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I re-posted my April 2009 post, “Barack Obama as Herbert Hoover” in response to the recent deficit reduction gimmick offered up by the Obama Administration and Marshall’s similarly titled “Barack Hoover Obama.” 
The point of my post was to make a non-ideological point – namely that Obama is early in the economic cycle, much earlier [...]

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Back in June I asked you all “When will the U.S. economy recover?.” The response was basically either “there will be no recovery to speak of” or “recovery is a long way off.” The poll results are embedded below.

I asked a similar question as the new year began since arguably a ‘technical recovery’ is underway. [...]

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From the U.S. Department of Labor:
In the week ending Jan. 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 444,000, an increase of 11,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 433,000. The 4-week moving average was 440,750, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 449,750.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured [...]

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This is the latest in a series of forecast posts I have covered.  Notably, there has been Richard Bernstein, Saxo Bank and Byron Wien. The Pragmatic Capitalist has The Ultimate Guide to 2010 Investment Predictions and Outlooks, if you are interested in more. In this post, I especially like his narratives on behavioral psychology, one [...]

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Initial jobless claims of 432,000 for the week ended 26 Dec 2009 were the lowest since July 2008. The 4-week average is now 460,250, the lowest since September 2008. If you look at the following two graphs, you can see that initial claims are plummeting.

The second chart shows that the change in initial [...]

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Holiday people, as we head into the new year, I’d like to get the pulse of Credit Writedowns readers on the state of the economy.  Last night, I started a poll asking how long the recovery will last.

I am not sure whether the poll questions are readable in the feed or newsletter, but the answers [...]

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Arnold Kling makes an important contribution to the debate about fiscal stimulus and double dip recessions which was also pointed out to me in the comments of my recent double dip post:
Paul Krugman provides an analysis showing arithmetically that the fiscal stimulus will have a declining contribution to GDP growth, even as stimulus spending increases.
What [...]

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Remember when I said the following:
GDP as reported
From my view point point, the interesting bit about GDP is NOT inflation (i.e. real vs. nominal GDP), but rather the fact that the number which is reported is a first derivative.  It is the change in GDP which is reported, not the actual number.  And, this is [...]

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This comes via the FT:
Latvia’s prime minister has warned Swedish banks they risk choking off recovery in the Baltic state’s crisis-hit economy unless they resume lending.
Banks such as Swedbank and SEB, which dominate the Latvian market, have reined in credit as they struggle to contain rising bad loans amid the deepest recession in the European [...]

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John Mauldin’s latest is about deleveraging and how this secular trend will drive the macro picture in 2010. The question is why? Read and find out. Also see A conversation with Bridgewater Associates’ Ray Dalio for another good commentary on this topic.
John Mauldin, Best-Selling author and recognized financial expert, is also editor of the free [...]