One of the greatest themes around the economic blogsphere is that the government is manipulating the numbers to make things look better than they are. However, this is an easily debunked claim.

The latest source for this claim is a story from the New York Times. Here are the first...

One of the greatest themes around the economic blogsphere is the government is manipulating the numbers to make things look better than they are. However, this is an easily debunked claim.

The latest source for this claim is a story from the New York Times. Here are the first three...

In the first post in this series, I looked at how we got here. As a quick recap: at the end of 2008 the economy was facing a deflationary threat. In response, the government put a stimulus program into place and the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to near zero....

Because we are approaching the end of the year, it is appropriate to take a look back at the economy for the last year to see how we're doing. This will be a two part series. The first is, "How Did We Get Here?" It will be a retrospective of...

I originally wrote this article about two years ago. The logic is still sound.

The current debate over health care is making me sick (excuse the pun). I have never seen so many people get it so wrong. Here is the logic behind the need for public health insurance.

While...

Given my profession people assume I'm a Republican. After all, I work with business on a regular basis to lower their overall tax liability. However, I'm not a Republican for the following reasons. First, they have a clear anti-intellectual bent. Given the Republicans' complete denial of climate change and their...

From Bloomberg:

For U.S. Representative Ron Paul, the ninth time may be the charm.

After fighting for decades to increase scrutiny of the Federal Reserve or abolish it, the Texas Republican's proposal requiring audits of the central bank's interest-rate decisions is...

From the BLS:

The unemployment rate edged down to 10.0 percent in November, and nonfarmpayroll employment was essentially unchanged (-11,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. In the prior 3 months, payroll job losse had averaged 135,000 a month. In November, employment fell in construction manufacturing, and...

Yesterday the Fed released the Beige Book. This gives us a good opportunity to take a longer look at the economy to see exactly what is going on.

Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts indicate that economic conditions have generally improved modestly since the last report. Eight...

Reading blogs that in any way write about economics has generally become an exercise in utter futility. According to most good news is either propagated by corporate whores who are blind to the realities around them or presented without considering "all" the facts. All government statistics and all economists are...

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...