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According to Bundesbank President Axel Weber, Germany’s economic recovery is “essentially intact”, and is now set to benefit from stronger demand in countries outside the euro region.
“I firmly believe that the recovery process that began in summer 2009 is essentially intact, and that it will continue despite the slower growth dynamic in the winter semester. [...]

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I have taken a less optimistic view of the credit crisis’ workout phase as evidenced by recent posts like Wood: “The endgame will be a systemic government debt crisis in the western world” and The mindset will not change; a depressionary relapse may be coming. So I want to give you a bit more colour [...]

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David Rosenberg takes on the sovereign debt issue in his latest commentary, highlighting the structural deficits in the U.S. and the U.K. They are actually higher than in Spain or Greece.
Greece here, Portugal there. Did you know that the structural deficit-to-GDP ratio is actually higher in the U.S. (7.8%) and the U.K. (7.6%) than it [...]

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Initial jobless claims fell 29,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 469,000 from a revised 498,000 the prior week. While the fall is certainly welcome, initial jobless claims remain very high more than two years after the recession began in December 2007. Moreover, the four-week average is still quite elevated at 470,750.

The biggest point of weakness in [...]

Most of us have about 20 years to secure our retirement – from our mid 40s to our mid 60s. That has been an absolute disaster for my generation, with inflation-adjusted returns on a global equity portfolio being down about 23% over the past decade. The problem confronting us is that we continue to be stuck in a structural bear market which we define as a market where returns are low because valuations (P/E levels) are under pressure.

Unfortunately, this is likely to continue for several years more. Following the liquidity crisis of 2008, we have entered a so-called balance sheet recession. When that happens, the first priority becomes to minimise debts at the cost of pretty much everything else. As both households and corporates change their mindsets about debt, governments may be forced to pick up the slack; otherwise we would enter a very deep recession. Therefore we’d better get used to many more years of large government deficits.

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This is a post by Edward Hugh, who also blogs at Global Economy Matters.
According to data released today from the Swedish statistical office Sweden unexpectedly fell back into recession in the fourth quarter, adding to the impression there has been a growth dip among Europe’s economies and raising further questions about the durability of the [...]

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The February 2010 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® was released this morning. It indicated that the manufacturing sector was slightly less robust in February than January, with the PMI slipping from 58.4% to 56.5%. As 50 is still the demarcation between sector expansion and contraction, the data indicate that recovery continues apace in the manufacturing [...]

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This is a post by Edward Hugh, who also blogs at Global Economy Matters.
Global manufacturing activity continued to expand in February, albeit at a slightly weaker pace than in January. At 55.2, down slightly from 56.1 in January, the JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI posted its second highest reading in almost four years. The average reading [...]

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That’s the question on everyone’s mind and the one Bill Gross of Pimco attempts to answer in this month’s Investment Outlook. He starts out defining the problem as a lack of aggregate demand – the Keynesian understanding of depression.
To begin with, let’s get reacquainted with the fundamental economic problem of our age – lack of [...]

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Nationwide released it’s monthly house price survey, and it showed the first month-to-month fall in UK house prices since last Spring. However, house prices are still up 9.2% year-on-year according to their survey.
Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s Chief Economist, said: 
The price of a typical UK property fell by a seasonally adjusted 1.0% month-on-month (m/m) in February, [...]