Why “Project Lifeline” is unlikely to help the mortgage mess.
Author Archives: James_Hamilton
China’s air pollution
While I’m on the topic of satellite photos of earth, I came across this NASA photo of China:
Sky’s eye over the Arabian Desert
The Oil Drum calls our attention to Satellite O’er the Desert, a website devoted to trying to interpret Google satellite images from Saudi Arabia.
No-doc loans
Just an anecdote, but an interesting one.
ISM Nonmanufacturing index
Big news yesterday (e.g., WSJ, Abnormal Returns, and Paul Krugman), was the plunge in the January ISM nonmanufacturing business activity index. But what’s it mean?
Predicting recession
Michael Dueker is a senior portfolio strategist at Russell Investments and formerly was an assistant vice president in the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He has been doing some very interesting economic research recently in developing what he calls a Qual VAR model for predicting recessions. We are pleased that he agreed to share some of the current implications of that research with Econbrowser readers, subject to the disclaimer that the content is the responsibility of the
author and does not represent official positions of Russell Investments
and does not constitute investment advice.
January auto sales
Detroit continues its slow bleed.
More murk in the crystal ball
Some good news, some bad, in the economic data released yesterday.
A “San Diego-style” recession
Alan Gin is an economics professor at the University of San Diego (a separate institution from the University of California at San Diego, where I teach). His San Diego index of leading economic indicators is sending a pretty strong negative signal.
Fed rate cut
Today the Federal Reserve announced a further 50-basis-point cut in its target for the fed funds interest rate, bringing it down to 3.0% for a total reduction in January of 125 basis points. How long should it take before this has an effect on the economy?