Today, Friday, October 31, things just got worse for Senator McCain. In the major tracking polls, he has not been over 45% for the last three weeks, and over the last three days, while his assault on Senator Obama has intensified, he has not budged in the polls. At a time when he needed a [...]
We now have confirmation that the U.S. is beginning a recession. Reuters reports: >
The economy shrank at a 0.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter, its sharpest contraction in seven years as consumers cut spending and businesses reduced investment in the face of rising fears that recession was setting in.
The Commerce Department said the [...]
Looks like we’re in for another round of fiscal stimulus. (Does stimulus come in rounds? Just asking…) Anyway, Menzie Chinn at the venerable Econobrowser blog revisits Mark Z.’s Congressional testimony from last summer, wherein he rated the relative oomph of various legislative stimuli. (Also available in this Dismal Scientist article .)
Chinn avers:
Onebig caveat to the [...]
Looks like we’re in for another round of fiscal stimulus. (Does stimulus come in rounds? Just asking…) Anyway, Menzie Chinn at the venerable Econobrowser blog revisits Mark Z.’s Congressional testimony from last summer, wherein he rated the relative oomph of various legislative stimuli. (Also available in this Dismal Scientist article .)
Chinn avers:
Onebig caveat to the [...]
From the NY Times: <Currency market traders were keeping nervous watch for central bank intervention, after Group of 7 finance and monetary officials expressed concern about the recent excessive volatility in the yen’s exchange rates.
“We are concerned about the recent excessive volatility in the exchange rate of the yen and its possible adverse implications [...]
If you think that the American equities markets have been hit hard lately, take a look at some of the emerging markets. The graph below charts the last six months of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the iShares ETF, EEM, which tracks emerging markets around the world, and EWY, the South Korean ETF from iShares. [...]
Housing Market
The number of homeowners ensnared in the foreclosure crisis grew by more than 70 percent in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2007, according to data released Thursday. Nationwide, nearly 766,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice from July through September, up 71 percent from [...]
Back and Forth on Housing Starts
Economic hard times inspire two contradictory responses. One is to simply to want it to stop hurting. The other is to want the system purged and cleansed, at whatever up-front cost. The two are not mutually exclusive; indeed it’s quite common to wish for each in turn, or even simoultaneously. [...]
October 11, 2008I don’t know if the market turmoil of last week marks the end of the financial crisis. But I do know that the crisis has changed the very nature of financial markets for far into the future. All over the world, the “hands off” approach to financial markets is being abandoned [...]
