There are now efforts on the Hill to do something about the financial system. While some bemoan the fact this has not happened yet, my guess is the administration simply put health care reform first on the agenda for whatever reasons.

So -- what do we do about the financial...

The long awaited report is out.

Let's start with the basics:

The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, private inventory investment, federal government spending, and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the...

This week we learned more important details about the economy. They add up to a simple story: the recovery is progressing.

First we learned that despite the ending of cash for clunkers, retail sales ex-autos increased 0.5%. In fact, we saw increases in a wide variety of retail...

There is a key piece of data from the latest jobs report which is incredibly important:

In accordance with usual practice, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is announcing its preliminary estimates of the upcoming annual benchmark revision to the establishment survey employment series. The final bench-...

Friday's jobs report was a stunner -- and for all the wrong reasons. The consensus was for a decrease of roughly 175,000. This would have been consistent with a slow and gradual decline in the rate of job loss since the beginning of the year and would have been a...

The economic blogsphere has done a fair amount of discussing on financial bubbles. The primary argument is if the Federal Reserve had acted more quickly regarding the housing market then the current problems would have been avoided. However, there is one problem with this argument: what is the exact definition...

About every six weeks the Federal Reserve issues the Beige Book. This is anecdotal information collected from each Federal Reserve district. It provides a good overview of the current situation in the economy. Let's take a look at what the report says.

Residential real estate markets remained weak, but...

Let's take a look at the numbers from Friday's jobs report.

The chart reveals the following points. First at the end of last year and the beginning of this year the economy was bleeding jobs. Four months ago the rate of job losses decreased from roughly...

Now that I'm on record as saying the recession is over, it's time to look at the recovery.

First, the following has been my position regarding the expansion:

I am also on record as saying growth will be weak, printing somewhere in the 1% to 2% range with high...

This is a joint article with my fellow co-blogger at the Bonddad Blog, New Deal Democrat

Most economic observers just project past trends - usually based on data that is coincident or lags the general economy - into the future, and so they miss important turning points. In short, they...

The most common argument made against people who see a recovery emerging is that we are in the middle of uncharted waters where the traditional rules of economic analysis don't apply. As I will demonstrate, nothing could be farther from the truth.

This is the third time that I have...

Today we learned that the Obama administration is going to re-nominate Ben Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve. This is a very positive development because Bernanke has demonstrated that he is more than capable at the job. There are several reasons why he should be given a second term.

First,...

Despite the fact that most economic numbers are currently moving in the right direction, one statistic remains stubbornly high: the unemployment rate. The question on everybody's lips is when will this number come down? Let's look at the data to see what it says.

Let's begin with an analogy: if...

Over the last week and a half more data has emerged that the economies of the US and our trading partners are stabilizing. Let's take a look at the data.

From the WSJ:

Norway's second-quarter mainland gross domestic product, which strips out oil and shipping activity, grew...

The U.S. government has come to an agreement with UBS regarding a long-running tax fraud investigation. This has been a fascinating case to watch for several reasons that I will explain.

First, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a tax attorney and I deal with international transactions. As...

Now there is talk about removing the end of life counseling requirement from the health care bill. We all know that idiots like Sarah Palin (who was made to look the fool by that intellectual titan Katie Couric) have contorted this provision into "death panels" or some other such nonsense....

This week we saw more evidence that the worst of the recession is behind us.

ISM Manufacturing

From Bloomberg:

The march to 50 is almost complete. July's ISM manufacturing index jumped a very big 4.1 points to 48.9, pointing to a 50 reading for the August report which...

From the BLS:

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in July (-247,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The average monthly job loss for May through July (-331,000) was about half the average decline for November...

This week we saw several more pieces of data which add up to a sign the economy is bottoming. Let's go to the data.

First we have the Federal Reserve's Beige Book:

Reports from the 12 Federal Reserve Districts suggest that economic activity continued to be weak...

I never thought I would contemplate the end of the housing market decline -- it's been with us for a very long time. But now there are preliminary signs of stabilization. Let's look at the charts.

The existing home sales chart has two important areas. The first lasted...