The Radford Free Press – Page 489 – All life is problem solving.

Economics / deflation, inflation, inflation expectations, interest rates, liquidity trap, monetary policy /

Inflation: Not!

June 17, 2009

I don’t want to spend much time on this, but we should take a quick look at the inflation figures that came out this morning. Inflation doesn’t exist. The Consumer Price Index rose a paltry 0.1% in May after having been flat in April. Over the past year prices have actually declined 1.3%. That’s not […]

Economics / defense spending, deficits, Federal Budget, health care costs, mortgage interest rate relief, retirement, taxes /

Budget Clarity

June 16, 2009

The chatter about the budget gets more noisy. I understand the reasons why this has emerged as such a big issue: the economic landscape will, in large part, be shaped by the Federal Budget over the next few years. And we are now entering the post-crisis, or rather post triage, phase of the recession, so […]

Economics / Add new tag, business investment, capacity utilization, housing starts, industrial production, inflation, inventories, recession, unemployment /

Data, But No Information

June 16, 2009

Today has seen a flurry of normal data releases about the economy. There is news about housing, industrial production, business investment, and employment. With all this we should find it possible to discern whether all the hoopla about green shoots is justified. Unfortunately not. We have arrived at the point in the recession when the […]