in order to see the bigger picture. Massive fluctuations in the economy such as these cause companies to panic, and lay off their workforce. Now, Singapore should re-structure their economy to avoid these fluctuations and thus improve productivity
According to the HIS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index, nondefense capital goods are a “key barometer of business owners’ confidence in the economy. Tracks how much investors plan to invest in machinery, computers and other goods.” Aircrafts are excluded, as they usually “come in bursts” and therefore “obscure our ability to see the underlying trend in the data.” It is an important factor in analyzing the economy, as it assesses the confidence investors have in important capital like computers. Last year, it was one of the few indicators in the U.S. economy that was looking healthy; however, the reading in January of 2012 was below the trend line, indicating a slowdown in the economy.
ReplyDeletehttp://easynomics.com/2012/03/nondefense-capital-goods-excluding-aircraft-new-orders-easy-trends-signaling-a-slowdown-thru-jan-2012/
http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/U-S-Service-Industries-Show-Expansion-s-4010196.php
ReplyDeleteThe article I read was about how the US service industry is improving, despite the global economic slowdown. Good news includes that The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index declined from 55.1 in September to 54.2 last month. Services employment has been at a seven month high. Yelena Shulyatyeva, a US economist, predicts that the economy will be increasingly getting better. It makes sense that the employment rate and the growing manufacturing is rising hand in hand. The more products made, the more manpower it takes to make the products. All in all the predictions of economists for the upcoming economy seems very positive.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-04/boe-tests-faith-in-funding-for-lending-plan-as-qe-loses-its-bite
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17437484
Quantitative easing is not doing much for the UK's economy, in fact, the Bank of England is considering taking a gamble on an untested credit plan, according to this article from businessweek. The UK Officials are not impressed with the recent results of quantitative easing, and the central bank has claimed that last week's 50 billion pound bond purchase was the last installment. This new plan, "encourages banks to provide cheap credit to companies and households".
It seems that instead of quantitative easing, the necessary support of the UK's economy will be met with credit easing-a government subsidy for borrowing by small businesses with turnover up to £50m--instead.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204349404578100713726086612.html
ReplyDeletePresident Barack Obama now faces the possibility of re-election. The unemployment rate is at 7.9%. History proves that this is a bad omen for the president. No president has ever had a second term with a firts term's unemployment rate like this. To make things even worse for the president the real unemployment rate is up to 14.6%. Real unemployment includes the part time workers and those who had dropped out of the labor force. This is the final night before the election and it is wise of Obama not to talk about the economy. Perhaps he could be the first to snap the streak.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/06/news/economy/election-recount-economy/index.html?iid=SF_E_Lead
ReplyDeleteThis article states that no matter who wins this election, investors have the “worst-case election scenario”. If the close race between Obama and Mitt causes it to be a recount it is more likely that stocks and EVEN the economy would plummet. "In a race this tight, with absentee ballots and provisional ballots and legal teams lined up on both sides of the aisle, it could take time to sort out," said Art Hogan, chief market analyst at Lazard Capital Markets.
One big problem for the next president is the so-called fiscal cliff is the immediate rise in taxes and weighty cuts in federal spending set to take effect in January unless Congress act. Many economist, including Federal Reserve members believe, that if that happened then there would a new recession in the economy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20203024
ReplyDeleteThe unemployment rates in Spain are rising, again. For the third month in a row the unemployment in Spain has gone up. It went up at 2.7%. At this point, the number of people without a job is 4.8 millions of people. The Spanish struggling to keep their public debt under control and have tough cutting measures that will not let their economy grow. Spain is one of the biggest countries that use the euro in Europe; it is also the country with the highest unemployment rate that is rising more and more. Spain is still in a recession.