A number of analysts have suggested that autos play a much less significant role in the U.S. economy today than they have historically. The data from 2005 would seem to call that conclusion into question.
The 2005q4 GDP report and the trade balance
Little sign of the reversal in the trade deficit.
Gloomy GDP report
Very weak GDP figures produced a slight rise in the recession probability index and warrant a more pessimistic outlook for 2006.
Soaring commodity prices
Is U.S. monetary policy behind the surge in commodity prices?
Economic forecasting
The full post of the discussion about economic forecasting that I had with Professor Kashif Mansori of Colby College and Angry Bear is now up at the Wall Street Journal’s Econoblog. Here’s my bottom line:
Don’t ask for too much of your forecast or your policy, and it won’t disappoint you.
Or maybe you should read the whole thing.
When is it good to be a bad forecaster?
I’ve been engaged in a very interesting discussion with Kash at Angry Bear on economic forecasting which will appear in the Wall St. Journal’s Econoblog later this week. Kash has a couple of posts [1], [2] based on his contributions over at Angry Bear. Here are the remarks that I used to open the discussion:
Careful with that “e-waste”
As a service to California readers, I call attention to new state regulations on disposal of household waste.
Fiscal Exposure and Medicare Part D
Even if the new Medicare prescription drug plan’s implementation improves, that’s just the beginning of our problems.
Strange ideas about the Iranian oil bourse
The internet can be a good source of information about issues that aren’t adequately covered by the mainstream media. It can also be a font of considerable kookiness.
Oil market jitters
The February oil futures price on NYMEX has jumped $8 a barrel in the last three weeks. It’s useful to try to put this into a broader view of what’s going on in the world oil market.