In comments on my post on the July Employment Release, reader Bruce Hall (August 3, 12:50PM) writes:
But, oddly, [Wisconsin] education and government employment increased in Wisconsin by more than 13,000 during the Jan-Jun period under uber-neo-con-anti-government Gov. Walker.
Today, BLS released data for July. Nonfarm payroll employment growth of 165,000 exceeded expectations of 100,000 (Bloomberg). However, overall, employment indicators continue to rise only slowly.
From Boston.com:
On a conference call with reporters, Romney advisers ripped the study — conducted by the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute — as “biased” and “a joke.”
Today’s statement from the FOMC, the decision-making body for the Federal Reserve, basically said that, yes, the economy has worsened since the FOMC’s previous meeting, but no, they’re not going to do anything about it. At least, not right now.
That’s the question posed in the title of yesterday’s op-ed by Ed Lazear, and it’s an excellent question. Looking at the statistics, 13 quarters after the President’s inauguration, non-defense GDP is only 4% higher (in log terms) than when he came into office.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Friday that U.S. real GDP grew at an anemic 1.5% annual rate during the second quarter. When the same bad thing keeps happening to you again and again, “disappointed” no longer seems the appropriate word to use.
Or, still no expansionary fiscal contraction in the UK (surprise!)
The UK experiment [0] continues, apparently not too successfully, according to statistics from the UK Office of National Statistics. One picture suffices.
Today, we are fortunate to have Luciana Juvenal and Ivan Petrella, as guest contributors. In this post, they respond to Wednesday’s guest contribution by Lutz Kilian, entitled Oil Price Spike Exacerbated by Wall Street Speculation?.
A recent study by Luciana Juvenal and Ivan Petrella suggests that the financialization of oil futures markets contributed significantly to the surge in oil prices after 2003. Lutz Kilian, Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, questions their analysis and highlights that their paper actually does not shed any light on the role of Wall Street speculation.
As feared by Representative Ryan, in March 2011, crowding out due to deficits: The ten year inflation adjusted constant maturity rate as of 7/20 was -0.67%
Source: St. Louis Fed FRED accessed 7/24 11am Pacific.