June marks the end of the sixth year since the Great Recession passed into history. At 18 months, it was the lengthiest recession since World War II, surpassing the 16 months of the other notably long-lived post-war recessions, ended in March 1975 and November 1982. For duation, of course, the [continue reading . . . ]
Friday’s jobs report showed the U.S. headline unemployment rate has fallen to 5.4%, the lowest since mid-2008. Good for us, but hold the applause. The underemployment rate, including those working part time involuntarily, remains relatively high (10.8%) for this stage of the recovery. It has been nearly six years since [continue reading . . . ]
Why are interest rates so low? The best answer, says Martin Wolf, principal economics columnist of the Financial Times, is that the globe’s advanced economies remain in a “managed depression.” This is the phenomenon that former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has in mind when he writes and speaks about [continue reading . . . ]
Listen to the music of the bond market. That was the first of the bullet points that I presented to speaking clients last week. The song the global bond market is singing this week is the same as last week: Almost No Inflation, and Very Little Growth. Germany on February [continue reading . . . ]
Overview bullet points ahead of my economic-update presentations last week to the Northwest Wall & Ceiling Bureau (slides here), a trade association, and the Economic Development Association of Skagit County (slides), perhaps Washington’s most successful economic development association: Listen to the music of the global bond markets. The tune they [continue reading . . . ]
Headed for Europe soon? Your timing couldn’t be better. The dollar is up almost 15% against the currencies of major U.S. trading partners in six months, and almost 29% since July 2011. The currencies in question are the euro, the Canadian dollar, the Japanese yen, the United Kingdom pound, the [continue reading . . . ]
The economy of the Seattle area seems as strong as it has been in my 40 years covering the economy as a financial journalist. Amazon’s voracious demand for office space is remaking downtown Seattle and South Lake Union. The pace is breathtaking, and shows no signs of abating. The company [continue reading . . . ]
Worried about China’s property bubble collapsing and cratering the global economy? Relax. “China’s boom is over; but Beijing will avoid a bust.” Or so reads a headline on the back page of the May 13, 2014, issue of my favorite newspaper, the Financial Times. The column by Jay Pelosky of [continue reading . . . ]
For a presentation May 8 to the Washington Alaska Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, I added to my talk a few comments on income inequality. It is not hard to find ways of illustrating growing income inequality in the United States and elsewhere. Here a few slides prepared [continue reading . . . ]
North Dakota passed Alaska in oil production on a monthly basis two years ago this month. So it is not news that Alaska, long a close second to Texas, remains No. 3. As recently as a decade ago, Alaska pumped almost 36 barrels of oil for every 40 pumped in [continue reading . . . ]
Mucking around recently released USDA data, I came up with the table below for a presentation to the CFA Society Spokane yesterday. I doubt the average Washington citizen appreciates what an agricultural powerhouse the Evergreen State is. Everyone knows we are the leading producer of apples. But we’re also No. [continue reading . . . ]
The Great Recession (January 2008-June 2009) was less severe and the recovery stronger than we thought at the time. But it was still the worst economic decline since the Great Depression. And the recovery remains the Great Disappointment. Uncle Sam in late July published national income and product accounts updated [continue reading . . . ]